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.

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.”)

The Daily News and a lot of other papers, still run a box in some stories that say “On The Net” with URL’s for the links to the subject that is the focus of the story.

For example, today the hot story is the jet pack demonstration. In the 32 inch AP story (with photo) we ran there were three URL’s listed:

• www.martinjetpack.com
• www.jetpackinternational.com
• www.tecaeromex.com

True, only two inches were devoted to the URL’s. It was the only story in the A Section that had URL’s listed. Seems kind of silly…

1. Everybody knows how to find more information via search engines
2. Only one story was deemed worthy of this special treatment.

Television stations are much smarter. Anchors will refer viewers to the television station’s website for more details. The details are usually just a bunch of links.

The Daily News didn’t even have the story on our website because aside from an AP widget that pulls headlines and some video feeds, we only post local stories.

Isn’t that a disconnect? Our online newspaper doesn’t have the story, but our print newspaper is sending people online?

Here’s an email I got today. It pretty much speaks volumes about how stupid newspapers are perceived by some scammers.

I am contacting you today regarding one of our largest clients. The majority of their advertising budget is dedicated to direct newspaper placement. Normally, we run a test ad for the client, and should the ad produce a sufficient ROI, the client will continue to run indefinitely.  The test ad can be any size, from a line ad to a 1/4 page to a full page ad, any day of the week that the paper runs – we would like that ad to be at no cost or very low cost to the client.

Please understand that we are interested in building a relationship with you, working with you to in order to help both organizations increase print sales.

Should you have any questions or should you have immediate space available, please contact me as soon as possible. 

Thank you

Matt

Matthew Montoya

4 3 2   F R O N T   S T R E E T   -   C H I C O P E E  ,  M A  0 1 0 1 3

P.  8 6 6  .  6 1 2  .  0 0 3 4   X 1 1 9   -   F . 4 1 3  .  2 0 6 .  0 7 0 0

WWW.ACCESSTOMEDIA.COM

____________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________

“All beings tremble before violence.  All fear death, all love life.

 See yourself in others. Then whom can you hurt?

 What harm can you do?”

- Buddha

Bruce Lunsford was sitting at the right hand of one of the richest guys in Warren County. He invited a few of his closest friends to meet with a candidate that has a real shot at knocking off Mitch McConnell for his Senate seat.

“We are a grass-roots campaign, from the bottom up, because we know Mitch is going to run a campaign from the top down,” Lunsford said from a seat next to Garvin’s desk.

Nice start Bruce and David. Leave the little man out of the meeting. Did you all have cigars to create the prototypical smoke filled room?

Forget that Obama doesn’t have his “listening” campaign anywhere near the fourth largest population center in the state. Lunsford says the area is “important.”

So they announced he may return to Beech Bend in six weeks.
In Garvin We Trust? I don’t know Garvin, I don’t know Lunsford. I would like to meet Lunsford, but because it was a private meeting, I didn’t get the chance.
“Well, you know me, don’t you?” Garvin told her (a person at the meeting). “I’m telling you that he’s a good man.”
Nope, not good enough.

It’s just not worth much of my time and effort to respond to such immaturity and ignorance of youth sports.
With one broad brush, the sports editor has condemned every parent who is involved in their child’s activity as being insignificant. He personifies why newspapers are perceived as arrogant and uncaring about the community.
He can add all the disclaimers he wants about it being his personal opinion. A mature person knows when to keep their trap shut.

Daniel Pike, Sports Editor of the Daily News:

What I’ve got to say is this: Little League, at any age level, at any stage of competition, should not be considered news. Period.