Management at The Salt Lake Tribune has a "hard freeze" on hiring in place and also will reduce employee numbers. But editors told their staffs that layoffs are not expected — they hope staff size can be reduced through attrition. Editor Nancy Conway told KCPW:[Publisher Dean Singleton] says he does not see layoffs or buyouts, and neither do I. My feeling is we can get where we need to be. I don't know that we even know where that is yet. We're trying to assess that right now.
Last week, Singleton, chief executive of the MediaNews Group and Denver-based publisher of the Trib, delivered some straight talk to World Newspaper Congress in Sweden:
In the future, there will be two categories of newspapers. Those that survive, and those that die …Singleton had a hard message for those lamenting the decline of newspapers:
Too many whining editors, reporters and newspaper unions continue to bark at the dark, thinking their barks will make the night go away. They fondly remember the past as if it will suddenly re-appear and the staffing in newsrooms will suddenly begin to grow again.Well, as a former journalist, I also wish for the past, but it’s not coming back. . . . So it’s time to get over it and move to a print model that matches the reality of a changing business.
If you want to read the speech in its entirety, go here.
Almost no one has addressed of the impact of cuts on news coverage (City Weekly's Holly Mullen touched on it.) But something's got to give. Less reporters, editors and photographers means less coverage, shallower stories, not to mention a reduction in the overall quality of editing and photography.
Yes, the Internet will fill many coverage gaps, but blogs depend upon the legwork of traditional (and paid) reporters for grist.
12 Comments:
No big surprise Dean S. would blast unions (in semi-socialist Sweden no less!). The unions in his many Calif. newspapers have given him no end of trouble. Dean clearly thought he'd simply steamroll into these newsrooms with little opposition--laying off workers, chopping benefits, gutting contracts. He hasn't been able to accomplish it, and actually, the unions have given him many concessions. Is it "whining" for employees who frequently work many extra hours and feel deep loyalty to their newspaper to expect decent health care and 401K contributions from a company that spent most of the '90s and well into this decade acquiring properties like there was no tomorrow?
It's becoming clearer to people who follow media business that MediaNews is now over-leveraged and can't possibly make the profits it thought it would as a huge newspaper chain. So guess who has to give? The $35,000 a year police beat reporter, of course!
I don't know how the news can get much shallower than it is. Y'all have been dumbing down and sensationalizing the news for years in a feeble attempt to sell more papers and air time. The news media have made themselves irrelevant.
I've said it before on these pages: if we wanted or needed your services, we'd pay for them. Hopefully soon we can say sayonara to both the Deseret News and the Trib.
It is nice to see Singleton's empire beginning to fall. He is an evil man; he has left behind a trail of broken career plans and cares nothing about the people who work for him.
http://www.oberjuerge.com/?p=3
He will probably die with a dollar bill in his hands. He'll probably be clinging to that buck as he takes his last breath on Earth.
As for the Tribune ...
It would be nice to see it sold to a group that pursued the "news behind the news". If I could buy it, I would; it DOES have much potential. As it is now, it is mostly a place for MO haters to blow off steam in the various "comments" to it's stories on the web. If it wasn't for the MOs, (and the Trib feeding of the anti MO sentiment in Utah) it (Tribune) would have probably died years ago.
It is also the equivalent of a "shopper". It is so full of ads that sometimes it takes 30 seconds to load a page (while waiting for the various ad servers to load the various ads). The same is true with Singleton's Park Record. I (obviously) read it (read both) - read (glance through) a lot of "shit" on the internet just to "see" (what's there) but only do so because it is free; it has essentially ZERO "credibility" (to me) as a news source.
Singleton is NOT a "newsman" - he's an "adman". Don't confuse a journalist with an ad salesman.
Perhaps you should only allow people with subscriptions to post comments on the main site. Blasphemy, I know, but I don't think many people appreciate just how bad "news" will become if the newsrooms fail.
Part 1: The Future of the D-News
The writing is on the wall (my apologies to Trib readers who are offended by Bible-based expressions).
The D-News will continue to target LDS readers, and they will be even more overt about it than they have in the past. They won't even try to pretend to be a secular newspaper anymore.
Don't be surprised to see the D-News try to reach Mormons outside of Utah either, and not just in SE Idaho. Many Mormons living in Utah already get LDS Church publications. The D-News will probably find a way to tap into that, mainly with BYU sports.
They could also tap into BYU alumni groups, especially the well-organized BYU Management. Society (mostly BYU MBA grads). A lot of BYU grads living in other states would eventually like to move back to Utah, and coverage of Utah businesses would be of interest to them.
The LDS Church won't let the D-News die. That's a given.
Part 2: The Future of the Salt Lake Tribune
Twenty years or less from now, the Tribune will be much different than it is today. First, it's subscription numbers will be much lower, maybe 25%. A very disproportionate share of newspaper subscribers are over age 50, many over age 60, and as they die and meet Darwin, they are not being replaced by younger readers.
To survive in any form, the Tribune will have to continue to appeal to the bitter "Utah sucks" crowd. You know, those that live here for decades and complain every five minutes about how the Mormon Church makes living in Utah so f******* miserable.
Many U.S. dailies do not have even one columnist that taps into the "life in this state sucks" sentiment. The Trib has two (Rolly and Walsh) and three if you count Warchol.
To survive, the Tribune will have to intensify its preaching to the liberal, anti-Mormon, "Utah sucks" choir. This means losing young LDS readers (or not getting them in the first place) and a lot of other people who just get tired of the incessant bitching and moaning by Walsh, Rolly, Warchol, and the Tribune editorial board. Bitterness never was happiness.
Part 3: What happened?
When major dailies like the Tribune and News were founded more than a 100 years ago, they had no competition. In such a duopoly, the natural reaction is to try to get 50% or more of the market by targeting general audiences with maybe a very slight slant in coverage. Moving too far from the mainstream meant losing a majority of the market.
The Tribune became the largest daily in Utah because newspaper ownership was more of a concern for non-Mormons than it was for Mormons. Non-Mormons almost never subscribed to the D-News, but Mormons didn't have the same reservations about subscribing to the Tribune. Plus the morning-afternoon situation was an advantage to the Tribune.
The situation changed dramatically when
- The Fairness Doctrine was repealed and AM talk radio began targeting conservative audiences.
- Cable news appeared and gave audiences instant access 24/7.
- Cable news stations like Fox and MSNBC began to target conservative and liberal audiences respectively.
- the Internet emerged as a major sources of news, usually with a huge ideological slant
With so many competitors in the market, playing for the mainstream has become economically untenable. This is more difficult for newspapers than it is for CNN. CNN can still target the mainstream because people are more willing to get their news from listening/watching than reading.
Also, Fox has unabashedly made their format more attractive by hiring attractive young hotties, and advantage cable will always have over newspapers.
Correction:
In part 1, I wrote "Many Mormons in Utah already get LDS Church publications". I meant "Many Mormons OUTSIDE OF Utah..."
Good post Jobu ...
However, even the young anti-MO crowd will die-off as Utah (SLC in particular) gets even more diversified. It's pretty much gone "now".
Most young people (non MOs from elsewhere) are clueless about "The Church". It is NOT part of their lives. Some of the shit that we (non MOs) went through in the past (asking who our bishop was in a job interview, mistreatment by Mormon superiors, looking to see if we had a "celestial smile" coming through our shirt when we were interviewed for a job) don't happen these days; jobs are easier to come by for today's kids (young people) - it wasn't the same back then. When I came here, a job interview was like what I am told a Temple Recommend interview was/is; namely, all kinds of questions about "are you getting married" (someday I hope), "are you a member of the church" (yea, Catholic Church), "why did you move here" (to ski), etc. - that are (were) no one's business. Much of this shit is gone now but many of these readers (and posters) have been through the same shit I did years ago and are probably (understandably) having a hard time getting over it. It may still exist in Utah County, but for SLC/PC, (where much of Utah's population resides) it is passe.
Many people I've talked to who've come here recently don't even know "why" there is so much anti MO sentiment in the Tribune. They really don't care about the "MOs"; they (MOs) aren't part of their lives. I don't see a Tribune down the road AT ALL; it will go the way of the California Job Case regardless of what it does/doesn't "do"; it will just be either sooner (or later). Kids today don't read the paper ... no more than my generation (I'm 50 y/o) listened to the radio for news when we were young. My generation grew up with TV. Today's kids (anyone under 30) have grown up on the Internet; imagine 20 years from now with their kids?
I can just hear the conversations 25 years from now. "Newspaper?", yea, something grandpa used to read years ago - before they had computers - back when they had these things called "records" and 8-tracks :)
Shallower stories? Reading the Deseret News and SL Tribune is like wading in the kiddie pool. How much shallower can you folks get?
To the above anonymous ...
Myself (and others I know) just "look" at the Trib because it IS the hometown paper ... and (at least) it's not censored like the Deseret News' sugar coated version. All it take is a "click" on the desktop; namely, ZERO "effort".
As for "journalism", there is very little. Under Shelledy, it was his personal "toy" to egg-on the MOs and "get their goat". I knew him personally, and he (literally) got his jollies by pissing of "The Brethren". It was amusing ... but childish. Under Singleton, it's simply a way to get advertising money. He could care less about anything but the buck.
Sure, they've been a "few" good pieces of journalism (bad judges expose, polygamy expose, etc.). However, they are far and few between.
The McCarthy's thought for years that they had a gravy train (and they did) - since it was either "us" (the Trib) or "them" (the News).
Singleton believed the same; namely, a gravy train to get more advertising money - with little effort.
However, the Internet has changed "that". Many people today just want the Sunday edition to sit back, veg and read "Parade Magazine" on a kicked back Sunday afternoon. By 2:00 pm Sunday, they already know about what happened 14 hours earlier (before the paper went to press).
Newspapers (like railroads) were a big deal in their day; the owners were powerful and commanded respect; they were "feared". Today, they are pretty much nothing. By the time the paper arrives in the morning, the "news" is obsolete. If you want "Breaking News", you're not going to get it from the "paper".
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