Showing posts tagged “newspapers”
Fiona Morgan ·
22 Apr 2009, 4:50 PM ·
7 Comments
Maybe someone should invite Howard Weaver out for a nice game of golf. The retired McClatchy executive seems to find it hard to keep his hands off the keyboard, and it’s a rather sensitive time for employees — and former employees — of the newspapers he used to oversee.
After launching a defensive back and forth in the comments thread of Romenesko yesterday with News & Observer reporter Joe Neff, Weaver today raised the topic again on his blog, Etaoin Shrdlu, where he has continued to opine about the newspaper business and McClatchy’s role in innovating it — and, perhaps inadvertently, fed the fire of resentment rising in those who see McClatchy’s poor business decisions as the root cause of The N&O’s recent layoffs.
While today’s post demonstrated sympathy toward those who’ve lost their jobs, Weaver repeated an earlier assertion that The N&O was in bad shape long before McClatchy came along:
I don’t apologize for expressing the facts as I know them. It simply isn’t helpful to build mythologies based on anger and blame that don’t reflect reality. [...] For example, those who argue that McClatchy took over a thriving N&O and greedily ran it into the ground are misinformed, and perpetuating that myth hurts the cause of reconstruction.
Frank Daniels, Jr., whose family sold the newspaper to McClatchy in 1995, tells the Indy that Weaver is the one perpetuating a myth, at least in part.
“As far as we were concerned, we were doing extremely well. Financials had nothing to do with our decision to sell,” Daniels says. “So he’s just mistaken.”
Continue reading »
media layoffs, News & Observer, newspapers
Fiona Morgan ·
23 Feb 2009, 11:39 AM ·
1 Comment
Gary Pearce at Talking About Politics thought my post about Vaden’s departure from The News & Observer was snarky. So did Laura Leslie at Isaac Hunter’s Tavern. Perhaps it came out snarkier than intended.
I really do wish Ted Vaden well. He has more than three decades of experience as a serious and thoughtful journalist, editor and publisher, and he deserves a secure job with a good salary. I don’t begrudge him that. Nor do I begrudge any journalist who finds a better opportunity—how could you not jump from a sinking ship? I do hope Conti will make good on the pledge to make the Department of Transportation more transparent, and hiring Vaden is a step in the right direction.
Am I suspicious of government flacks? You bet I am. The N&O’s own investigations over the past year have only deepened that suspicion. I say that knowing that the way things are going, we may all become flacks one day.
What strikes me about Vaden’s departure is the irony of the contrast: Which of these organizations has a history of failure and corruption, and which one has a track record of ferreting out that failure and corruption?
Now, which one appears to be in danger of going out of business? And which one has the resources to keep someone like Vaden employed?
Let me amplify Pearce’s cry: “Will someone save the N&O from the disastrous reign of the McClatchy chain?”
media News & Observer, newspapers
Fiona Morgan ·
17 Feb 2009, 12:47 PM ·
Comment
After 32 years as a journalist, editor and publisher at The News & Observer, Ted Vaden is leaving for a public relations job at the Department of Transportation.
We wish Vaden well. After all the anxiety over layoffs at the paper, the new opportunity (and $117,000 annual salary) must be irresistible. The work public information officers do can be quite valuable.
But what does it say about the state of journalism that the guy whose job is to “[monitor] N&O coverage for fairness and accuracy and [serve] as a readers’ representative at the paper” will now be in charge of spinning for one of the most egregiously mismanaged and obfuscating agencies of state government?
N&O Publisher Orage Quarles III, to whom Vaden reports, told the Indy he doesn’t yet know if he will hire a replacement. Under pressure due to parent company McClatchy’s falling profits, Quarles recently announced there will be more staff cuts coming.
Continue reading »
media media, News & Observer, newspapers
Fiona Morgan ·
21 Jan 2009, 10:30 PM ·
2 Comments
Not all local newspapers are suffering in the down economy.
The Carrboro Citizen, launched more than two years ago by former Indy managing editor Kirk Ross, plans to beef up circulation 20 percent by April and expand its coverage of Chapel Hill. Ross made the announcement on the Citizen’s Facebook group, saying it would appear in Thursday’s edition of the print newspaper.
Publisher Robert Dickson said adding rack and news-box locations in Chapel Hill, Hillsborough and Pittsboro already has accommodated a 10 percent increase in circulation for the free newspaper, from 5,000 to 5,500. The newspaper plans to add additional distribution points to bring that number to 6,000.
“We are slowly but surely growing our reach,” Dickson said. “The important thing is that reader demand for the newspaper is driving the circulation jump.”
The Citizen currently distributes 2,225 papers in Carrboro, 2,400 in Chapel Hill, 525 in Hillsborough and 350 in Chatham County at more than 130 locations.
Dickson said reader interest is also driving an increase in coverage. This month, The Citizen began weekly coverage of Chapel Hill town government. Editor Kirk Ross, who covered the town and UNC for the Chapel Hill News for several years, will be the chief reporter on the Chapel Hill beat.
The Citizen is also expanding online coverage blogs, adding contributors to itsMill blog and launching a new blog by Margot Carmichael Lester called Orange County Housing & Commerce.
Carrboro, Chapel Hill, media Carrboro Citizen, newspapers
Fiona Morgan ·
5 Jan 2009, 1:37 PM ·
1 Comment
Neil Offen got a promotion for Christmas, though not one he wanted, it seems.
As of today, Offen is the new metro editor of the Durham Herald-Sun. Offen, who lives in Carrboro, has worked at The Chapel Hill Herald, the Durham daily’s Orange County counterpart, for more than eight years and has been its editor for more than six. Now former H-S metro editor Dan Way has moved into Offen’s old position in Chapel Hill.
Offen lamented the move in an email to Chapel Hill contacts on Dec. 30.
“It’s not a position I necessarily asked for or wanted; it was thrust upon me,” he wrote.
It’s unclear what the move signals for The H-S, which has suffered steep circulation declines in recent years in both Durham and Orange. Sources inside the paper say Way has never been liked by reporters, who have seen their workloads increase as their ranks have decreased, both through layoffs and attrition.
Offen’s love of Chapel Hill and Carrboro was evident in his on-air interviews with local AM news radio station WCHL each weekday during the 5 p.m. hour.
“Neil’s been great to work with,” says WCHL Station Manager Christy Dixon. “He’s been on with us since we brought the station back to Chapel Hill [in 2002], so we wish him the best.”
Way has not been booked in his place. Dixon says the station has a new news director who is considering whether to extend the invitation to competing print media outlet The Carrboro Citizen.
Carrboro, Chapel Hill, media Herald-Sun, newspapers
Fiona Morgan ·
4 Dec 2008, 1:24 PM ·
Comment
The rarely discussed problem with the newspaper industry is that many newspapers are still profitable, just not profitable enough — their owners and investors aren’t willing to accept a decline in profit margins as a tradeoff for long-term viability.
For evidence of this, consider Gannett, the uber-chain that owns USA Today. Its stock price falling as the economic downturn gets worse, Gannett plans to lay off about 3,000 employees. Thing is, the company’s still making profits that would be considered healthy in most other industries.
Former Gannett editor Jim Hopkins, who’s been blogging the carnage at his independent Gannett Blog, got hold of 2007 financial documents that list the sales and profit margins of each individual Gannett paper, information the company doesn’t like to reveal. While the numbers are a year old, they do tell us something about the financial bassakwardness of the media industry. One paper more than 42 percent profit.
The Asheville Citizen-Times, Gannett’s only North Carolina paper, made $20.6 million in ad sales and had a 23.49 percent profit margin in the first three quarters of 2007, according to Hopkins’ information. The Citizen-Times recently announced it will lay off 60 people.
Meanwhile, financial ratings firm Fitch Ratings warns newspaper companies are likely to default on their debt and go out of business next year, which will leave “several cities” with no daily newspaper. The McClatchy Company, which owns The N&O, is one of two companies whose debt Fitch rated as “junk,” according to Editor & Publisher.
media financial crisis, layoffs, McClatchy, newspapers
