The Times shrinks and the Trib readies the axe
May 13, 2008 at 10:47 am by Wayne Garcia
These are not happy days for journalism in Tampa Bay, and I take no joy in the fact that both of the mainstream daily newspapers are cutting back staff and/or space to save a few bucks as the business model that made print journalism possible for years crumbles out from underneath us.
First, the St. Petersburg Times. Over the weekend, the largest daily in Florida informed the readers of the outcome of its secret Flagship committee, which studied how to change the paper to meet a 21st Century audience and declining advertising revenues. Neither Eric Deggans nor Neil Brown used the word Flagship, but nonetheless, here’s what that committee came up with for May 19:
- Stop publishing Floridian except on Sundays. Floridians writers — among the best at the paper, including John Barry, Lane DeGregory and Ben Montgomery — will now compete with metro and national reporters for space in the A and B sections.
- Stop publishing a daily Business news section, putting biz news into the B section.
- Eliminate stock listings.
- The metro, B-section gets renamed “Tampa Bay.”
- Eliminate other features, including the Sunday Working section.
- Put comics and other reader favorites into the classified section and rename it all “BayLink”
Brown summarized the changes this way:
In a Starbucks world, it is the venerable Dunkin’ Donuts that sells more hot cups of coffee than anybody in America.
Even as the Starbucks “experience” transformed the coffee-drinking marketplace, the 58-year-old Dunkin’ chain found a way to soar, having grown its revenues roughly 50 percent in a recent three-year period. How? Rather than hunker down it adapted to changing tastes: more high-quality coffee, fewer fattening doughnuts.
This seems an apt lesson for newspapers, including the St. Petersburg Times, as we consider how best to deliver distinctive journalism and useful advertising in a time of profound technological change and extraordinary economic turbulence.
He’s right; this is a tremendous opportunity to narrow and focus the news for people, to provide direction as to what is important instead of the old-school model of “all the news that’s fit to print.” No more leading the Metro Section with a story about how the Hillsborough County Commish is pissed
off at some drone in Sector G. (Don’t blame the reporter; blame the editors at the budget meeting.)
Where does that leave the Times‘ critics? Fighting for space on 2B along with entertainment news, which will apparently be tightened to make room. And no doubt that some of Floridian’s fun throwaway stories, such as Montgomery’s ode to the red plastic cup, might have a problem competing in the larger pool of news.
What the Times is not telling you is that it has also been shrinking its staff, from 400 people in editorial two years ago to a number somewhere around 340. The newspaper draws disgusting glares from its counterparts at the Tampa Tribune when it insists it is not laying off reporters and editors, and technically, that may be true. But the newspaper is undergoing what might best be described as a strategic pruning, lopping off some reporters and not filling their positions, reporters who in a bygone era flush with cash would have more job security. It is a layoff that isn’t a layoff.
And that has some staffers there freaking out a bit. Various department chiefs held meetings last week to try to explain the changes, but a handful of staffers who spoke to me on the condition of anonymity were clearly concerned if not quite grumbling about matters.
Over at the Tampa Tribune, things are much worse, so much so that one staffer describes the atmosphere as “toxic.” If you recall, the Tribune offered buyout packages to half of its staff of 1,300 a month ago; two sources tell me that only about 20 or so people opted to volunteer for execution. Management hasn’t told staffers exactly how many of the 650 buyout-targeted positions will really be cut, but the consensus among Trib workers who would discuss the matter on background with me is that the number is in the area of 150. (Note: Many, many local observers and even national writers are making the mistake of thinking that all 650 positions will go, since they were offered buyouts. Hogwash. The Trib’s parent company might be freakin’ about the flow of red ink in Tampa, but it ain’t crazy enough to slash the occupied seats at the News Center by half.)
But it is a sign of how bad things are at the Tampa daily that its most prominent two columnist/personalities, Dan Ruth and Steve Otto, were both offered the buyout.
So when does the axe fall? The staff has not been told, but based on the terms of the buyout (those accepting the deal have a few weeks to change their minds) it seems that late June or early July would be the first that we could hear who goes and who stays.
Which all leads me to an interesting question that I’m starting to hear from staffers on both sides of the bay and articulated best (if a bit acerbic about the Times leadership under Editor Paul Tash) by a reader of this blog who sent me the following e-mail:
With only a fraction of the fiscal resources of Media General, et al, what
do you speculate will happen to the independent-and-certainly-answering
-to-no-one St. Petersburg Times? Having already taken the first step (the
divestment of a few months ago), and seeing as how death-by-attrition in
the newsroom has crippled the august organ’s once-famous reputation, do
you see the secretive Times and it’s oddly out-of-touch leaders hunkering
down and weathering this storm, or finally coming clean and taking
the necessary (and public) actions?
In other words, despite the very public fiscal twisting in the wind at the Tampa Tribune, owing to its public ownership that requires its finances be splashed across SEC filings, is the Times actually the product that is in bigger trouble, despite its better journalism? The Trib, after all, could be carried either by profits at Newschannel 8 or other chain papers for a while, but the Times has no such broadcast cross-ownerships or other profitable dailies to fall back on. And several staffers who spoke to me recounted how top editors at the paper are openly telling staff that the Times is not currently profitable, a scenario that would have been unimaginable only three or four years ago.
In the meantime, buy a newspaper today and help things out a bit, would ya? 99 percent of what is termed “news” online would not be possible with the initial reporting done by the daily mainstream press.
(photo of newspaper boxes by Lindsey T)
May 13th, 2008 at 11:59 am
I know that newspapers everywhere are in fiscal trouble, but is it as dire across the country as it is in Tampa?
Sounds like it’s time to say goodbye, Tampa Bay, hello, Mobridge South Dakota Tribune for beginning reporters like me. Also, hello McDonald’s, where I’ll be working to supplement my income, haha.
May 13th, 2008 at 12:49 pm
You sound like some crazy 15th Century monk screaming out there about the merits of hand-crafted and artful manuscripts in the wake of the Gutenberg Bible. Face it, the days of print are over done. Put a fork in it, newspapers are dead, dead, dead. In a day when I can read opinion of any shades, why do I need a newspaper editorial page or columnists? Oh, I can hear the horrors and screams if newspapers did away with parts that are no longer competitive with the Internet. The Internet does some things much better than newspapers can ever do, such as real estate ads that provide an in-depth report on past prices, real estate assessments, plus color views of the property for sale. So why the surprise that real estate ads have drifted to the new medium. The one area where newspapers could excel _ investigative reporting _ has been cutback in favor of mindless features and news stories about trends that are little more than advertorials. They are not fooling anyone by pretending they are giving us news when they are really writing about pet advertisers. So why should I spend any money for their product. Like illuminated manuscripts, newspapers have become a thing of the past. Celebrate the newspaper era if you want, but I’m saving my quarters for something I need.
May 13th, 2008 at 1:17 pm
your plea to buy a paper reminds me of when bookstores are about to go under from internet and chain pressure.
the owners blame the customers for not supporting them, rather than recognizing that it’s just the marketplace, stupid.
consumers never ‘owe’ anything to vendors. that’s not capitalism.
it’s usually sad when old things die. but new things are always born.
May 13th, 2008 at 1:24 pm
i’m looking forward to the day television dies too.
May 13th, 2008 at 1:25 pm
Ed: Newspapers are trying to find ways to be profitable so they CAN do the investigative reports to which you refer. The opinions you read online are based on the hard work that newspapers do. Most of the blogs online lean on and link to the work of reporters. When they are gone, you can look forward to a web full of real estate ads and classified, because the content websites used to scrape from newspapers for nothing will be gone. And in order to be able to afford to generate the missing content, the web will have to charge to see it…just like newspapers do now. Those quarters could come in handy then.
May 13th, 2008 at 1:38 pm
Oh, how times have changed. I remember the great Tribune/Times battle of the 1980s. I hate to see the decline of the newspaper, but I can’t help but wonder if I’m like those workers on the line who didn’t want to use the mechanized robots. Sometimes, something better rises to replace the outdated.
May 13th, 2008 at 1:46 pm
Profitable? Newspapers are profitable. It’s the level of profit and pleasure for the stock holders that’s at stake. How much profit is enough — 15 percent? Twenty? Twenty-five? That’s about the level Knight Ridder was going for when it went under. So what we are talking about is that newspapers are used to making gobs of money and want to keep making gobs of money even as they offer readers less and less. Bottom line: You can’t cut your way to profitability.
May 13th, 2008 at 6:29 pm
Charlotte, Charlotte:
How naive can you be? The only thing that attracted investors was a newspaper’s ability to attract “gobs” of money and they clearly no longer believe papers can do that. You talk like some 20-year-old neoLeninist who thinks people with money should just fork it over to editors who often don’t have a clue about their market. Please, enough whining about profit margins.
May 13th, 2008 at 9:51 pm
I worked at the Tribune in the late 1990s. The atmosphere was toxic then. It’s hard to imagine that it could be any worse.
May 13th, 2008 at 10:18 pm
Never mind buying a paper, BUY ADS! That’s where the real revenue comes from, not from the quarter racks or those “newsies” at all the intersections in town.
Honestly, the only way the print press as we know it can survive is by crossing over into other technology. TB Business Journal does it by way of radio and something called “BizTV” on its website. Granted, the publisher seems a little awkward on camera, but she’s still better than half the “talent” on NewsChannel 8 (where buyouts for anyone named Gayle should be mandatory).
I used to work at a small-town paper back in the ’80s where TVs weren’t allowed in the newsroom because that was considered supporting another medium. That paper now has a website. So I guess that faint whumping sound I hear is the old turkey buzzard who used to run that paper, flipping in his grave!
May 14th, 2008 at 11:29 am
Unfortunately, as here in Atlanta, the idea of putting out a really competitive newspaper that breaks real news, has inspired reporting-driven columnists (unlike the sad Mr. Ruth), galvanizes communities to attack critical issues, is fearless in confront power – all of that just doesn’t register with the press lords. Indeed, the arrogance of the Times bosses, who disdain their own community and citizens, is worse than the craven greed of Trib owner Media General.
May 14th, 2008 at 1:14 pm
Ed and Dreaming — don’t read me wrong; I am not a slave to the print technology (although those handcrafted manuscripts are the bomb) and love online reporting and multimedia. The problem is that those formats are not yet supporting real reporting, including investigative pieces, and the biz model that did support those activities is hurting real bad. Print would die even if all that newspapers did was investigative reporting, thanks to Craig’s List, generational news consumption habit changes, and the power of the Internet to bring lots of different voices to us. My half-joking postscript about plunking down a quarter was designed to elicit exactly this kind of dialogue and to reinforce the notion that the Internet is not producing any news; it is producing views and repackaging news in exciting and funny new ways. But without the original, raw product (news dug up and reported by trained journalists), 99% of the Internet info machine grinds to halt — at least for now. In the future, that may change, but the reality is now that we have fewer reporters and less real news available to us, especially on the local level. Want to find out about Lindsay Lohan’s latest arrest? The Internet rocks. Wonder why the local city council is raising your taxes? The Internet is often mum on the subject.
May 15th, 2008 at 12:12 am
Happens that I have been reading 19th Century newspapers for a project I’m involved in, and you know what, they’re great. Lotsa news stories and a color newsfeature from time to time but not every day. The other thing that is remarkable is that all this journalism was done without any display ads, and little classified advertisements either. Just 8-pages of news. This changed around World War I with Hearst, Pulitzer, Scripps, etc. fighting it out with scandal sheets and attracting the first display ads from national companies like Sears, and more classified ads selling various medical potions and truss (how did they work?) ads. For the last 40 years or so it’s been more display ads than news, and newspaper owners got filthy rich from their publications. There were Sundays when I broke my arm getting the paper into a wheelbarrow so I could cart it into the house. Hey, so those days now are gone and everyone knows why. Unlike newspapers with their hyped circulation, advertisers know someone sees their Internet ads because of the click-through, plus they know a hell of a lot about the potential customer including his/her name from the cookies. Newspapers can’t compete against that. Craigslist has taken the classified ads for pure economic reasons that it’s free. So where do newspapers go? How about back to their roots and printing news with a business plan that relies on getting money from circulation not from ads. It’s going to mean a lot of editors aren’t going to make $250k annual salaries, and more reporting done under piece work contracts, but there will still be a business there. To get my quarter back, it’s going to have to be real news, not these inane ass-kissing trend stories, or Top Ten in Florida stories, or advertorial features. Real news. If you are a newspaperman, you ought to be cheering for this as the puritans cheered the removal of statues from the churches — it is a real root and branch cleansing that will revolutionize journalism and take it back to its purest form.
May 15th, 2008 at 1:15 am
Ed,
Thanks for your coment, it gavce me something to really think about. In all this disucssion I did not consider, recall, or think of newspapers ever being dependant on selling news alone.
Thanks for making me see a new perspective.
May 16th, 2008 at 8:58 am
Two ways to fix a nonprofitable company/paper/whatever.
1. Chop away at it until it’s a shell of itself and hope it comes back.
2. Put out a product that people want.
May 16th, 2008 at 9:53 am
I believe that the death of print journalism is a symptom of the increasing apathy amongst the younger generations. Take a look at this OP/ED piece in the Times from a few weeks ago:
http://www.tampabay.com/news/article453373.ece
It’s not that people are getting their news from sources other than print, they’re just NOT GETTING NEWS.
We can always hope that Jon Stewart will extend the Daily Show to a full hour.
May 19th, 2008 at 10:20 am
The Times has started layoffs. They aren’t calling them layoffs, but when they pay people severance, it’s not a firing. The sad part is, they are betraying the “sacred trust” that Nelson had in mind because they cater to those seeking awards and not to community journalism. Who gets let go will reveal this.
January 15th, 2009 at 6:37 am
Today Times (Jan 15, 2009) Politifact is looking at Obama’s every move. I WISH THAT THE MEDIA LOOKED AT THE BUSH ADMISTRATION WITH A FINE TOOTH COMB, MABE WE WOULD’T BE IN THE MESS WE ARE NOW !!!!! They let him get away with murder and didn’t move their butts to do a damn thing about HIM !!!!!!
This is what I think of the last gang in Washington. So What is your beef with Obama?? You all kissed up to the Bush Regime, Give this guy a chance he MAY do SOME GOOD. Are you still owned and operated (controlled) by the damn Republicans that clossed their eyes to the banking mess.
Ed from Brooksville FL