the newspaper business

Thanks Newscoma

One of the tightest newspaper owners in the biz has just lost his marbles. This is the same owner who built a new building for a press on the strict guidance that it not be built for the long term. He asked for a cheapo building.  At the same time, these newspaper companies are reducing staff to cover LOCAL, meaningful news, the owners are going whole hog to impress the party bosses and elite that newspapers are still relevant.

The Minneapolis Star Tribune in the past 18 months has trimmed its staff substantially through buyouts and layoffs and has frozen wages for some workers. The Rocky Mountain News has lost more than 12% of its weekday circulation in the past two years. Both MediaNews and Avista Capital, the private-equity owner of the Star Tribune, are laboring under steep debt loads.

“You forget about the P&L for this,” said Dean Singleton, chairman of MediaNews Group, which publishes both the Denver Post and Pioneer Press, among its 54 daily U.S. newspapers. “This is a week to really showcase what we do best.”

The no-holds-barred coverage comes even though broadcast and cable news television, national newspapers and a cadre of political bloggers — an estimated 15,000 people in all — are planning to blanket the proceedings at both conventions. Critics also say the proceedings are news-free events hardly worth all the media attention.

Put me in the category with Jon Stewart and that last sentence above. Political conventions are not news.

Jon Stewart took after the “established” media for getting too cozy with candidates and regurgitating campaign spin when it comes to political coverage.

Stewart said politicians in recent campaigns are “animatronic” because all of the “humanity has been managed out of campaigns.” He referenced the back-and-forth during the Pennsylvania Democratic primary over Obama’s lack of bowling skills.

Of course, I won’t be reading the Denver or St. Paul newspaper coverage, but here’s what they should do: focus on the impact locally. Forget the politics of the event.

CNN Grill (across from the Pepsi Center) Was Packed After the Convention Shut Down for the Day

Treat it like a four day siege of the city.

• Traffic can’t move,
• restaurants overflowing with undesirables,
• armed patrols on the street,
• dissent is stifled.

To quote my favorite weather cliche: It’s a War Zone.

Newspapers will cut staff covering the political conventions by 20%. This decision wasn’t made in the newsroom, it was made by the bean counters.

I think they got it right. Convention coverage is so highly orchestrated and geared toward television, that staffing could probably be cut by 50% and nobody would notice the difference.

Seems the press is being forced to figure out what the public has long known: Obamamania or not, few made-for-media events are as predictable as the overscripted circus of modern American political conventions. Faced with tough budget decisions, newspapers are making a smart move by trimming back on coverage readers can likely do without.

I’m really not looking forward to all the newsprint that will be used to give the politicos and pundits a soapbox.

Let the AP cover the conventions. Nobody cares about the “local angle” at a political convention. I don’t ever recall saying this before, “hooray for the beancounters.”

PBS.org was looking for “embeds” to write about the “media shift.”

Here’s my first post.

http://www.pbs.org/mediashift/2008/08/embedded_in_bowling_greenhow_f.html

CNN has issued a formal written policy which forbids ANY employee from participating in dialogue on the web. This includes NO

• blogging
• Facebook/MySpace
• commenting in forums/chat room
• tweets

WHAT IF I DON’T WORK DIRECTLY WITH NEWS GATHERING OR NEWS REPORTING BUT ELSEWHERE WITHIN THE SUPPORTING DEPARTMENTS OF CNN?
In discussions about this issue with your colleagues across CNN, it was felt by them that it was important to have this policy apply across the board.
WHAT ABOUT FREELANCE EMPLOYEES AND INTERNS?

Supervisors should make sure freelancers and interns read this policy now — or on their first day going forward — and commit to following it.

The catch phrase that keeps repeating is “on which CNN might report.” Very broad and probably unconstitutional, don’t you think?

If you don’t follow this policy, and you are officially a CNN employee, the loss of objectivity won’t just apply to you, but could be associated with CNN.

Did I give up my right to protest or vote when I started working for a newspaper? I hope not.
Many newspapers are actively encouraging reporters to take up blogging.  Newspapers invite reporters to express opinion in the print editions. Newspapers have long held that as long as the opinion expressed is marked clearly as that of the reporter, it is acceptable.
Life would be simpler if every employee was an Eloi to the Morlock employer.