The Death Star of Newspapers Not So Deadly?

Alden May Finally Be Realizing When Enough is Enough
An interesting take by Rick Edmonds of Poynter on how Alden Global Capital, the rapacious venture capitalists who gobble up newspaper assets whole and then spit out their desiccated remains, has essentially hit a pause button on its plundering. At least for now.

The thinking, according to Edmonds, is that Alden has stripped away the muscle from its properties and is momentarily content to look at the bones.

Since the company does not entertain questions, it’s a guess why. More reductions could be on the way later this year. Or Alden may have calculated that it has reached the minimum number of staffers necessary to put out a news report people will pay for, now that it is revving up a drive for paid digital subscriptions.


If so, there's a dangerous flaw in that model, one others like Gannett haven't realized or didn't care too much to rectify. Namely, it's hard to convince people to pony up for digital subs when there's nothing worth paying for. If all a paper does is re-purpose what little print content it has for the web without any value add, the ennui readers will have for the print version will infect the digital edition.Most papers out of the Times-Post-Journal orbit still pay too little attention to the web product to make it worth paying for, certainly not to the point where it can convince people to shed the more-expensive-to-produced-and-distribute print version. 

There's a reason why print circulation has cratered. There's a reason there hasn't been a corresponding digital migration.So, instead you have a company like Gannett slapping a $2.50 price tag on a 16-page edition of The Journal News and wondering why its daily circulation is down to 24,000, when it was 160,000 back when I was a reporter there in the late eighties.The end of print, or at least curtailing the number of print days at most publishers, seems a foregone conclusion at this point. It's already happened in Pittsburgh, at many Advance Media titles, like the Post-Standard in Syracuse and soon the Saturday editions at McClatchy titles. Monday papers would likely be next to go.

Which brings us back to Alden. What reason is there to expect it's capable of investing in digital if it can shake the print habit? I don't think the remaining reporters in places like Denver, San Jose or St. Paul have any expectations of that happening. Then again....Alden is all about extracting value. Maybe the best way for that to happen is by actually injecting some cash into their digital side, so the papers become more profitable and, more importantly, valuable. That's valuable, as in attracting a buyer.

Could Los Angeles Times owner Patrick Soon Shiong, e.g., find a reinvigorated San Jose Mercury-News and its beleaguered sister papers in the Bay Area irresistible? Yes, Alden appears to bask in its reputation of predatory buyer. But making money is often more about knowing when to get out rather than staying in. You just need to have something worth selling first. 

Is Unemployment Better Than Working For Gannett?

Maybe Not, But.....

I've been chatting this week with a couple of scribes at the Journal News, the Gannett paper in New York's northern suburbs where I toiled in the late 80s. The paper, like many in the chain, is a desiccated husk of its former self both in size and staffing. The circulation has followed a similar pattern, now down to about 55,000 daily where it was 160,000 when I was there.

Those convos got me thinking about Gannett's newest employees, the staffs of 11 dailies in Pennsylvania, New Mexico and Texas, as part of a swap with Digital First in which Gannett gave up its 19 percent interest in some California newspapers in return.

Suffice to say, if you're an employee of the El Paso Times, the York Daily Record or one of the nine other dailies that are now orbiting the Gannett mother ship, these are not happy days. Not that you were exactly doing jigs with Digital First, which shares a reputation with Gannett as a ruthless cost-cutter.

Gannett has shown no compunction about staffing its newsrooms to the bare minimums. Copy editing is farmed out to regional hubs as is design. Admittedly, I don't know if the six small New Mexico dailies have separate editing staffs below the top of the masthead. But if they do, chances are they won't for long, if Gannett is consistent with past moves at papers in New Jersey and New York, among others. The same will likely hold for printing presses.

As Ken Doctor pointed out, the move makes financial sense for Gannett, now that it is a standalone newspaper company lacking debt. It also makes sense for Digital First, which is breaking itself into pieces after attempts at finding a buyer for all of its disparate parts never went anywhere.

Does it make sense for any of the newspapers' employees? Doubtful. It will likely be a case of meet the new boss, same as the old boss.

At least they have what fewer people than ever can claim--jobs working for a newspaper.

For now.