By Jim Johnson
PoHo contributor and founder of The State of Sunshine blog

Jack Shafer has an excellent piece on Slate.com about the real impact Americans will see when newspapers across the country stop.

His article, Life After Newspapers: Learning from the 1962-63 New York newspaper strike, includes good insight:

No conversation about newspapers’ dismal present is complete without some anguished mention of how democracy will go off the rails unless the press is there to set it straight … But even though the 1962-63 strike upended New York, neither the dozen newspaper accounts I’ve read about the strike nor the histories or memoirs from the era that I’ve pulled down from my shelf make it sound as though democracy and governance disappeared when the New York dailies’ lights went out.

Instead, journalists and publishers improvised, and readers, parched for news, features, entertainment, and advertising, experimented with finding new sources.

This time, however, the new sources are not the solution they are actually the problem.

Jeff Jarvis, author of BuzzMachine, has a saying: “If the news is that important, it will find me.” To some extent I agree.

Journalism, and the larger news world, will not disappear. But it will change. I will get my news from a number of places — each with a particular specialty.

The future of a news organization, be it mainstream (Tampa Tribune, St. Petersburg Times, or WTSP Channel 10) or an alternative media (Creative Loafing), will be the same. Find a niche and specialize. Stop trying to cast a wide net by providing news that is a mile wide and an inch deep… be THE source for a subject or very narrow range of related subjects, and readers will be there in droves. Being just like every other organization, reporting everything to everyone, is a losing proposition.

News organizations are scared. Darn scared. The revolution is coming and only a few will survive.

Here is Ziegler (whose last journalistic effort was built on his allegation that the Clintons got his “The Path to 9/11″ film suppressed by Disney) and his account of the Palin “get:”

If someone would have told me five months ago that in early January I would pay over $1,400 for an incredibly inconvenient plane ticket and $120 for a 3 am cab fare to get from sunny Los Angeles to Wasilla, Alaska, I would have told them there was a better chance that the Dow Jones would be below 9,000 and a gallon of gas would be less than two dollars.

If they would have told me that I would be glad I made the journey (even with a seven-hour, weather-aided, stop in Seattle), I would have told them Sarah Palin had a better chance to be John McCain’s running-mate. Of course, as well all now know, all that turned out to be true. And even though I still have the flu I got just before the trip, I am thrilled I got to experience -11 degrees in Alaska.

Obviously, I went there to interview Governor Palin for my forthcoming documentary on the media coverage of the 2008 election. My understanding is that the only reason that Governor Palin did this interview (while rejecting hundreds of other requests) is simply because she has a sincere devotion to setting the record straight on what really happened during the campaign and determining why the news coverage was as dangerously slanted as it so clearly was.

Largely because of absurd claims by Democrats that she was violating ethics rules by answering campaign questions on state grounds (one of several ways in which the Democrats there, who used to love her, are now totally invested in the “take Sarah Palin down” industry), we did the interview at the Palin home. At 9 am, without a security guard or handler within sight, Bristol Palin, eight days removed from giving birth, politely answered the door and Governor Palin, not yet fully put together, rushed out to tell me and our crew to make ourselves at home.

One of the things you quickly learn when you visit the Palins is that the legend that has been created around who they are and how they live is no myth. It appears to be absolutely real and everything about them seems 100% sincere. From the stuffed hunting trophies on the wall, to the Track’s military photo by the TV set, to Piper’s crayon school projects on the kitchen cabinets, everything is exactly as you imagine it might be.

What was particularly valuable about the perspective I had was that, I am not Charlie Gibson, Matt Lauer or Greta Van Susteren (who I understand now gets her mail delivered to the Palin home); the conductors of the three most prominent interviews done in the Wasilla house on the frozen lake at the end of the drive that has the sign “Palins” posted on a tree at the entrance. Unlike them, I am virtually unknown nationally and there was absolutely no reason for anything to be done differently as a “show” for us. We saw the genuine Sarah Palin and it is patently obvious that this is the only one that exists. She is the real deal.

As a former TV sportscaster and radio talk show host, I have interviewed a lot big-time “celebrities,” and I can honestly say that, even though you could argue that Sarah Palin was the most prominent I have ever spoken to one-on-one, she was also by far the nicest, most sincere and, seemingly, honest subject that I have ever questioned.

For context, I admit to being a fan of Sarah Palin from before she was ever named John McCain’s VP candidate. I attended her convention speech and consider it to be by far the finest that I have ever personally witnessed. But, being a world-class cynic, I also wondered if maybe there was at least some truth the to the negative media narrative that had been created about her. Maybe she really wasn’t that smart, maybe she was indeed a “diva” or a “wack job.” Well, if anything of those smears are remotely true, Palin should move here to LA permanently because she is a far better actor (not to mention better looking) than the vast majority of actresses in Hollywood.

For those who haven’t seen it, here is the initial trailer of Ziegler’s disingenuous attempt to make Obama voters look stupid:

Ziegler seems to be aiming at some legit points and criticisms: the power of popular culture images to supplant the truth (Tina Fey’s imitation of Palin vs. the real Palin), the horrible MSM handling of the wild Trig-Bristol-baby rumors, etc. But this documentary appears to be aimed more at mocking than finding truths.

• Cheatin’ Congressman Tim Mahoney’s wife files for divorce.
• And the political media consulting firm caught up in the mess complains.
• Mel Martinez compares Obama’s tax plan to Castro’s Cuba.
• LAT plans redesign launch next week.
• Obama drew 40,000 to Orlando rally.
• Or 50,000, take your choice.
• McCain headed to rally in Sarasota.
• Todd Palin NOT headed to Pensacola (apparently there is no snowmobiling in the Panhandle, he found out at the last minute).
• Our idiot attorney general and his ongoing war against ex-felons trying to regain normal lives.
• The Rose Garden strategy a la Ginny Brown-Waite
• Here’s a Sarah Palin animation from former Tampa Tribune artist David O’Keefe:

It is the unfortunate direction of all print media. Newspapers, magazines, and such media depend on advertising to survive. Why would someone want to pay $10-30 for 3-4 lines of text in classified advertising when a free ad with unlimited text, anonymized response links (so unknowns do not call your home), and multiple photos on a place like Craig’s List [tampa.craigslist.com]? The Tribune, TBT, and Creative Loafing still get more overall local readers, but until they update, they cannot compete. One would think by now the Tribune would even have special links in the ads so that those that pay to list them can have pictures added online.

I like Creative Loafing because of the activity listings and local stories (the Tribune seems to have little real local content that isn’t focused on car crashes, press releases, or celebrity news). When is the last time anyone recalls the Tribune really doing an in-depth, politically dangerous expose on any subject? They did have a long article regarding accidental arson in Plant City years ago, but I wouldn’t really term that as an expose. — comment on tbo.com

Eric Deggans reports on a dispute between CL and one of the investors who financed the Chicago-Washington purchase last year:

Despite a story on the Washington City Paper Web site quoting Creative Loafing Inc. president Ben Eason saying “this filing has little to do with the acquisition,” documents included with the bankruptcy filing indicate the company had trouble keeping up with payments on a $30-million loan taken last year to pay down $15-million in debts and to purchase the two newspapers.

According to documents included with the bankruptcy filing, Creative Loafing missed an interest payment of $282,219 on Dec. 24, a $10,000 servicing fee on Dec. 31 and an interest payment of $294,369 due Jan. 24.

Also according to the documents, as the media economy grew worse, Creative Loafing negotiated agreements to modify the financing terms with Atalaya Funding in New York and BIA Digital Partners. But last week, Atalaya said the company was in default, though Creative Loafing disagrees, according to the court document.

Creative Loafing has asked the court to prevent Atalaya or Atalaya and BIA from taking control of the company, allowing Eason to focus on reorganizing to better meet its debt obligations and develop the online revenue sources prompting the Reader and City Paper purchases.

From Erik Wemple, editor at our sister Washington City Paper:

The move does contain good news for editorial departments in the chain. Eason announced that cuts to edit staffs at all the papers would be rolled back but stressed that all the papers should proceed with “Web-first” publishing strategies, in which writers and editors customize their content for the Internet and subsequently transfer that content into their print products.

From The Business Journal in Tampa Bay:

The bankruptcy filing comes the same day Creative Loafing sued Atalaya Administrative LLC, Atalaya Funding II LP and BIA Digital Partners SBIC II LP asking a judge to stop a default on $40 million in loans. In the suit, filed with the same court, Creative Loafing said the lenders failed to act in good faith when they refused to negotiate lowering the financial covenants. Without the injunction, Creative Loafing says it has no other options in stopping the default, as it would be “too late to save the debtors’ businesses, reputation, and close-knit and effective management.”

From paidcontent.org at Washington Post:

Likely means the BIA funding went south, somewhere along the line, as of course did the company’s fortunes. The company also denies any connection between the acquisitions last year and Ch 11, and says there won’t be any major layoffs…lotsa spin in there, if you ask me.

From our sister Chicago Reader:

In a telephone conversation with executives of his newspapers, Eason sounded relentlessly chipper, and he emphasized that all his company seeks from bankruptcy is the opportunity to restructure its debts. Liquidation is not being considered. “This is a profitable business,” he declared. “The company has a good cash flow. It has a good market position. Online revenues more than doubled in the last year.” But print revenues have fallen off dramatically over the past year at Creative Loafing and throughout the newspaper business. He said in the past three months total revenues were down 10 to 15 percent from the same months a year ago.

The douchebags at Philebrity:

Food for thought: So Creative Loafing, an alt-weekly chain/parent company thing that mostly covers cities you would not live in with even with somebody else’s dick, totally screwed the pooch and declared bankruptcy so that its papers — including Washington City Paper — can better “focus” their efforts online. You can see where we might be going with this: With the Philadelphia Weekly having been rumored to have slashed its freelance budget entirely (no shit! more on this later!) and the City Paper spectacularly lunching its most spectacular issue of the feckackular year, is this a trend that might look juicy to guys like Paul Curci and Anthony Clifton? Our guess: Not yet, but it will.

The Gawker:

This may be just a foreshadowing of some painful days to come for alt-weeklies in general—we also hear the Village Voice may be on the verge of some layoffs.

Consider this from the morning’s account on TBO, annoucing Favre’s Jets deal:

Though the Bucs were once believed to be the favorites to land quarterback Brett Favre … [emphasis added]

Who once believed that?  The story doesn’t say. It, in fact, uses the waffle-word “believed” on four occasions, believing what the Bucs may have offered for Favre, believing what the Jets did offer for the QB, etc.

Even as the trade was being completed with the Jets, the Trib’s sports reporters were posting up a video of themselves circle-jerking about the notion that Favre could be coming here. Ira Kaufman says, “I expect Favre in pewter.”  That vid drew stinging responses within two hours of its posting last night, as shown in these two comments:

Posted by  Steve,  on 08/06  at  11:54 PM

So much for that report, Trib. Jay Glazer of FOX Sports just trumped you with the story about Favre traded to the JETS … not the BUCS.

Hey clowns … still think he’s coming to Tampa?

Posted by  James Thomas, Seminole on 08/06  at  11:45 PM

Well said James, Cory and Steve.

The Tampa Tribune is a laughing stock.

We all knew Cummings and Kaufman were a couple of dueches but now the whole country gets a taste of the sour puss we’ve feed all this time now.

These flakes should both be fired as well as the editor.

And on the 11 p.m. Newschannel 8 telecast last night, before the Jets deal hit the news wires, one viewer tells me the anchors were touting the number of hits that tbo.com was getting on its Favre coverage.

That followed this from yesterday’s TBO coverage early Wednesday:

LAKE BUENA VISTA – His feelings seemingly too hurt to return to the Green Bay Packers, iconic quarterback Brett Favre was close to finalizing an agreement Tuesday that could make him a Buccaneer as soon as today.

A deal between the two teams was nearing completion after Favre had substantive talks with the Bucs, a source close to the negotiations said.

Today, we come to find out that is hooey. The Times reports:

General manager Bruce Allen said the Bucs never made an offer for quarterback Brett Favre because the Green Bay Packers refused to trade him to an NFC team.

Allen acknowledged that the Bucs did receive permission to talk to Favre, but said they were one of 18 teams that were granted that right.

“”There was no negotiations,” Allen said. “There was never any substantive talk about what they would take to trade him. So all of that was speculation. From the beginning, I think it was clear it was a bad situation in Green Bay and they had to deal with it any way they could.

“Green Bay never told us what they were even interested in trading him for,” Allen said.

Here’s how TBO justified the hype: trade rumors were “fueled” by the absence of the Bucs GM from training camp earlier this week and the fact that backup Brian Griese was given the day off as well. He was rumored to be trade bait. And, of course, there was Jon Gruden’s refusal to comment on the whole mess, which, of course, was taken as a confirmation:

Also fueling speculation was the Bucs continued refusal to quell the Favre-to-Tampa rumors. Coach Jon Gruden even went so far as to say early last week that a proclamation of that nature would be “unfair to Brett Favre.”

The Times, in contrast, consistently played the “possibility” that Favre could become a Buc more appropriately. The story of Favre not coming wasn’t even featured high atop tampabay.com; it occupied one of the rotating images well down the screen.

I know, I know, I am Monday morning quarterbacking (pun intended), but this is sloppy and hyped journalism from the company that is “Pewter Partners” with the Bucs, whose sports reporters appear alongside football players in TV commercials pimping the team and the newspaper’s coverage. So a lack of objectivity and distance from the story isn’t surprising at all. Just embarrassing as hell.

The Los Angeles Times has made plans to transfer control of its monthly magazine from its newsroom to its business operations and to replace the magazine’s entire editorial staff, according to two executives at the newspaper.

The arrangement would flout the tradition at most newspapers, which keep business operations, like advertising and circulation, completely separate from the editorial department, which controls decisions about the contents of news and feature pages.

The plan for the magazine was set in motion months ago. A new editor and others were hired, future issues were planned, and mock-up covers were made — all without the knowledge of anyone in the newsroom, including the top editor, Russ Stanton, the executives said. Mr. Stanton and other high-ranking editors learned of the plan last week, they said.

That on the heels of the latest memo from Tribune Co. owner Sam Zell, which is both biz-brilliant and journo-terrifying. Here it is in full on the jump:

Partners,

Instead of recapping our first quarter numbers, which you can see in our news release online, we want to get to the heart of what we’re sure all of you are focused on after our earnings call today – our discussion around the changing business model for publishing.

What has become clear as we have gotten intimately familiar with the business is that the model for newspapers no longer works. Supply and demand are not in balance, and that manifests itself in two ways:

1. We are not giving readers what they want, and

2. We are printing bigger papers than we can afford to print

First, our publishing business – and to reiterate, it IS a business – needs to retool itself to a customer-centric model. We have now reviewed dozens of reader studies done by Tribune over the years, and they present clear and consistent findings. Readers want:

- Unbiased, honest journalism
- LOCAL consumer and community news
- Maps, graphics, lists, ranking and stats

Some of our papers do some of these things well, and some of our papers do them better than others. But, ALL of our papers need to improve in this area. We’re in the business of satisfying customers, and we WILL respond to what they say they want.

The first paper to embrace this new customer-centric design will be the Orlando Sentinel, and it will debut on June 22. You’ll see all of our papers incorporate some level of redesign by the end of September.

Second, we must also strategically align the size of the paper we produce with what advertisers want. We will be assuming a 50/50 ad-to-editorial ratio base as a floor to right-size our papers. With that benchmark we can significantly scale back the size of the papers we print, and take significant costs out of our operating run rate.

We must find the balance between producing excellent products and producing products we can afford. And, we will find it.

We’d also like to mention interactive, which will be a primary source of revenue in our future. We are in the final stage of developing a platform for our websites that will enable us to take advantage of all the opportunities on the web – from e-commerce to social networking to selling key words and other activities.

This new product will come to each of the business units fully loaded and ready for prime time. It will be a simple tool kit that is pre-populated, but you’ll be able to customize and design it for your market, and your individual audiences. But the new sites will come with a budget, and with the expectation that they will be fully leveraged to generate revenue.

The new websites will roll out to the TV stations first, and we expect this phase to be completed by the end of August. Within the coming year, our papers will have transitioned to the new sites as well. You can preview a sample of this product line at KPLR-TV in St. Louis at cw11tv.com.

We started this year by rattling the cages, and since then we’ve continued to reinforce the urgency for change. We expect by now you understand the ‘do-or-die’ challenge that has been placed in front of us. We now have a roadmap to turn that challenge into opportunity.

Sam & Randy

Newschannel 8 anchor Keith Cate: He gets off to a bad start using the term “disenfranchised” in his first question about Florida’s delegate issue, a loaded word that is straight out of the Clinton campaign but that does get a rise out of Obama. His question about a possible role for Tampa Mayor Pam Iorio in an Obama administration is a bit ridiculous, given Iorio’s late-to-the-party endorsement today. And three questions about the delegate issue? On the upside, as with all the TV interviews done yesterday, raw video is posted in its entirety, and Cate does get a rise out of Obama right off the start. Grade=C+

St. Petersburg Times’ Adam C. Smith: We got only a preview of Smith’s one-on-one in The Buzz blog last night, but the full interview this AM shows Smith gets more out of Obama on the delegate issue than Cate:

Does the popular vote in Florida count for anything, we asked Sen. Barack Obama on the ride from Tampa to Orlando: “Look, I think it’s fair to say that in all these races if I didn’t campaign at all and this had just been a referendum on name recognition, Sen. Clinton would be the nominee. That’s true in Iowa, that’s true in practically every state we’ve won. It’s pretty hard to make an argument that somehow you winning what is essentially a name recognition contest in Florida was a good measure of electoral strength there. It”s even tougher to make that argument in Michigan where my name wasn’t even on the ballot.

Obama even goes so far as to say he would support seating half the Florida delegation. The story dwells too long on the delegate issue and summarizes other issues in bullets that pretty much follow the paper’s editorial from the day before. The Times posted audio of the interview, although it is poor sound quality. How about a full transcript? Grade=A-

The Tampa Tribune’s William March: Not much made it onto the website yesterday, only this snippet at the end of his blog post about the speech, which March termed a “standard stump speech:”

“All I did was play exactly by the rules that were laid out for me,” he said in an interview afterward.

And the next day wasn’t much better as tbo.com featured Cate’s lukewarm interview instead of March’s one-on-one. March’s interview was folded into the larger speech coverage story, with excerpts like this surfacing only occassionally:

“I will do what is required to win Florida,” he said in an interview on his campaign bus after the Tampa event. “That’s why we’re here for three days, and we’re going to be here a lot more days.”

No video, no transcript, no separate story. I don’t blame the reporter; clearly the bias at the News Center was to put the high-profile anchor up front. So much for Media General’s argument that convergence will produce better information for the public. Grade=D (Combined grade for Newschannel 8-Trib converged one-on-one coverage=C)

Tampa Bay’s 10 Mario Diaz: I was fully prepared not to like this interview, posted raw and in its entirety, since Diaz didn’t do much to distinguish himself as the morning show host and has been off that show and largely off the air for months as his contract runs its course. The fact that he started off with some softballs didn’t help. But his format of asking viewer-submission questions actually worked pretty well, except for the fact that he never presses Obama for further details and wedges in so many questions that none of the answers go much below the surface. And what the hell is that strange moaning from off-camera in the middle of the interview that distracted Obama?? Grade=B-

ABC Action News’ Brendan McLaughlin: Like Newschannel 8, the ABC affiliates sends its top anchor in to do the job. My disclaimer right up front: I appear frequently on McLaughlin’s Flashpoint and count him as a friend. His interview starts very informally as both men talk about how their father and grandfather both served in World War II and could “have slogged through the mud together.” The formal questions have only just started when the momentum is broken by Obama’s getting “a frog in my throat” and calling for some bottled water (environmentalist alert!) and joking “ribbit.” McLaughlin then hits Obama squarely with a McCain assertion that Obama is soft on communism in Cuba. McLaughlin is one of the better interviewers in the area and shows his chops in this session, and he only stumbles once, losing his train of thought after a question about oil drilling of Florida’s Gulf coast. I especially liked the way he asked the requisite Hillary question. My biggest complaint is that the full interview is posted in parts on the station’s website and is hard to find. Grade=B (loses points for bad presentation online with ads separating sections of the interview and the interview end being cut off’; use the scrolling menu just below the video player on the right of the home page to find the raw interview footage)

Fox 13: Doesn’t look like the station did a one-on-one. Grade=F

But the chief reason for the Iowa effect is an explosion of media coverage that treats the winners as superstars and the also-rans as lamentable losers. Without that massive media boost, prevailing in Iowa would be seen for what it is: an important first victory that amounts to scoring a run in the top of the first inning.

“It stinks,” says veteran political reporter Jack Germond. “The voters ought to have time to make a considered decision, and the press ought to be a little less poll-driven, and we’re not.” Between the coverage and the hyper-compressed campaign calendar, he says, “the whole system this year is absolutely a disgrace.”

Germond is a famously obese old-school journalist who is right. Look at Florida, where substantive coverage of Democratic presidential candidates has dropped dramatically since the delegate flap emerged and candidates were barred from coming here to deliver message (picking up cash is still OK, after all, the Democrats might be stupid but they ain’t crazy). Without a “news hook” of the candidate being in town, mainstream media – especially broadcast television – is at a loss as to how to cover the issues and positions held by each candidate. I recall a time when presidential primaries rolled out at a pace that the public could comprehend and that the media could allow to unfold, with early losses not necessarily knocking a candidate out of contention. Hell, Bobby Kennedy didn’t even jump into the 1968 presidential primary race until March of election year, after LBJ came up lame in New Hampshire against Eugene McCarthy.

Dubya campaigns in Iowa, 2000 (Photo: Time/Brooks Kraft)

Today, in contrast, many pundits figure Fred Thompson waited too long because he didn’t get into the Republican race (officially at least) until Sept. 6 of the YEAR BEFORE the primary vote. (Plus, contrast the speech RFK gave laying out his presidential vision with the Rear Admiral’s announcement on The Tonight Show. Really sad how far we have de-evolved, politically.)

The reality is our primary season will last less than a month, from Jan. 3-Feb. 5, when the dominant candidates on each side will emerge from SuperDuper Tuesday balloting in 21 states. Somebody recently asked me at a speech I gave whether all the current Democratic candidates will be on the Florida ballot by the time we vote Jan. 29. The answer is, in name only. Only 2-3 will still be truly viable by that time, even if all their names are already slated to appear on the ballot, because media distortion will make it impossible for many to raise money once they lose in Iowa, NH, Nevada or SC.

The question is: Is the US better informed because we’ve stretched the presidential primary season by at least 12 months? The answer is: No. In fact, we’re less informed as media and voter fatigue with the horse race, the polling, and fundraising has overcome our capacity to remain focused on the issues. All we’ve done is force candidates to create multimillion-dollar operations that employ all kinds of political consultants and operatives nearly without interruption from one campaign cycle to the next. Sweet deal for those who make a living out of this multibillion-dollar industry.

Remind me why I got out of political consulting?