News Cycle

The final front page of the Rocky Mountain News

It’s truly a sad day for newspaper people everywhere…

From the Rocky’s website:

It is with great sadness that we say goodbye to you today. Our time chronicling the life of Denver and Colorado, the nation and the world, is over. Thousands of men and women have worked at this newspaper since William Byers produced its first edition on the banks of Cherry Creek on April 23, 1859. We speak, we believe, for all of them, when we say that it has been an honor to serve you. To have reached this day, the final edition of the Rocky Mountain News, just 55 days shy of its 150th birthday is painful. We will scatter. And all that will be left are the stories we have told, captured on microfilm or in digital archives, devices unimaginable in those first days. But what was present in the paper then and has remained to this day is a belief in this community and the people who make it what it has become and what it will be. We part in sorrow because we know so much lies ahead that will be worth telling, and we will not be there to do so. We have celebrated life in Colorado, praising its ways, but we have warned, too, against steps we thought were mistaken. We have always been a part of this special place, striving to reflect it accurately and with compassion. We hope Coloradans will remember this newspaper fondly from generation to generation, a reminder of Denver’s history – the ambitions, foibles and virtues of its settlers and those who followed. We are confident that you will build on their dreams and find new ways to tell your story. Farewell – and thank you for so many memorable years together.

The American Society of Newspaper Editors has cancelled its 2009 convention that was scheduled to be held in Chicago, April 26-29, ASNE president Charlotte Hall announced today. Hall said ASNE’s leadership had “concluded that the challenges editors face at their newspapers demand their full attention.”

From the ASNE website:

Hall praised the considerable groundwork done by the Society’s Convention Program Committee. She said the committee “had put in place a robust agenda that promised to address critical issues faced by editors.” Also, Hall said that it had become clear that member attendance would have been significantly lower than normal because of the stress within the industry.

“Even though the learning opportunities at the convention would have been valuable, the greatest priority is leading our own newsrooms as we shape the future of the business,” Hall said.

This is only the second time since ASNE was founded that it has foregone holding a convention. ASNE also canceled its convention during the last critical days of World War II in 1945.

This year’s circumstances are quite different than in 1945, Hall said. “This is a uniquely stressful period in our business as we face both structural change and deep recession.”

She said ASNE’s 2010 Convention remains scheduled for April 11-14 in Washington.

The publisher of the Albany (N.Y.) Times Union has announced that his newspaper staff should expect a wave of layoffs, the Albany Newspaper Guild blog has reported.

Publisher George Hearst declined to release numbers or say when an announcement would be made, but said it was imminent.

“A notification will be going out to employees in the early days ahead,” Hearst said at a contract negotiating session with the Guild.

Under the contract, the Company must give workers at least 45 days’ notice of layoffs so the union can talk to the Company about any steps if possible to alleviate the hardship. If shorter notice is given, the employees must be given 45 days’ pay. …

“We are aware of the economic troubles our nation is facing,” Guild President Tim O’Brien said. “We know the newspaper industry is seeing more job cuts announced every day. While we do not favor layoffs, especially when our workers are already stretched thin, we will do our best to help our members through these difficult times.”

Bucking the national trend in a time of economic crisis, Newsday plans to charge viewers to access its online content, Cablevision chief operating officer Tom Rutledge revealed yesterday.

Cablevision bought the Long Island newspaper in a $650 million deal last May. It wrote down Newsday’s value by $402 million on Thursday, pushing its fourth-quarter results to a loss.

“Our goal was and is to use our electronic network assets and subscriber relationships to transform the way news is distributed,” Rutledge said on a conference call with analysts. “We plan to end the distribution of free Web content.”

Consultant Ken Doctor says it best:

Want to know how likely it is that Cablevision’s new charge-for-Newsday-online will work? A few rational arguments to follow, but consider this number: The average unique visitor on Newsday.com spends four minutes, 25 seconds per month on the site. Ouch. That number can sub for lots of focus groups, price elasticity testing and the like. Newsday’s would-be digital audience has voted with its fingertips. That number is up almost one minute from a year earlier, here courtesy of E and P’s monthly Nielsen rankings, but still ranks Newsday as having the lowest online engagement of the top 30 newspaper sites.

Confronted with having to pay for a site you may use less than five minutes a month, you think you are going to pay for it? Wrong site. Wrong year. Wrong metro area

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The Rocky Mountain News, a great journalism institution that has won four Pulitzer Prizes in the past decade, will cease operations tomorrow, just two months short of its 150th anniversary. The newspaper has 231 editorial employees.

It’s been a difficult couple of days for newspapers in the United States. This past weekend, there were separate bankruptcy filings by New Haven (Conn.) Register publisher Journal Register Co. and by the owners of The Philadelphia Inquirer and the Philadelphia Daily News. In addition, the Hartford (Conn.) Courant laid off 100, the San Antonio Express-News eliminated 165 positions, the Providence (R.I.) Journal let 100 people go, and the company that owns the Cedar Rapids (Iowa) Gazette and a local television station released 100 workers yesterday. The Sacramento (Calif.) Bee is bracing for layoffs that could affect between 50 and 70 employees tomorrow.

The Rocky Mountain News’ own site reports:

“Today the Rocky Mountain News, long the leading voice in Denver, becomes a victim of changing times in our industry and huge economic challenges,” Rich Boehne, chief executive officer of Scripps, said in a prepared statement. “The Rocky is one of America’s very best examples of what local news organizations need to be in the future. Unfortunately, the partnership’s business model is locked in the past.”

The Rocky has been in a joint operating agreement with The Denver Post since 2001. The arrangement approved by the U.S. Justice Department allowed the papers to share all business services, from advertising to printing, in order to preserve two editorial voices in the community.

However on December 4 Scripps announced it was putting up for sale the Rocky and its 50 percent interest in the Denver Newspaper Agency, the company that handles business matters for the papers, because it couldn’t continue to sustain its financial losses in Denver. Scripps said the Rocky lost $16 million in 2008.

One possible buyer emerged by the mid-January deadline to express interest in acquiring the paper, Scripps said. But the buyer was “unable to present a viable plan” for the paper, the company’s press release said.

Since then, Scripps said, it has been working with MediaNews Group, owner of The Post, to come up with a plan to allow it to exit Colorado. It also shares 50-50 ownership with MediaNews of Boulder’s Daily Camera and a handful of other smaller papers in the state.

The closure of the Rocky will mean Denver will have just one major newspaper, like the vast majority of American cities today.

Scripps said it will now offer for sale the masthead, archives and Web site of the Rocky, separate from its interest in the newspaper agency.

Here is the text of the Scripps press release:

CINCINNATI, Feb. 26 /PRNewswire-FirstCall/ — Following a sale process that produced no qualified buyers, The E.W. Scripps Company (NYSE: SSP) announced that the Rocky Mountain News, Colorado’s oldest newspaper, will cease publication after its final edition on Friday, Feb. 27, 2009.

“Today the Rocky Mountain News, long the leading voice in Denver, becomes a victim of changing times in our industry and huge economic challenges,” said Rich Boehne, chief executive officer of Scripps. “The Rocky is one of America’s very best examples of what local news organizations need to be in the future. Unfortunately, the partnership’s business model is locked in the past.”

Scripps bought the Rocky Mountain News, which is Colorado’s first newspaper and the state’s oldest continuously operated business, in 1926. After a decades-long circulation war, the newspaper in 2001 entered into a joint operating agreement (JOA) with The Denver Post, which is owned by MediaNews Group.

Boehne and Mark Contreras, the company’s senior vice president of newspapers, discussed the Rocky’s closure with employees at a newsroom meeting today. Rocky employees will remain on the Scripps payroll through April 28, 2009.

Citing mounting financial losses in Denver, Scripps announced on Dec. 4, 2008, that it intended to seek a buyer for The Rocky Mountain News, as well as the company’s 50-percent interest in the Denver Newspaper Agency (DNA), which publishes the Rocky and The Denver Post under the JOA. The DNA, a 50/50 partnership with Denver-based MediaNews Group, has not made cash distribution payments to either partner since last summer, leaving Scripps to cover the full cost of the Rocky Mountain News editorial product. In its year-end earnings report last week, Scripps disclosed that its losses in Denver totaled $16 million in 2008.

Following the mid-January deadline for parties to express interest in negotiating a purchase, only one potential buyer worked with the company’s broker, and that party was unable to present a viable plan. Since that date, Scripps has worked with MediaNews Group, to formulate a plan to unwind the partnership.

Although the newspaper will cease publication after Friday’s edition, Scripps will continue to own and offer for sale the assets of the Rocky Mountain News, including its name, masthead, archives and Web site.

Change at Prairie Mountain Publishing

Scripps also announced today that its 50 percent interest in Prairie Mountain Publishing, a three-year-old partnership involving Colorado newspapers originally owned by Scripps and MediaNews Group, will be transferred to its partner later this year.

About Scripps

The E.W. Scripps Company is a diverse, 130-year-old media enterprise with interests in television stations, newspapers, local news and information Web sites, and licensing and syndication. The company’s portfolio of locally focused media properties includes: 10 TV stations (six ABC affiliates, three NBC affiliates and one independent); daily and community newspapers in 14 markets and the Washington, D.C.-based Scripps Media Center, home of the Scripps Howard News Service; and United Media, the licensor and syndicator of Peanuts, Dilbert and approximately 150 other features and comics. For a full listing of Scripps media companies and their associated Web sites, visit http://www.scripps.com/.

SOURCE The E.W. Scripps Company

Hartford Courant Publisher Stephen D. Carver announced today that the Tribune Co. newspaper will lay off about 100 people as it faces declining advertising revenues.

An announcement posted on its website today said that the cuts include about 30 employees in news, bringing the news staff to 135 — just over half the number The Courant had at the start of 2008. Most employees were being notified this week, according to Carver.

The layoffs are mostly at The Courant but also at subsidiaries New Mass Media, which comprises the chain of Advocate weeklies, and Valu Mail, the direct-mail business owned by The Courant.

Chicago-based Tribune Co. is operating under bankruptcy protection as a result the media company’s $13 billion in debt, most of which Tribune took on late in 2007 when it became a private business. Tribune had a series of layoffs in 2008, but the current round of cuts at The Courant was forced by business conditions here, Carver said, rather than the bankruptcy.

Company-wide, Tribune is in a wage freeze announced to employees earlier this month. News space, which was cut back last summer, will remain as it is, Carver said. The Courant remains the largest news organization covering Connecticut.

“I wanted to get us into an environment where we could focus on our readers and advertisers going forward, and focus on growing the business,” Carver said. “We’re going to perform at the level we’ve been performing.”

Paul Bass of the New Haven Independent had more details than the Courant story:

Connecticut’s “oldest continually published daily newspaper” (for now) axed its D.C. bureau, half of its remaining two-person state Capitol staff, and its environmental reporter as part of what one veteran dubbed “The Mardi Gras Massacre.”

Those were among the casualties of the latest wave of layoffs at the Hartford Courant.

Mark Pazniokas, one of two reporters based at the state Capitol, has worked at the paper for 24 years and was its senior political correspondent. Dave Funkhouser held down the environmental beat.

Jesse Hamilton was the last reporter based in the paper’s D.C. bureau.

They and other reporters were notified of their layoffs in phone calls Tuesday night. They will receive one week’s severance for every year worked, plus an extra week.

An additional 100 Providence Journal workers are to be laid off by March 6 by A.H. Belo, Sheila Lennon of the Journal writes today.

The Dallas company that bought the newspaper in 1996. The Journal reported the impending layoffs Jan. 31 (A.H. Belo, owner of the The Providence Journal, plans to cut 500 jobs) but today we learned how many of those lost jobs would be in Providence. (A.H. Belo’s other newspapers are the Dallas Morning News, Riverside (Calif.) Press-Enterprise and the Denton (Texas) Record-Chronicle.)

In the newsroom we learned exactly which jobs would be cut from the Providence Newspaper Guild, the union that represents reporters, editors and advertising staffers, and slightly more than half of the jobs to be eliminated. Printed as always on bright yellow paper, the bulletin detailing the cuts was hand-delivered by Guild representatives this afternoon to each desk: 100 jobs to be cut at ProJo.

The Journal will cut all 26 part-time positions and eight full-time positions in the Advertising Department. The News Department will lose 18 full-time positions.

The remaining job cuts are to come from management, production and other non-Guild positions.

This time, no reporters were eliminated; photographers, artists, designers, visual techs, editors and editorial assistants bear the brunt of the News department cuts. On Oct. 10, 31 news staffers were laid off; 12 others had earlier taken voluntary buyouts.

Near the Alamo, the San Antonio Express-News released 75 newsroom employees today. When you add in the other departments, a total of 165 positions were eliminated. Here is editor Robert Rivard’s memo to staff:

From: Rivard, Robert
Sent: Wednesday, February 25, 2009 10:44 AM
To: SAEN Editorial
Subject: We are canceling this morning’s news meeting for obvious reasons.

Colleagues:

By now you have read Tom Stephenson’s message to all employees. Every division of the Express-News will be affected, including every department in the newsroom. Incremental staff and budget cuts, we are sorry to say, have proven inadequate amid changing social and market forces now compounded by this deepening recession.

It is not lost on us as journalists in this difficult moment that we have built an audience of readers, in print and online, that is larger and more diverse than at any time in our century and half of publishing. We have done that at the Express-News through a commitment to excellence and public service. Now we must find ways to maintain these high levels of journalistic distinction even as valued colleagues depart. It is an unfortunate but undeniable fact that declining advertising revenues are insufficient to support our operations at current levels. At the same time, more and more people have become accustomed to reading us at no cost on the Internet. As a result, we are reducing the newsroom staff by some 75 positions, counting layoffs and open positions we are eliminating.

As a first step to securing our future and continuing to serve the community, we are undergoing a fundamental and painful restructuring of the newsroom staff. We will have fewer departments and fewer managers, and yes, fewer of every class of journalist. After we reorganize and consolidate additional operations with the Houston Chronicle, we will then turn to finding new ways to create and present the journalism we know is vital to the city and the region. There is every indication the community we serve recognizes our importance and wants the Express-News to succeed.

The newsroom leadership team will begin now to meet with individuals whose jobs are being eliminated. Brett Thacker and I are working with these editors to carry out such notifications as swiftly and humanely as possible. No one is being asked to leave the Express-News today unless you so choose. March 20 will be the final day for those whose jobs are being cut, at which time they will then receive involuntary separation packages that include two weeks’ pay for each year of service up to one year’s pay, along with other benefits. Some production journalists involved in the consolidation project with the Houston Chronicle will be asked to stay on until that project is completed in the coming months. Those who do stay until the completion will receive their separation packages at that time.

We have worked to preserve the size and depth of our newsroom in every imaginable way these past months and years, but events beyond our control have overwhelmed those efforts. Newsrooms become like families, but companies in every industry reach a point where they face fundamental, sometimes harsh change in order to preserve their viability. We are at that point. Most of you read yesterday’s news regarding the San Francisco Chronicle and recently became aware of pending staff cuts at the Houston Chronicle. Our intention is to get through these difficult days and work to remain an indispensible source of news and information through the recession and beyond.

Bob

A producer/reporter for WBAL in Baltimore has been fired for admitting that he was the one who doctored a video to make it seem that FOX News commentator John Gibson compared Attorney General Eric Holder to a monkey. The doctored video had Gibson using the phrase “bright blue scrotum.”

The video gained notoriety when The Huffington Post picked it up from YouTube. HuPo later ran a correction and an apology.

David Zurawik of the Baltimore Sun writes:

Beyond the end of [John Sanders'] career at WBAL, the video highlights the lack of verification at popular news Web sites such as the Huffington Post. Like many news aggregate sites, the Post does not employ traditional news reporters but relies mainly on contributions from readers, celebrities and columnists. Sanders’ dismissal could also be seen as a cautionary tale for those who think that they can post something on the Internet as a prank for the enjoyment of their friends and that it will go no further.

According to a statement issued by Wanda Draper, director of public affairs for WBAL, Sanders altered the tape and posted it on YouTube “without the prior knowledge or consent” of the Hearst-Argyle-owned NBC affiliate.

“Further, this video does not represent the views of WBAL-TV or Hearst-Argyle Television,” the statement said.

Sanders said he made the tape after he heard other anchors on Fox News repeating the phrase “bright blue scrotum” while they reported the monkey story.

“I just kept hearing the phrase ‘bright blue scrotum,’ and I thought it was hilarious.” he said in an interview last week on The B-Cast webcast on Breitbart.tv. “And so I just recorded it.”

And then he dubbed the words into Gibson’s mouth and put the doctored tape on YouTube, where the Huffington Post picked it up and presented it as authentic.

President Barack Obama is considering a plan to pull out U.S. troops from Iraq in 19 months, not the 16 months he promised on the campaign trail. The other twist in the reported plan is that it would leave 50,000 troops behind, which begs the question: Is that really a full drawdown of U.S. forces in that war-torn country?

The plan would split the difference between Obama’s campaign pledge to withdraw most forces in 16 months and the U.S. obligation under a security agreement with Iraq to pull out altogether by the end of 2011, an unnamed official told Bloomberg. The official said the president hasn’t made a final decision about an Iraq drawdown.

About 142,000 U.S. troops are now in Iraq, according to the Defense Department.

Ann Scott Tyson and Anne E. Kornblut of The Washington Post report that it is the compromise plan:

The withdrawal timetable of about 19 months was one of several options outlined for Obama by Defense Secretary Robert M. Gates and Chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff Adm. Michael Mullen, including a faster schedule of 16 months and a slower plan of 23 months, one official said. “The risks are different with each option, and there are pros and cons of each one,” he said.

“It’s the president’s desire to conduct a responsible drawdown that won’t put at risk the gains and allows for the protection of the troops,” he said.

Jim Miklaszewski and Courtney Kube of NBC say that some of the 50,000 troops remaining will be combat troops. This is an apparent change from Obama’s position during the campaign when he repeatedly promised a withdraw of all combat troops in 16 months:

Although the plan falls short of Obama’s campaign pledge to withdraw all U.S. combat forces from Iraq within 16 months, one senior military official said, “It’s close.”

The official also points out, however, that the remaining force of 50,000 would still contain a sizeable “combat element” to provide rapid reaction assistance to Iraqi combat forces and force protection for the remaining American troops and U.S. government civilians.

Here is Obama speaking on July 3, 2008, during the campaign detailing his plan at that time. He explains his 16-month timetable at the 50-second mark. At the 3:16 mark, he makes it clear that he would tell the generals what the mission is, not the other way around. At the 5:10 mark he makes his policy clear: “I will bring our troops out at a pace of one to two brigades out a month, and at that pace we’ll have our combat troops out in 16 months. That is what I intend to do as president of the United States.”