When Nothing May Be Better Than Something

Not Yet Time for the Requiem for the Chicago Sun-Times, But It Will Be Soon

Chicago Tribune media writer Phil Rosenthal may be loathe to admit it, but chances are he's hard at work on the obituary for the Chicago Sun-Times. Not that he takes any joy in such an assignment -- hell, his own paper's in trouble -- but a job's a job, and pretty soon a job will not be what hundreds of Sun-Times Media Group employees will soon have.
If their papers go under, it may be of their own doing. But then again, you can't blame them. Financier Jim Tyree has offered the unprincely sum of $25 million to take over the entire company, which has been teetering on the edge of financial ruin for some time.
But Tyree's no altruist, and says he'll only sign on if the unions lock in a temporary 15 percent cut, do away with seniority and reduce maximum severance from 50 weeks to four weeks, and other work-rule changes. In other words, Tyree told the unions "Let me gut your contract and then I might do you a favor and let you keep your jobs if I feel like it. And, by the way, this is non-negotiable."
Not surprisingly, the Sun-Times unions have said a resounding no to Tyree's offer, notwithstanding the fact that no other offer is on the horizon and the company has threatened that all 1,800 company jobs would disappear.
At first blush, this appears to be more than a high-stakes game of chicken. Tyree is prepared for the Sun-Times to be a money-losing concern at least for the short-term, but only if his conditions are met. The unions aren't going to advocate their oblivion nor will the rank-and-file sign away their security.
If these are negotiating tactics, you can sure fool me. If Tyree doesn't want the Sun-Times badly enough, then it's likely game over if it isn't already. There should be a place for a scrappy tabloid in a place like Chicago. But the end of that story has already been written, and not just by Phil Rosenthal.

Peter Abraham Bolts the Bronx for Beantown

Big Loss for The Journal-News as One of Its Only Stars Heads to The Boston Globe

Peter Abraham was sort of the last man standing in the sports department at The Journal-News, the Gannett embarassment in New York's northern suburbs.
Abraham was the only beat reporter left at the paper covering a pro sports team, after the J-N yanked its Mets coverage and the football writers departed in the latest, recently concluded staff purge.
Abraham covered the Yankees, a coveted beat and one of intense interest for many people who live in Westchester, Rockland, and Putnam counties. Even the brain trust in Harrison knew to leave that coverage alone.
Abraham not only established himself as a credible baseball writer, but he garnered a following online with an exhaustive Yankees blog, which I'm told is by far the most-popular feature on lohud.com.
Abraham broke the bad news (at least for them) to his followers yesterday that he's leaving Gannett to cover baseball for The Boston Globe. I know, I know, a Yankees guy covering the Sox. But remember, he doesn't root. He writes. And writes well.

"If there was a way to work for a larger paper and to advance professionally while still covering the Yankees, I would have really had a dilemma. But you don’t need me to tell you what is going on in the newspaper business. The Globe offered me a great opportunity and, frankly, I would have been foolish not to take it."

Most of those who've written in agree, even if they're sorry to see him go. And they have a plenty of company. As of this writing, 773 comments have been logged on Abraham's announcement. That's quite a tribute. More so, it's a daunting if not impossible task for his successor. And, yes, we're told there will be one. Even Gannett recognizes the need for that.

Hilda Solis Meets The Clash

Bizarre Yet Intriguing Labor Day Mashup of Obama Administration and Rock on Satellite Radio

Good thing I was pulling into a parking spot and not on the road, because I might have veered into the wrong lane when I heard the one and only Hilda Solis, whose day job is U.S. Labor Secretary, introduce "Career Opportunities" by The Clash on SiriusXM satellite radio's The Spectrum channel.
It's not every day you hear a cabinet secretary talking up a record by an iconic group that, shall we say, had less than a warmhearted view toward all things government. Then again, The Clash recorded that song while Barack Obama was still in high school. Times do indeed change.
Turns out, Solis taped a whole slew of intros for songs about working folks, including Devo's version of "Workin' In A Coalmine," BTO's "Takin' Care of Business," and Springsteen's "Workin' On a Highway."
A nice, mostly nonpartisan gimmick. If ever an administration had street cred, this is the one.

Daily Beast Item on Gibson Having Hissy Fit Over Sawyer Doesn't Add Up

Rebecca Dana Pretty Much Admits as Much, But Prints It Anyway

A Daily Beast post by Rebecca Dana on the Diane Sawyer coronation at ABC's World News quotes a source as saying Charles Gibson was "livid" upon hearing the news that Sawyer would take his place as anchor after he retires in January.
That's all we get on these alleged contretemps, for Dana then writes:

An ABC executive called this “nonsense,” and [ABC News President David] Westin said he told Gibson from their earliest conversations about his retirement that Sawyer would be his replacement.
No other anchors were even considered for the job.

We don't know who Dana's source is, of course. But no matter how reliable, if Dana thought about it for even a minute, she would have realized that the statement makes no sense.
Simply, who else is within the ABC stable who could seamlessly slide into the chair and have the name recognition demanded of the 7 million or so oldsters who still tune in? Even if Westin went outside the network, who's available that could keep people tuned in or even away from the competition?
CBS knew it didn't have a deep bench when it plucked Katie Couric from "Today" and those early wake-up calls for a cool 15 million per annum. John Roberts found that out the hard way, which is one reason he's at CNN.
ABC's in a similar pickle. Even putting aside Bob Woodruff's injury, his planned pairing with Elizabeth Vargas following the death of Peter Jennings felt more like a stopgap than a solution. Vargas could still be an option when Sawyer eventually hangs it up. Maybe others would be ready by then (Chris Cuomo? Bill Weir? Terry Moran? A player to be named later?). But for now, goose eggs.
Now, ABC has to fret over who replaces Sawyer on "Good Morning America," no small decision given its cash-cow status at the network. My thinking is that Weir or Kate Snow, his co-host on the "GMA" weekend editions, would make a great fit.

The Dust Settles at The Journal-News

But is What's Left Worth 75 Cents? Hint: The Paper is Owned by Gannett


Now that The Journal-News, the mediocrity -- to put it generously -- that is the sort-of newspaper of record for Westchester, Rockland and Putnam counties north of New York has gone through its version of Gannett's garroting of personnel, the effects aren't obvious -- yet.
But they will be soon.
The front page looks much the same, not that that's necessarily a good thing. You have to drill a little deeper, not a difficult exercise when the paper is as thin as day-old gruel. The A-section is mostly filled with cop briefs and jumps from A-1. Lots of items about crime in Yonkers and Mount Vernon. Not so much about anything else.
Then there's the rest of the paper. Want to read about local business news. Good luck. The whole business staff was laid off. Hey, what about the Jets and Giants? Sorry, you'll have to take what the A.P. doles out: both beat writers took severance rather than go through the indignity of reapplying for their jobs, like everyone remaining in the newsroom did. Same for some of my older colleagues who remained from when I worked there 20 years ago. Godspeed.
True, some familiar bylines remain. Good for them, at least good in the sense that they still have a job let alone one in the news business. That'll help provide a little context to stories and they'll at least know how to spell names right.
But the question remains over exactly what are they going to cover. The answer, given the number of reporters left: not much. They just can't. Not that Gannett really cares. It's obsessed with a future that is all about digital and multimedia doo-dads and social media what-nots.
Of course, they should be obsessed with that nowadays, just not at the expense of the core product. Too many desperate and clueless newspaper executives forget about that. Gannett has shown little evidence of ever knowing that in the first place.
The brain trust there sees all those dollar signs taunting them if they make these cost savings, but forget that all those cutbacks result in a product that's unadulterated crap on any platform.
Such is the Journal-News.

Reader's Digest Bankruptcy Merry-Go-Round

How to Flip-Flop Your Way into Chapter 11

From a memo this winter that Reader's Digest Association CEO Mary Berner sent to employees:

As you may have seen, Bloomberg News Service has widely distributed an article reporting that RDA hired Kirkland & Ellis, a law firm that advises in bankruptcy cases and other forms of restructuring ... From this, starting with one unattributed source supposedly "familiar" with the situation, some news articles jumped to conclusions that RDA is filing for bankruptcy.

I want to assure you that this is not true.

Now it is.

RDA announced today it will enter a voluntary pre-packaged bankruptcy plan . Berner was singing a decidedly different tune.
"This agreement in principle with our lenders follows months of intensive strategic review of our balance sheet issues to financially strengthen the company. Restructuring our debt will enable us to have the financial flexibility to move ahead with our growth and transformational initiatives."
Folio had reported on Friday that RDA was on the verge of missing a massive debt payment this week. Now that will indeed happen.
The company told FishbowlNY its cash flow fell $15 million short of its annual debt obligations. Yet another case of a company in deep with its bankers -- $2.2 billion worth -- at a time when the core of its business model melts down. Already, the main Reader's Digest was cut back to 10 issues a year.
It's not a question of enough readers, just not enough of the ones advertisers are willing to pay a premium to reach.
Yes, RDA is about much more than the diminutive magazine that's been a staple of waiting rooms the world over, as Rachael Ray and Rick Warren will tell you. But as the Chapter 11 filing confirms, you need a few more tentpoles to stay solvent.

Latest Layoffs Won't Be End of Bad News at Journal-News

Northern New York Suburbs Short-Shrifted by Short-Sighted, Desperate Management, Greedy Gannett Corporate Overlords

The Journal-News, the Gannett newspaper that purportedly serves Westchester, Rockland and Putnam counties north of New York, is dying and it doesn't even know it.
The latest signs that a flatline is nigh: Wednesday's announcement that the paper was cutting 50 jobs -- representing 26 percent of current positions -- of its newsrooms, while excising 20 jobs from the ad department.
Now, this would be just another lamentable layoff post, were it not for the fact that Gannett has actually eliminated all 288 jobs in the news and ad departments. Everyone can apply for new, redefined positions, with snappy titles like "visual specialist" and "local beat reporter." But 70 will be shown the door by Aug. 28. They'll join 57 people in other departments who were canned last week.
It's scary that a lot of people I know -- I worked at the J-N 20 years ago -- are in danger of losing their jobs in a business where they've worked most of their adult lives with little hope of finding another news job if they don't make the cut.
What's even more frightening is they could have even more company sooner than later. Publisher Michael Fisch told a staff meeting that revenues have plunged as much as 35 percent in the past year.
That's money that is never coming back. And judging by the product, why should it? The paper has shrunk its physical size along with its reporting staff. It's essentially given up on covering professional sports. Most towns get only spot coverage, and much of the writing appears to have spawned from press releases.
The J-N has shown it still has a pulse by competing vigorously on the coverage of the crash of Diane Schuler, the wrong-way driver on the Taconic State Parkway who killed eight people, including herself. Of course, you would have assumed the paper would own the story given that it happened on its turf.
But the J-N, as I have pointed out previously, has too often been indifferent or clueless to big stories in its backyard, and has gotten its clock cleaned by The New York Times or stumbled badly on coverage of a rare Westchester tornado, where there was little evidence any of the numerous reporters credited with writing ever left the newsroom.
It's inevitable there will be gaping coverage holes. Even less news will appear in a paper that already has too-few reasons to buy it. Yet, in a remarkable display of cluelessness, Gannett raised the daily newsstand price to 75 cents.
Daily circulation is now about 95,000 and falling. It was about 160,000 when I was last there. Do the math. No matter how hard you try, they don't add up to anything that can be construed as good news for Journal-News employees -- or readers.

Weird Editors' Note of the Week

In Reporting on Jacko Estate Fight, New York Times Says It's Sorry for Doing What It Always Does

This editors' note appeared in yesterday's New York Times:

An article on Aug. 4 about a judge’s ruling granting permanent custody of Michael Jackson’s three children to his mother, Katherine Jackson, and an editors’ note last Thursday, said that lawyers for Mrs. Jackson were considering challenging the two executors of Mr. Jackson’s will on the grounds that they allegedly took advantage of addictions that incapacitated him and impaired his judgment. That allegation was attributed to “people close to the Jackson family who asked not to be named,” and in later copies of the newspaper the original article reported that a spokesman for the executors denied it. Times editors should not have published the anonymously made accusation, unsupported in the article by any evidence or publicly available corroboration — with or without a denial.

So, first we have an editors' note that is, in part, about another editors' note on Aug. 6, which admonished those who worked on the story by saying "The article should have noted that the reporter sought a response from the executors, but that a spokesman declined to speak on the record."
But now the editors apparently feel they didn't go far enough in flagellating the copy desk when it said "Times editors should not have published the anonymously made accusation, unsupported in the article by any evidence or publicly available corroboration — with or without a denial."
What they don't explain is why that anonymous sourcing is more problematic than any other no-name attribution that peppers the Times' pages. The note reads like a pre-emptive strike against a possible lawsuit, however flimsy its foundation would have been.
Then again, if the "people close to the Jackson family" are really not that close, or don't have access to the right information, then your sourcing could give you a case of the heebie-jeebies.
There are too many people wanting to lay claim to even a sliver of the Jackson legacy, and they're stuck in a petri dish where innuendo, rumors and distortions can thrive.
Being first with a story is nice. But being right is a whole lot better. The Times is apparently convinced it wasn't right.

Will Sam Sifton Have a Make-Up Artist on Staff?

Trying to Succeed as the Next New York Times Restaurant Critic When Every Punk at the Front Desk Knows What You Look Like

Good luck to Sam Sifton (right), who today was named the next New York Times restaurant critic. Hope that gym membership is paid up.

After all, becoming pleasantly plump isn't a requirement for the job. However, it could be one of those unpleasant side effects. Ah, but what a job.

Now about this little matter of your mug being pasted on the wall of every restaurant kitchen from Red Hook to Tottenville, that could get a little tricky without a little tonsorial prestidigitation, not to mention a hat and fake beard.

My guess is he already has a couple of months worth of reviews in the can to get a head start on the front of the room trying to hunt him down.

And you can recognize him and kiss his balding pate all you want. If the food sucks, it sucks. And I doubt he'll by shy about letting us know that.

Now comes the jockeying to replace Sifton as arts editor. And you thought reviewing restaurants was rough.

The Primadonna in the Newsroom a Prime Problem for The New York Times

Fear and Loathing on the Copy Desk: What Happens When the Alessandra Stanleys of the News Business Are Coddled, Primped and Revered

James Rainey in the Los Angeles Times has a searing look at the star system at The New York Times, which helped foster the F.U.B.A.R. assessment of Walter Cronkite by Alessandra Stanley that had more holes than your typical brick of Swiss cheese.
Rainey builds on a problem I pointed out as far back as 2005, that Times editors, particularly in the arts section, don't challenge their critics to write better or more accurately, especially Stanley.
Rainey quotes former Times public editor Byron Calame as saying "a lot of New York Times editors don't feel, in their gut, they have the right to challenge veteran and star reporters and columnists the way they need to."
No kidding.
And why? Maybe, as Calame suggests, it just wasn't worth the headache when it came to Stanley.
As Rainey writes:

Both of the Times' former public editors -- Daniel Okrent and Calame -- told me their critiques produced sharp rebukes from Stanley. Okrent -- who once criticized the critic for tone, not accuracy -- remembers her as "extremely defensive and hostile," while Calame said she attacked him as a nitpicker.

Stanley has been vigorously defended by Times executive editor Bill Keller, making her, as Rainey accurately labels her one of the "entitled ones."
It's a nice moniker to have, especially when your reviews make their way to the copy desk.
But what Keller and his minions have consistently forgotten, merely being able to write cleverly and intelligently dissect a TV show is not enough.
You have to first remember you are still a journalist. That means get your facts straight and let the rest flow from there. Failing that, anything else you do or say will lack resonance and be devoid of credibility. A critic is nothing without those attributes.
If Stanley is so important to the Times, then her shortcomings as a reporter need to be more closely scrutinized. It's not that she doesn't know better. She served as Rome bureau chief and a White House correspondent. You can't stay in those jobs by getting facts sort of, kind of, right.
So, it's hard to see why she -- and the Times -- blithely fail to apply the same criteria to TV criticism. The Arts pages may be in the C section, but they deserve A-list treatment. And when the Times allows Stanley to slide, as she has, it deserves an F.

UPDATE: Bill Keller responded to Editor & Publisher with the complete text of his email conversation with Rainey. He actually agrees with many of my sentiments about feckless editors. But putting them into practice is another matter altogether.

Euna and Laura Coming Home With Bubba

It's Good News! Really. Did Someone Forget to Say Smile?

Bill Clinton's a rock star again, now that North Korea has pardoned journalists Euna Lee and Laura Ling.

Guess Kim Jong-Il was suitably impressed that a former president made the schlep to say "pretty please, end this diplomatic nightmare so we can all go to bed happy and maybe, just maybe, restart those six-nation talks. Plus, I brought you a stack of new DVDs already dubbed." Or something like that. After all, it was described by KCNA as an "exhaustive conversation."

Either way, congrats to Lee and Ling.

And still no mention of this on the Current TV site.

Lighten up, Al. It's over. Time to celebrate. Unlike these guys in the picture.

Alessandra Stanley Is the Luckiest Critic on the Planet

It's No Longer Enough to Merely be Good, But Error-Prone Times TV Critic Keeps Having Teflon Sprayed On Her By Bosses

In reading Clark Hoyt's column in yesterday's New York Times, it was good to see the paper at least had a clue about the myriad of mistakes chief TV critic Alessandra Stanley is wan to make when she serves up a review.
But what Hoyt left unanswered is how Stanley has been allowed to do her job for so long when she's so often wrong.
The latest contretemps involved her July 18 appraisal of Walter Cronkite, which was bad even by Stanley's standards.

As Hoyt tells us:

"The Times published an especially embarrassing correction on July 22, fixing seven errors in a single article — an appraisal of Walter Cronkite, the CBS anchorman famed for his meticulous reporting. The newspaper had wrong dates for historic events; gave incorrect information about Cronkite’s work, his colleagues and his program’s ratings; misstated the name of a news agency, and misspelled the name of a satellite."

Hoyt goes on to expertly dissect what went wrong both with Stanley's prose and the editing that allowed it to make it into the paper in its addled state. To her credit, Stanley told Hoyt "This is my fault. There are no excuses."
But what about all of her other mistakes over the years? The Times apparently knew the modus operandi of Stanley, who Hoyt labels a "prolific writer much admired by editors for the intellectual heft of her coverage."

Yet: "Stanley was the cause of so many corrections in 2005 that she was assigned a single copy editor responsible for checking her facts," Hoyt writes. And even though her error rate went down "precipitously" since then, she's now riding near the top of the error chart and will "again get special editing attention."

I've been among those who have flogged Stanley in the past for her errors, her rhetorical excess, and for playing fast and loose with facts that she risked a lawsuit and engendered a rebuke from another Times public editor in 2005.
Yet, somehow she manages to keep her job, when mere mortals like us who toil in the news business would have been out on our butts if we botched copy as often as she did.
Surely, there are other TV critics who could provide "intellectual heft" and also get their facts straight. Yet, Bill Keller and the rest of the Times brass refuse to take off their rose-colored glasses and instead squander precious resources on fact-checking her every word.
When I went to the Times website to look at some of Stanley's recent work, I kept getting an error message that said "This page encountered an error."
Don't I know it.

Mets Once Again Rewrite the PR Playbook

GM Omar Minaya Gets Pimp-Slapped By Boss for Lying about Daily News reporter Adam Rubin

First, the New York Mets opened eyes (see below post) by sending an email to fans from General Manager Omar Minaya about why he fired VP of Player Development Tony Bernazard (basically he was an insufferable blowhard who became a walking migraine).
But what the email didn't have was what Minaya really wanted to say, namely that the articles in the Daily News that highlighted Bernazard's bloopers was part of an elaborate play by beat writer Adam Rubin to get a job in player development with the team.
Only problem: it wasn't true, and Minaya knew that. Rubin's worst offense was asking Minaya generally how one got a job in player development (a fair question, given the perilous state of the newspaper industry). But lobbying? C'mon.
After Minaya issued a non-apology, it was finally time for semi-reclusive team COO Jeff Wilpon to finally pipe up. And he isn't happy.
Wilpon said: "After some reflection, I thought it was important to come out and talk to everybody. We're very sorry about what happened (Monday). It was the wrong forum. The wrong time. The wrong situation for Omar to express himself in that way."
Wow.
But he really didn't have a choice. The press corps has been pissed off big-time over this episode. And given that the Mets are a team that have excelled at underachieving, it's easy to pile on, and even easier to ignore that the Mets have gone on a rare four-game winning streak.
Despite his emergence from the woodshed, Wilpon said Minaya still has a job. But what he didn't say is for how much longer.

How's This for Damage Control: Mets Fire Misbehaving VP and Then Tell Everyone Why

Why It Really Sucks to be Tony Bernazard Right Now

The New York Mets did what they had to do, and got rid of vice president for player development Tony Bernazard, after he became unhinged, not to mention shirtless.
Among his most-recent distractions: removing his shirt in front of some of the Double-A Binghamton Mets, questioning their manhood and challenging them to a fight. He also nearly came to blows with star reliever Francisco Rodriguez, and ripped a colleague a new one after it was suggested he wait to take a seat occupied by an opposing team's scout.
So, the fact that Bernazard was dumped is no big surprise. What did open my eyes, however, is opening an email the Mets send to fans, and seeing a message from General Manager Omar Minaya that succinctly yet completely explained why he fired Bernazard. Such moves are usually kept under wraps, or companies simply say "we don't comment on personnel matters."
Nothing about this incident particularly compelled Minaya to make an exception to that rule, but good of him to do so. Here's what he wrote:

I wanted for you to hear directly from me today regarding an update on the investigation of Tony Bernazard, our Vice President of Player Development. Prior to a series of articles published in the media, our Baseball Operations and Human Resources departments had begun looking into several matters involving Tony.

Once those reports became public, we accelerated our investigation. We wanted it to be thorough and complete it as quickly as possible while still being fair to Tony. That process concluded over the weekend. Yesterday, I met with Tony in person to have a frank conversation about what we had learned following interviews with numerous people. I also wanted for Tony to have the opportunity to give his side of the story. After meeting with Tony, and giving a lot of thought to the facts, I came to a decision on Tony's status which I shared with Ownership last night.

My recommendation was that we needed to part ways with Tony, as his behavior in his interaction with others was inconsistent with our organization's values. Ownership agreed with my assessment and accepted my recommendation. I spoke with Tony this morning and informed him of my decision to terminate his employment with the Mets. Personnel decisions are never easy. And one can't make them without giving it a lot of thought. It's even harder when you know someone as I do Tony.

Tony and I go back a long time. He is a dedicated baseball man who loves the game, someone I like and respect, and someone who has contributed to the Mets. In the end, however, I just told him I couldn't leave him in his position after all that had transpired. As General Manager of the Mets, I am fully accountable for our Baseball Operations department -- on and off the field -- and stand by this decision. Thank you for your ongoing support of the Mets.


Now what I'd like to really read about is Minaya making a few more trades before Friday's deadline, so I don't lose interest in the Mets before Labor Day.

Harvey Araton Yanked As N.Y. Times Sports Columnist

Be It Cost-Cutting or New Direction, Diminishing a Distinct Voice Still a Bad Idea

I finally caught up to an item from The Big Lead that said New York Times sports columnist Harvey Araton was being booted from his perch to take on a new role writing features.'

Araton's been blessed to have that vaunted post for 15 years, and has long been a destination read. His writing, especially about tennis and basketball, is engaging, skeptical and well-reported -- a vestige from his days as a beat writer.

Araton is clever without resorting to cheap shots. And unlike other columnists who seem to relish being the first to call for a coach or manager to be fired, Araton's not one to jump on bandwagons.

So, then, why would the Times do away with such an asset? It can't be for cost-cutting reasons, if Araton is still on the payroll in another capacity.

The Big Lead said "[o]ne source claims the Times is veering off beat coverage and columns - wise move - and focusing more on offbeat features..."

You could perhaps -- just perhaps -- that veering off beat coverage is a wise move. And the Times has done just that with all college teams, the Devils, Islanders and only partially covering the Rangers. Such are the casualties of both cost-cutting and the Times' self-definition as a national newspaper.

But cutting columnists should in no way be defined as a wise move. If beat coverage is less essential in the digital age, then sports sections must justify their existence with distinctive voices and content that can't be had anywhere else. In other words, a columnist.
The Times has already thinned its columnist ranks. After Dave Anderson retired, and Selena Roberts fled to much-greener pastures in Sports Illustrated, neither were replaced.

So maybe you don't need five. But two? And one of those two, George Vecsey -- good as he still remains -- has been an ink-stained wretch for half a century. How much more does he have left in the tank? And when he decides to power down his laptop will the Times replace him?

For now, let's hope the Times doesn't have to answer those questions anytime soon. But what sports editor Tom Jolly should address is how taking away a columnist makes sense. At a time when his section is often less than six pages -- and way too much of it is taken up lately by cycling (blanket coverage of the Giro D'Italia? Really?) -- the sports department needs to make the most of its precious allotted space, not less.

What Happens When You Outsource Your Writing to Bangalore

Providing Basic Facts a Casualty of Cost-Cutting at Reuters

The short Reuters item about the sale by Cox of three newspapers had a few cracks showing in its inverted pyramid.
It said the company would sell the Waco Tribune-Herald, along with the Daily Sentinel and the Nickel.
Do you want to know where the latter two newspapers are located? So do I, but the story never tells us, which is what happens when Reuters outsources some of its business writing to India, but then doesn't spend some of the money it's saved on fact-checking.
A click on Romenesko revealed the Daily Sentinel is the daily newspaper in Grand Junction, Colo.; the Nickel is a shopper in that city.
But why was that so difficult to add to the Reuters story? The A.P. had no such problem.
I thought maybe Cox had left it off the press release, and they were too busy or lazy in Bangalore to look it up. However, Grand Junction is mentioned in the lead, so no excuse.
You get what you pay for, and that's not much.

Couldn't Someone Have Saved the Eagle Times?

Demise of Small New Hampshire Daily Could Be an Anomaly. Or it Could be the Harbinger of Things to Come

Many of the newspapers that have either closed, or are in danger of closing, have been battered by competition or the declining need or desire for a second read who often don't have the time or inclination nowadays to read even one paper, e.g. Denver, Seattle, Tucson.
But the conventional wisdom has been that one-newspaper towns, while not immune to the meltdown in the industry, were better insulated, especially in small towns where there were few other sources for news or better vehicles for advertising.
So much for conventional wisdom, with word last week that the Eagle Times in Claremont, N.H. abruptly shut down after Friday's edition.
Maybe it's not a big deal to you, but it is to folks who live in the communities served by the Eagle Times.
What's troubling is not so much that the paper was losing money, although you'd think that'd be harder to do when you don't have much competition for ads -- even in a down market -- from traditional media.
Rather, it's disconcerting that no other company stepped up to buy the paper at any price in the year it was on the market. Not a single entity viewed a daily paper as a viable medium worth saving. The die was cast. Now the Eagle Times withers, similar to the factories and commercial activity that long ago vanished from this hardscrabble corner of New Hampshire.
The Eagle Times was family-owned, but that means squat in this current environment. All the big newspaper chains are on the ropes or in bankruptcy, so it's not a question of resources. The real question is how many more papers like the Eagle Times are out there?

Gannett Blog Jumps In the Lifeboat While the Dance Band on the Titanic Warms Up

Jim Hopkins Bids Farewell Just as Gannett Finishes Getting Rid of Another 1,300 Newspaper Employees

First things first. A thanks to Jim Hopkins, who started the popular, incendiary Gannett Blog, which dutifully -- and sometimes stridently -- covered the disintegration of a once-mighty media company by executives who somehow manage to be both greedy and clueless at the same time.
For various reasons -- money most among them -- Hopkins decided to put a -30- on new blog posts as of last night. But he went out with a bang, no thanks to Gannett, which laid off another 1,300 employees from its newspaper division.
Just when you thought there was anything left for Gannett to cut, the beancounters worked their magic. Now there are even fewer reasons to buy the company's mostly mediocre papers. Of course, that won't stop them from raising the cover prices again in the near future.
One property that escaped, for now, unscathed is one of my former employers, The Journal-News, the paper of record for New York's northern suburbs. Or at least the paper.
As the J-N is now absorbing the copy editing and graphics departments of the wheezing Poughkeepsie Journal, management decided to hold off on the pink slips until August so those operations could be properly integrated.
The J-N had a daily circulation of around 160,000 when I worked there 20 years ago. It's now down near 92,000 and sinking while it shrinks: pages are smaller in keepig with the desiccated reporting staff. As one anonymous scribe posted on Gannett Blog:

I am a Westchester reporter. Twice last week -- TWICE -- I was interviewing someone and they said to me:

What is The Journal News? Can you imagine this for any other semi-major daily paper?(For all you readers outside the area: The Journal News is the name the paper was given when a group of smaller local dailies was merged in late 1998. More than 10 years later, the new name hasn't really caught on.)When I joined the company, circulation was 155,000 daily and 170,000 Sunday ...

These were sources in Northern Westchester, but I find the single place with the fewest people who know about us is Scarsdale. I cannot tell you how many times over the years I've had to explain what The Journal News is to someone from Scarsdale...

The area IS weird when it comes to local versus local, local. People live in about 75 towns and don't seem to have a regional feeling at all. If you live in Yonkers, you just don't want to read about Armonk or Peekskill or Brewster or Nyack, especially if all you're reading is the local municipal stuff or a feature about a tiny community festival.

However, the people here are sophisticated and appreciate a good story that's newsy about anywhere in the area, whether it's a scam or corruption revealed or a compelling personality featured or a new innovation explained....

We have lost A LOT of reporting staff. There is no question that readers today are getting FEWER stories than they did six months ago -- and A TON less than they did three years ago. There is news that goes uncovered and features that go unwritten.Is there any mystery why there are fewer readers? Why pay the same -- or more -- for a thinner paper?

Sad, but oh so typical, for Gannett.

Wall Street Journal Needs to Spend More Time On The Couch

Let's Keep Jason Gay's Butt Planted in Front of the TV More Than One Day a Week

It's all too rare in newspapers nowadays to have destination reading, especially in the sports section. Columnists quit or get fired. Beat writing is, well, beat writing, assuming the paper is even covering the team anymore.
That state of affairs is why going to the back of the Marketplace section to read Jason Gay's "The Couch" column in Monday's Wall Street Journal is a must.
Sure, you get insights without the bombast. But what you mostly get are laughs, and plenty of them. From yesterday's column:

Well, at least it wasn't a boring Wimbledon final, like last year's.

What can you say about Sunday's All England Club epic match between Roger Federer and Andy Roddick? Here's what we can say: We started, as usual, with breakfast at Wimbledon. Then we had brunch at Wimbledon. Then we had lunch -- a cold chicken sandwich at Wimbledon. Our house guests had cocktails at Wimbledon. Then more cocktails at Wimbledon. We debated marinating a steak at Wimbledon. Then we grew terrified: was this all-time classic sporting event going to preempt NBC's "Merlin"?

Or this gem about the U.S. collapse to Brazil in the Confederations Cup final:

It was cruel and mesmerizing to watch. The yellow-and-green soccer juggernaut scored early in the second half and relentlessly pounded U.S. goalie Tim Howard until they finally prevailed 3-2. When it was over the American players were crestfallen. They'd come within one half of a Wheaties box. Now they had to watch Brazil celebrate a title, which is like watching Derek Jeter celebrate getting a phone number.
"It's one thing to see the Promised Land," intoned ESPN analyst Alexi Lalas, whose hair we vastly preferred in its mangy, Big Lebowski form, as opposed to its current Dead Poets Society clean look. "It's another thing to get there."

Since Gay's column often features an item on TV the day before, it's clear he doesn't need much turnaround to turn in A-level work. The Journal should give him the chance to let a few more missives loose during the week, so we don't have to wait a whole week to once again sit on The Couch.

Federer's Epic Win Also a Victory for The New York Times

Nothing Like Some Color Full-Page Ads to Soothe A Publisher's Soul

The five-set thriller at Wimbledon was entertainment on a grand scale, enough to make you not get too hot and bothered about missing out on some high-quality outside time on one of the primo weather days of the year.
Almost as happy as Federer was the ad department at The New York Times, which played host in yesterday's sports section to a full-page color ad featuring Federer from Gillette. And on the back page was a full-pager from Lacoste, which congratulated runner-up Andy Roddick, dour but stoic after his five-set defeat. You can bet your alligator there was another version of the ad ready to run had a few shots gone the other way.
Not to be outdone, Federer was on the back page of today's Business Day section, which contained the sports pages. This time it was Rolex shelling out the bucks so we could get a close look at Federer planting a big wet one on the Wimbledon trophy.
And, yes, there's a big shiny Rolex on his left wrist.