A new sheriff – or hangman – comes to town

If you read The Republican or browse MassLive you probably noticed that Larry McDermott, the publisher of the daily for the last ten years, is retiring and being replaced with George Arwady, the publisher of the Newark (NJ) Star-Ledger – another Newhouse ‘paper.

Arwady made newspaper industry news in 2008 by basically telling one of the unions at that ‘paper if the members didn’t accept certain concessions, he was prepared to shut down New Jersey’s largest newspaper.

Concessions were made.

In October, Arwady sent out a memo, according to “Editor & Publisher,” looking for voluntary buyouts in order to reduce the ‘paper’s staff.

He wrote, “We are working on the budget for 2010, and it is clear that we must reduce our staff significantly to offset the continuing steep decline in revenue. My best estimate is that the full-time workforce must be reduced by at least 50 people.”

The Star-Ledger had already undergone significant cuts.

What has happened with many publications nationwide is that with decreasing ad revenues due to changes in how chain stores advertise, publishers have sought economies in cutting human beings, especially those involved in creating content. The premise is that readers will always pick up their daily paper out of loyalty and habit. Local content can be replaced by other kinds of stories.

With the decrease in content, more and more readers elected to find their local news elsewhere. Circulation slipped and advertising was lost. With less revenue, came more cuts.

That’s the cycle that many daily newspapers have for the past decade. I’ve often wondered if anyone at the Republican worried about the long-term effects when the ‘paper lost the considerable advertising dollars from Steiger’s? I believe that was the trigger of the ‘paper’s decline.

So now media watchers wonder what Arwady is going to do. Cut more staff? Drop the Saturday and Monday editions? Adopt the tabloid format for all the weekday editions? Cut back the coverage area?

As I’ve said before, I’m not particularly a fan of The Republican as an institution. The ‘paper has many fine reporters and photographers who do good work, some of whom I view as friends and valued colleagues. I don’t believe this region would be well served from an economic development point of view if it did not have a daily ‘paper.

I think though that considerable damage has been done to the reputation of the ‘paper and its value to readers and one wonders if Arwady has been sent to fix it or to bury it.

© 2009 Gordon Michael Dobbs

A new model from Newhouse?

The daily newspaper here has been doing a slow motion death scene for a number of years – one that I think could have been prevented if the right hands were on the steering wheel.

Despite the fact they are our primarily competition, I don't think a metro area the size of Springfield – about a half million – should be without a daily newspaper.

This week, two people – both of whom are reliable, non-gossipy sources – have told me they have been told that The Republican will cease to be in October.

Now this prediction came at the same time I learned The Republican has enacted a pay cut for its staff and laid off four copy editors.

And then my friend Josh Shear pointed to this column.

In essence, columnist Rick Edmonds writes how the Ann Arbor, MI daily is about to close and be replaced with a new business model:
"In several ways, though, the Ann Arbor plan goes further than Detroit or similar cutbacks at the East Valley Tribune in the Phoenix suburbs and hybrid formats at other papers:

The Ann Arbor News, after 174 years, will close as a business.

Its successor, AnnArbor.com, will be a new Web site, built from the ground up (and therefore supplanting MLive, the current site which serves several Michigan cities with locally tailored editions).

The News's distinctive headquarters, designed by prolific Detroit-area architect Albert Kahn, will be sold. AnnArbor.com has already taken the ground and top floors in a downtown office building, annoying some by supplanting a popular coffee store.

All the staff is being dismissed. Reporters and editors, whose salaries averaged around $50,000 according to one discussion post, can reapply for the many fewer jobs in the new venture, but the pay scale is being dropped to the mid-$30,000 range for reporters.

The new publication is being called a "print product" not a newspaper. Hints are that the Thursday edition may be light, targeted to weekend planning, Sunday including longer news takeouts."

Now will this be good or bad? Frankly at a time when many people who don't have home computers or high speed access and can't or won't invest in such things with the present economy, I think a combination of web and print makes sense to both advertisers and consumers.

As I have learned time and again from people being paid to study such things, content is king and making sure the content you create reaches a maximum audience through different platforms is the key.

The problem with many dailies that in the rush to shore up profits, they cut content. Or they put their content up on the web for free.

The secret is to know which story or feature is best served by which platform. I don't see that happening very much.

In any event, I know what I'll be doing this summer.

© 2009 by Gordon Michael Dobbs