the newspaper business

When People Are Your Most Vital Assets

Especially when every trade mag I pick up is announcing new/expanded layoffs.

It’s a lie. People are an asset. Like most assets, sometimes you must choose to dispose of them. Hopefully you have gotten a good useful life from the asset, sometimes not.

But, please, employees are smart enough to see through this “most vital” label. Stockholders are the most vital asset. Keep the stockholders happy and life is good.

Keep the employees happy at the expense of the stockholders and watch out.

And every. industry. says. it. even when they announce layoffs.

H.R. Conference highlights: - (and my unauthorized cynical subtitles)

• Legal updates of current labor laws and looming legislation - (how to layoff people and not get sued)

• Medical costs controlled with consumer-driven health care plans - (how to reduce health care coverage costs)

• Union contract negotiations and the Employee Free Choice Act - (Unions? Are they still in newspapers?)

• Compensation costs and alternatives for allocating rewards. - (How to cut commissions and keep sales reps)

• Managing transition in our changing industry - (Feel better about “it’s either them or me.”)

Ya see? This is why AngryJournalist.com gets traction. Gatehouse Media lost $231 million last year. The CEO’s bonus went up. Base and Bonus = $850,000 + $429, 380 in dividends from stock he doesn’t own = $1.3 million in compensation.

With a base salary of $500,000, Reed’s cash compensation totaled $850,000 for 2007, according to a proxy filed Tuesday with the Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC). In 2006, his base salary was the same, but the bonus was $200,000.Reed, 41, was granted 75,633 restrict stock units, stock that vests over time… In 2007, GateHouse said, Reed received $429,380 in dividends from unvested stock. 

and apparently, they have to cook the books a little to get cash flow:

and the companies “adjusted EBITDA,” a non-GAAP measure of cash flow that does not include interest payments, depreciation, amortization or other one-time costs, was $104.6 million. 

McClatchey’s CEO Gary Pruitt will be installed as the Newspaper Association of America’s chairman in April. He tells execs not to attend. Same with American Society of Newspaper Editors.

“I would prefer they make the wise decision due to economic conditions,” Pruitt told E&P late Thursday. “The vast majority are not attending, it is a larger percentage than usual.”

In other words, there’s nothing going on at these major meetings that would benefit you.

Junkets.

Pruitt said he will be unaffected by the attendance of McClatchy papers. “It is not important to me,”

My experience of late is that newspaper conventions/seminars are too much like school. Too much like school in a bad way.

1. Public Schools are required to teach to the dumbest kid in the class.  There has been no “gifted and talented” sessions for those of us who are trying to move forward with the print and online newspapers.

OR

2. Private schools where they teach to the big donor’s kid, and I’m on a hardship tuition grant because I meet a quota or something. So the teacher spends extra time with the rich kid who has all the latest toys and techniques and tutors. Meanwhile some of us are just trying to keep up by finding an inexpensive technique or by working smarter.

I’ve decided to home school this year.

Remember to put as much thought and reasoning into assigning parking spaces and what vending machines to have in your building as you would any other decision.

The Lexington Newspaper Guild, which will reach one year without a contract on Jan. 1, 2008, posted on YouTube an eight-minute video of a recent guild rally outside of the Herald-Leader. The video shows picketing members and bullhorn-toting union leaders, including Linda Foley, president of the national Newspaper Guild and a former Herald-Leader staffer.

I haven’t made an attempt at this game, but I am intrigued by the introduction.

Newspaper Manager II is a newspaper management game. Create a best selling newspaper, set newspaper prices and content, hire/fire reporters (even bribe other newspapers reporters!)

Stay within budget and make plenty of money to keep the boss happy. Or it may be you getting fired!

Features in-game help and 5 increasingly difficult challenges.

Give it a go and let me know how you do.

I’m a little like the maestro of the BGCO, I may not let you know how I do.

…finally decided that if I did fail, I had the option of pretending that it never occurred. In that case, I would definitely NOT bring it to the attention of anyone else.

No, not in Bowling Green, or even Kentucky, or even the U.S.  It’s in South Africa! The editor is blogging about the process and you may be interested.

While the Daily News circulation declines (see previous post) traffic to our online newspaper is growing at a fast clip, up 30% for the month compared to last year.

Walter Hussman, Jr. publisher of the Arkansas Democrat-Gazette says this is How to Sink A Newspaper 

Newspapers initially created their Web sites with the best of intentions. After all, newspapers are in the information business. And rather than fight the new medium, the Internet, why not embrace it? Wanting to be the leading information providers and thereby have the most popular Web site in the community, they posted all of their news online for free.

He goes on to make his case by comparing his newspaper’s circulation gains compared to the industry declines. he also explains the economics of the print newspaper and the online newspaper. It’s expensive to run a newsroom, Hussman admits and he’s concerned that more free local news will jeopardize the strength of newspapers.

The newsroom layoffs are most troubling, as less news with less quality, context and details results in more declines in readership and later, declines in advertising. If the $7 billion spent covering news becomes $6 billion, and later $5 billion, it is not just the newspaper industry that gets hurt. Journalism will be diminished in America with less investigative and enterprise reporting; indeed, less reporting of state houses, city halls, school boards, business and sports. Clearly a lot is at stake.

His premise makes for his newspaper, because they never did give away their local news. The Democrat-Gazette has always charged readers to get their local news online.

But they are in a very, very small minority.  The question we are facing now is what do we do now that the horse is out of the barn?

Welcome to the first official entry of “the business of newspapers.” Be sure to read the “about” tab in the upper right hand corner of the page to understand the purpose of the blog.

I can’t think of a better place to start than with the organization chart of the newspaper. Most people are familiar with a typical organization chart consisting of a board of directors, board chairman, president, vice-president, etc. If asked to place titles on an organization chart, most people could probably do it.

However, many people aren’t quite sure about the Publisher, Editor, General Manager reporting relationships. This is one of the many unique things about the newspaper business.

As you can see from the chart, the editor (in our case managing editor) and the general manager both report to the publisher who reports to the president. this history behind this structure is the desire to keep the newsroom free from business influences. However, the newsroom should never be totally insulated from the rest of the newspaper, because we all have to work together and recognize the capabilities of each department The same is true of our online newspaper.