The Political Whore

In the proxy fight that Media General (owner of the Tampa Tribune and Newschannel 8) finds itself in with activist hedge fund Harbinger Capital Partners, two more pieces of bad news for the Richmond, Va.-based company.

First came news yesterday that a second proxy advisory service, ISS Governance Services, is recommending MG shareholders vote for 2 of Harbinger’s 3 outside directors in balloting at the company’s annual meeting on April 24. Harbinger owns a reported 18.2 percent of MG’s Class A stock. (The company is closely held, however, by the Bryan family through Class B stock, so no matter what happens in the election don’t expect changes any time soon.)

Harbinger is the second-largest outside shareholder. The largest outside shareholder in MG, investor Mario Gabelli with a 22 percent stake, today threw his support behind Harbinger. In a letter to MG, Gabelli wrote:

“In light of the ownership position of Harbinger, the need to launch a zero based budgeting approach to your decision-making process, and the clear lack of explanation as to the thought process behind the ill-fated and ill-timed NBC acquisition, particularly since our firm’s observation that the company should not make any acquisitions and reduce debt to maintain financial flexibility, was ignored. These factors tilt our decision to vote at the annual meeting for the Harbinger slate. This decision will be reviewed on an ongoing basis for future elections.”

He’s referring to MG’s $600 million purchase of four NBC affiliates in markets that some Wall Street observers have said make little sense.

So what does this mean for Tampa Bay? Clearly, the Tribune will continue to be published (in some form) if MG has its way, since the company called its Tampa properties the “Crown Jewel” of its mediocre empire in a recent SEC filing. But expect further, as George Costanza would say, “shrinkage.” Already, the movie critic is history and the Monday business tab is gone. Other sections have been shrunken or eliminated. More with less, that is the US news mantra these days.

But it could be even worse than that, with pressure from dissident shareholders and a deepening recession pointing to drastic cuts and even, at Harbinger’s veiled suggestion, the dumping of the newspaper. It would seem to make no sense, though, since we wonder, who would buy a lone newspaper these days? No Wall Street company would touch it with a 10-foot pole; perhaps citizen activists could come up with some local ownership group? Or let’s face it, the best potential buyer right here in our own backyard: the St. Petersburg Times. It could then put its Tampa Bay Times trademark to full use immediately and consolidate its reach and audience in the Bay area.

The other problem with a sale, from the standpoint of continuing to operate the Trib, is how would you untangle the newspaper from its converged status with Newschannel 8, which clearly would not be for sale and is profitable? The two share a common assignment desk and office space. Conventional wisdom has always been that a Times purchase of the Trib would be for the name only and would result in the end of the Tampa Tribune as a real operating newspaper.

(Ahhh, MG should have taken that Bert Sugarman deal for $1.7 billion back in the 1980s.)

Breaking news: Word from the newsroom is that the Tampa Tribune, Newschannel 8 and tbo.com are offering buyouts to employees who voluntarily would opt to retire early. Earlier this year, sources said at the time, news managers were looking to trim $3 million from the budget on South Parker Street. Half of the 1,300 Media General minions here are getting the offer, although the company has not released figures on how many will actually be shown the door, voluntarily or involuntarily.

Employees were greeted by a packet in their mail this morning explaining that the newspaper was looking for voluntary buyouts. The offer: two weeks of pay for every year of service for higher-echelon employees, one week for every year for the rest. And apparently copy editors, photogs and a few other groups are not eligible for the buyout. (Unless, one would guess, there aren’t enough volunteers for the buyout.)

No one has discussed yet the targeted number of staff reductions, but the company’s human resources folks are holding two meetings this afternoon, and editor Janet Coats is expected to address the newsroom at 5 p.m on Friday after being out of town when the initial buyout packets went out.

Workers have two weeks to decide: take the buyout benefits now or, as one person put it to me, await possible future cuts and uncertainty. “Who knows when the grim reaper comes around again,” one Trib employee told me.

Update: Deggans weighs in here. The official word from the News Center is here, with some hilarious comments.

(photo by Josh Hallett)

(photo by epicharmus) 

Not at all good times recently for the Tampa daily, with the positive-PR-challenged Supervisor of Elections Buddy Johnson able to pull the wool over its editorial board’s eyes and have an op-ed piece run by one of his (apparently legion?!?) public relations consultants, according to (say it with me) the Times:

[T]he author, Mike Foerster, didn’t mention that he is not merely a retired longtime government official. He’s a consultant being paid $75 an hour by Johnson’s office for communications and public relations services under contracts that began almost a year and a half ago.

In addition, before Foerster’s column was published in the Tampa Tribune, the newspaper asked Johnson if Foerster still worked for him. Johnson denied it, according to a top editor.

Rosemary Goudreau, the Tribune’s editorial page editor, said Friday that the newspaper decided to run Foerster’s column, in which he described himself as “director of communications for Hillsborough County for 19 years,” after determining Foerster had no relationship with the elections office.

The article criticized Trib coverage of Johnson and urged the newspaper to let up on him. This after the Trib muffed a story about another Johnson PR flack, one that led to an e-mail blast from the office:

Note to Voters of Hillsborough County

In this morning’s editorial piece, the Tampa Tribune inaccurately reported that Chief Deputy of Communications, Jennifer Marks is an employee of a public relations firm. In fact, Marks oversees communications and voter outreach and education efforts for the Supervisor of Elections Office. In a busy election year with a whole new voting system, voter education efforts are paramount and required by law. (Florida Statute 98.255(2)). All press releases put out by the Elections Office are for the purpose of informing Hillsborough County residents of important election dates and other pertinent election matters, as well as keeping the public apprized of ongoing voter outreach and education efforts.

Leaving aside the pissing match with Buddy for a second, we turn our attention to the more interesting hostile maneuvers undertaken by second-largest Media General shareholders Harbinger Capital Partners. It released on April 1 (no fool’s joke to this) its plan for “Rebuilding Value at Media General,”which focuses on expanding the board to include more outside directors to its liking:

The stock has declined 59% since we first invested ten months ago. We’re here today, nearly a year after we first became a shareholder, because we believe the time is appropriate to enhance the composition of the board in order to rebuild value for all shareholders.

We believe Media General has been falling behind its peers for years, has a consistent but consistently flawed strategy, and has made some major mistakes.

Ouch. But the truth hurts; the Bryan family’s personal fiefdom is not one of the great journalism or business stories in the U.S. Here’s what amounts to a response from Media General CEO Marshall Morton, delivered to uber-investor Mario Gabelli (another frustrated shareholder):

What we are is a content company – and, more specifically – a local content company. But it’s really more than that: we are audience aggregators. The way we make money is by connecting advertisers to local audiences. We have research-based relationships with consumers in each of our individual markets. Consumers value our information, including those advertising messages by the way.

When people want information about their communities – whether that’s news, weather, general information, entertainment information or, particularly this year, political information – we want them to think of and turn to the Media General brands in their markets. If we’re doing our jobs right, we are “local” in each of our communities.

One market we’ll talk a lot about today is Tampa. Tampa (including St. Petersburg and the 10 counties around those cities) is the 13th largest DMA in the country, and it’s the largest market in Florida. It has a population of more than 4.2 million people and nearly 1.8 million households. And, every week, we reach nearly 80% of that Tampa market with our information. No competitor or peer even comes close to that.

We do this by using many different platforms to distribute high-quality local content (when I say “high quality,” that’s personal short-hand for “timely, objective and useful”). Our platforms include The Tampa Tribune; WFLA-TV (the #1 news station in the market); our Internet portal, TBO.com; and other daily and weekly newspapers in the same market. It also includes a Spanish-language newspaper and webcast, local television shows, niche newspaper and magazine products, and information packages sent to cell phones and podcasts.

The point here is that, as technology has evolved, audiences have become more and more platform-demanding, and we have had to become increasingly platform indifferent—we give it to the consumer the way they want it: some may want to read a newspaper over breakfast, but they also want continuing access to what we offer during the rest of the day, whether they’re walking, driving, sitting at their desks at work or traveling. We can give them that, and do so with branded, trusted, differentiated and value-added information compiled by editors, reporters and other information professionals who understand, importantly, that every platform is different and may require a different presentation to work well and be relevant for the consumer at that particular place and time.

Now, everyone who’s followed us knows that we’ve gotten hammered over this past year in the Tampa market because of the real-estate induced recession that continues to deepen across Florida – and a number of other key growth markets across the country. If anyone wishes, I’m happy to talk about what we’re doing specifically in Tampa to address these conditions. But the point I want to make is that Tampa has historically been a terrific market for us, and it will be again – in part because we’ll make it so.

In the meantime, though, we’ve applied the lessons we’ve learned in Tampa in all of our other, mostly southeastern, markets. So, the “audience aggregator” point carries across all markets, the need for a multiplicity of tools carries across all markets, and the value of trusted, high-quality local news and information carries across all markets.

Harbinger, however, has another, more “final” solution in mind for Media General’s underperforming in the market, especially when it comes to the company’s newspapers:

Improve Publishing Division

Cut costs more aggressively

Implement higher standards given its underperformance

Reduce spending and apply more scrutiny to cost/benefit and payback analysis

Be opportunistic but disciplined with future acquisitions and divestitures

Most urgently, consider alternatives for Florida market properties [emphasis added]

Alternatives = fire sale.

Media General, the owner of Newschannel 8 and the Tampa Tribune, is blaming its lackluster financial performance on us right here in Florida. Specifically, Reuters reports, it’s our shitty economy that is getting the finger(pointing):

Poor economic conditions in Tampa, Florida, will contribute to Media General Inc. reporting a loss when it announces its first-quarter results, the newspaper publisher and broadcaster said on Thursday.

Media General, which publishes the Tampa Tribune, said “the recession in Tampa is so deep that we will not be able to fully offset the revenue shortfalls we are experiencing there.”

The company plans to post a loss of 40 cents to 45 cents a share from continuing operations. The figure does not include five television stations it is trying to sell.

Ahhh, nothing like a nice, deep recession.

Things aren’t as gloomy, however, for the president and CEO of Media General, Marshall N. Morton, according to the AP:

The chief executive officer of struggling newspaper publisher and television station operator Media General received executive compensation valued at more than $2 million during 2007, according to a regulatory filing Wednesday.

Marshall N. Morton, who is also president of the company, received a base salary of $925,000, almost an 18 percent increase from the year before, the company said in a filing with the Securities and Exchange Commission.

A large portion of Morton’s compensation came from the value of stock and option awards. The awards, granted Jan. 31, 2007, had a total value that day of $844,719, according to the filing.

He received no bonus, unlike in 2006, when he received $475,592.

Poor baby. No bonus last year. How will he make ends meet??

While the company has laid off employees (and many in the remaining staff are fearful of more job cuts), and eliminated news sections to save $$$, Media General is begging the FCC to allow it to consolidate print and broadcast news operations throughout the country as it does at the Newscenter in Tampa, which is grandfathered and exempt from cross-ownership regulations.

The good news, however, is that MG is bringing its female-oriented and wildly inappropriately named Skirt! publication to town, the Biz Journal tells us. Good news if you are a snarky columnist who writes about MG blunders from time to time (see: Orange.) Here’s the ad the Trib wrote recently looking for Skirt! advertising execs. Note the way-too-hip graphics, tres New Frontier:

It’s part of a national trend of scaling back business news (which doesn’t attract much in the way of advertising), but the Tampa Tribune today announced that its standalone Monday business section is history. Business news on Monday will be tucked into the A section, and some Monday features will be relegated to running every other week on Sundays.

The St. Petersburg Times had already dropped its Monday business tabloid in favor of a broadsheet section.

Both newspapers have recently had negative assessments of their financial situations discussed in their respective newsrooms, with the Trib managers looking to cut another $3 million from its expenses. The newspaper went through a round of 70-plus layoffs last year.

The Big Picture? Former Trib business writer and UNC Chapel Hill journo prof Chris Roush writes about one assessment that says business news will survive.

The parent company of the Tampa Tribune says it will downsize two positions out of its Washington operation and change its structure. Gone will be longtime national correspondent Gil Klein and MG’s military affairs reporter, James Crawley, who was set to serve as president of the national Military Reporters and Editors group. (Given the Bush administration’s openness on military intel and national security, I guess you can do without a crack military journalist.)

E&P reports that details aren’t set but the reorganization will see the four remaining positions converted to — repeat after me — multimedia journalists. Grab those video cameras on the way out the door, scribes. The changes seemed to have even those who are staying at a loss for answers:

Under the reorganization, [bureau chief Marsha] Mercer will remain, along with national correspondent Sean Mussenden and Tampa Tribune reporter Billy House. Two more “multimedia” reporters and a web producer will be added, Mercer said.

“I don’t know really where we are going, it hasn’t really been spelled out,” said House. “I am not sure I have all of the answers.”

Media General’s print division, and especially the Trib, has been taking it in the shorts in the revenue department, as I’ve outlined on several occasions. Dropping revenues were blamed earlier this year for the company laying off 70 employees in Tampa.

Tampa City Councilwoman Mary Mulhern has been leading an effort to expand the representation of the Hillsborough Environmental Protection Commission board (currently made up of only county commissioners) to include the cities as well. Two weeks ago, Mayor Pam Iorio attempted to short-circuit that effort by writing to local legislators and letting them know that she, not the City Council or Mulhern, speaks for the “City of Tampa” and that she doesn’t support messing around with the EPC.

And if Mayor Pam is against something, you know it won’t be long before the Tribune’s editorial page weighs in on Herroner’s side. So came the editorial this weekend,

Mulhern has responded and shared a copy of her letter to the Trib with PoHo. She raises several valid points overlooked by the Trib:

The recent conduct of the EPC board evidences the problems inherent in a regulatory board overseeing itself. With the board made up exclusively of County Commissioners, a conflict arises when the agency wishes to bring an action against the county.

Mulhern’s full response is posted after the break.

Read the rest of this entry »

It’s a slow news day when a lackluster town hall meeting makes 1A, but Mitt Romney managed to score that coveted spot in the St. Petersburg Times after his “Ask Mitt Anything” session Monday.

The Times ran a large picture on the front page and then a full story on the metro front. That’s no surprising given that Mitt’s main support in Tampa Bay is centered in Pinellas County, where Mayor Rick Baker holds great favor and is also the Florida Co-Chairman for the Romney campaign.

The Tampa Tribune played the story in Metro — on page 3.

The Giuliani campaign was able to wrest away a bit of Romney’s news coverage by leaking word of Rudy’s endorsement by former Tampa mayor and Florida governor Bob Martinez for the weekend Trib online. It formally released the info to the rest of the media Monday morning, eating up more of the blogosphere cycle in advance of Romney’s appearance.

Depressing in its sameness, the latest monthly statement from Media General, which owns the Tampa Tribune, WFLA TV and TBO.com is another bummer for the daily newspaper.

The company’s publishing division revenues are off nearly 13 percent from a year ago, mostly due to dismal performances (financially, that is) in Tampa. Media General’s news release today says:

“The economic downturn in Florida continues to hamper our Tampa operations. This situation is affecting the performance of all three divisions as a result of lower results at The Tampa Tribune, WFLA-TV, and TBO.com,” said Marshall N. Morton, president and chief executive officer. “We have implemented a performance improvement plan in Tampa to better align expenses with the current revenue environment, as previously announced, and we are assessing other opportunities.

(”Assessing other opportunities” translates to “looking for even more ways to cut costs” in the aftermath of 70 layoffs earlier this year.) The release continues:

“Publishing Division results in May reflected continued significant weakness in Classified advertising. We were very disappointed to see the Retail category decline, a reflection of major retailers holding back on spending in virtually every market. We saw a few bright spots in May, including increases in real estate Classified advertising in Richmond, a market that has not yet been severely affected by the national housing downturn. In addition, National revenues increased at The Richmond Times- Dispatch, the Winston-Salem Journal and in our community newspaper group; however, these increases were offset by a decline at The Tampa Tribune,” said Mr. Morton.

“To mitigate the effect of the advertising downturn, in addition to Tampa’s performance improvement plan, we have frozen hiring on most open positions, except sales jobs, which we are accelerating our efforts to fill. We are reducing discretionary spending wherever possible and have asked all of our properties to accelerate new product introductions and intensify their focus on new revenue development,” said Mr. Morton.

How bad is the Trib dragging down the Richmond-based public company? Consider this: Classified ads are off 38 percent at the Tribune vs. 3-3.5 percent at MG’s other newspapers.

And finally, for those worrying about how this will impact the quality of the newspaper, fear not, for MG tells us:

All Media General newspapers have implemented content enhancement programs to drive readership.

Since the Tampa Tribune laid off 70 employees in April, I’ve heard from some suvivors of those cuts that they expect another round this fall, that they’ve been all but told to expect it by their bosses. If the latest Media General financials for the month of April are any indication, there are indeed rougher times ahead.

The April revenue report continues to show that the Trib is a tremendous drag on Media General’s publishing division, where revenues were down 6.5 percent in April 2007 vs. one year ago. All other Media General divisions made money; the fledgling revenues of the online division even rose by more than one-third over April 2006.

Some lowlights from the report, released last week:

• Classified advertising revenues — jobs, auto and real estate mostly — at the Trib were 35 percent lower than one year ago.
• National display ads were up 11 percent, thanks to heavy spending by Verizon to tout its new fiber optic services.
• Ad linage — the number of column inches of ads sold in April 2007 — was down 24 percent over a year ago. It’s down that same percentage on a year-to-date basis.
• Tribune revenues were down 15 percent overall.

That kind of bad financial news has combined with the voluntary departure of Trib writers such as Michael Fechter, Mari Robyn Jones (night cops reporter, going to grad school after some travel) and Richard Lardner (military affairs, got a national job with the Associated Press) to create a pall among some Trib scribes.

Finally, there is digital hope:

• The good news: The Trib’s online sister, TBO.com, posted up a 35 percent increase in page views, to more than 22 million in the month of April. The downside: Online revenues are a fraction of the $$ brought in by the publishing and broadcasting divisions. In other words, readers are finding news and info online; but advertisers aren’t buying it — yet.

(Note: The St. Petersburg Times is a privately held company and doesn’t release its financial performance, so no comparison with the Trib’s numbers.)

For those who were worried that the Tampa Tribune would not be able to produce quality journalism given its recent layoffs of 70 employees, fear no more.

Today’s editions bring an amazing tale from Lakeland about police efforts to apprehend … two young boys who stole a box of Trojan condoms.

Now, this account raises a few questions:

• What, exactly, is “pretty bizarrre” about the case, police spokeswoman? Were the boys Republicans or something?
• How does Crime Stoppers manage to pay anything to someone who turns in these scofflaws when the total value of the goods in question was just $6.49? Do you get a cut of that? Or like 2-3 condoms from the box for your troubles? Crime Stoppers pays up to $2,000 for info, but police spokeswoman says “she doubts such a large reward would be offered to catch the condom thief.”
• Is crime so low in Lakeland that cops there don’t have anything else to do but muster the full strength of the hyperlocal, converged media to find these master criminals?
• Does Sears Essentials want the condoms back if these guys are caught?
• Are we going to teach these boys a lesson or what?
• Or maybe, given their obvious need for the condoms, they could teach us a thing or two?

Short of the Pulitzer Prize, as a print journalist you want to win big awards such as the ASNE’s or the Green Eyeshade, which is given for Southeastern journalism by the Society for Professional Journalists. The St. Petersburg Times was the biggest local winner, with six awards that included two first places finishes.

While all but one of the Times‘ awards came in the print catetory, Media General’s TBO.com was dominant in the online section, winning one first place and four second places. Media General (which owns Newschannel 8 the Tampa Tribune) simply can’t compete with the better-financed Times and has chosen, instead, to put its journalistic juice into its online future.

Bay News 9 and ABC Action News won awards in the television category; Tampa Bay radio was shut out.

The Times won:

Read the rest of this entry »

Quick hit, running out to do Studio 10 this morning, talking about CL’s Summer Guide issue:

• You can’t say “crap” in the St. Petersburg Times (fourth graf). You can say”shyster.”
•  Trib editorial: Veto anti-growth management bills.
• Stanton in Sarasota.
• Jay Rosen and Neil Lewis go at it over “defining the scope” of a story.
• Just admit you’re liberal, there’s nothing wrong with that.
• The end of a very productive era at Fox 13: Phil Metlin leaving.
• Giuliani goes full-blown pr0-choice … cuz of Florida.
• Ron Paul is more popular than Paris Hilton.

One day after what he terms a “chaotic” departure from the Tampa Tribune, where he wrote for 17 years, Michael Fechter was taking it easy, lounging around the house and (at my request) reflecting on his career at the daily.

Fechter was one of the longest-serving hard news journalists left in the paper’s Metro section (along with folks such as Lindsay Peterson and William March). And while he has had his share of high-profile stories, it is the series of pieces he did on Sami Al-Arian that will forever define his career there.

The stories have been so controversial in some quarters (perhaps nowhere more so than in the pages of Creative Loafing) that Fechter’s departure warranted news stories in both morning dailies.

He is going to become editor-in-chief of Steven Emerson’s Investigative Project on Terrorism website. In a news release sent out late last night, Fechter was quoted:

“My decision to join the Investigative Project is based on the simple
fact that no other organization does a better job of researching and
investigating worldwide Islamist terrorist groups. Steve Emerson and his highly professional staff have consistently been ahead of the curve, even alerting the CIA and FBI to terrorism connections. At this critical juncture in our history, I consider their work to be crucial to our national security.”

This morning I got to speak at further length with Fechter, and here is a partial Q&A of our conversation:

Q: How did it come about that you joined Steven Emerson’s company?
A: “I thought it was time to move on, and was trying to figure out what I could do in the world beyond work for the Tampa Tribune, and I want to stay in Tampa for family reasons. I heard about this job and asked if it could be telecommuting.”

Q: Does the fact that you are going to work for Emerson, who is so identified as a critic of Al-Arian’s, taint your work in the eyes of the general public?
A: “It’s funny because it depends on which reader you speak of and how much overlap there may be [in terms of which newspapers they read]. If you read the Tampa Tribune and not you guys [Creative Loafing], you wonder why there is a story in the paper today.”

Q: What stories are you most proud of in your body of work?
A: “I’m proud of the Al-Arian stories and the paper’s commitment to it. In the same sense, its not the only thing I did. It just happened to play out the longest.” [He also cited his work investigating Greater Ministries and raising questions about the leader of the effort to bring the USS Forrestal to Tampa.]

Q: What do you say to the critics of his Al-Arian stories, which they call anti-Muslim and biased?
A: “It’s silly, it’s just plain silly, and your colleague [Creative Loafing's senior group editor John Sugg] is just plain silly in what he says and does. A lot of this debate has been people distorting what I wrote and what I did. We wrote that Sami had connections to people and groups that he lied about for a decade, and one of the entities that he lied to was his employer. [Fechter said the trial proved that was correct.]

“[For those who say my departure calls for a revisitation of the stories I wrote on Al-Arian,] knock yourself out, because it’s a paper trail.”

“[In the matter of his brother-in-law, Mazen Al-Najjar, and his deportation hearings, Al-Arian] was lying about who [Al-Najjar] was. Did he break the law? I’ll respect the jury verdict, but he lied.”

For years, the family of imprisoned former USF professor Sami Al-Arian insisted that their nemesis and most dogged chronicler, Tampa Tribune investigative reporter Michael Fechter, was doing the bidding of anti-Arab forces.

Today, they got some more ammo for their argument in the news that Fechter has resigned from the paper to take a job working for Al-Arian critic Steven Emerson.

“It just proves what we’ve known and asserted all along,” said Laila Al-Arian, Sami’s daughter. “I can say we’re not surprised by it.”

Trib editor Janet Coats confirmed Fechter’s resignation and said his last day is today. He could not be reached for comment.

Other longtime critics of Fechter’s work were abuzz with the news. One, Ahmed Bedier of the Council on American-Islamic Relations, said, “The Tampa Tribune should revisit his work and act accordingly.” He characterized Fechter’s reporting on Al-Arian as unobjective and slanted. “Fechter was not serving journalism but was serving the interests of an anti-Muslim agenda.”

Read the rest of this entry »