Shoot the Messenger

San Jose Guild Meeting

2006-09-25T21:37:00.000-07:00

"The Guild contended that the future of the Mercury News depends, in large part, on long-term investment in current employees, rather than on cutbacks."
-Guild

With Singletown Singleton about to suck the life-blood out of the Mercury News, the paper's union is holding a key meeting on the issue:
Membership Meeting
6:00 p.m. Wednesday, Sept. 27, 2006. Electrical Joint Apprenticeship Training Center908 Bern Court. San Jose Map From MN

And of course most of the newspaper's readers are unaware how dire the situation is, since the Mercury News so far has yet to print one word about it-classic example of ownership control of information.
For more on the issue read:
http://www.contentbridges.com/2006/09/the_future_arri.html

Singleton Sharpens the Knife

2006-09-21T23:44:00.000-07:00

"Singletown" Singleton let it be known there is a new sheriff in town at the San Jose Mercury News. According to the guild,"Mercury News management opened bargaining today with a proposal that wouldcreate a two-tier pay scale, eliminate the pension plan, increase healthcare costs and cut many other contractual benefits and protections."
The guild also said the MediaNews proposals include:

In the event of layoffs, management reserves the sole right to determinewho is fired
Creating a two-tier wage system by keeping Guild members under the currentscale, but bringing in new hires at a scale management described as"market-rate"
Eliminate the defined benefit pension plan and replace it with a 401kplan
Eliminate all jurisdiction protections to essentially allow non-Guildmembers at other MediaNews Group papers to perform our work
Remove Sacramento Bureau employees as well as 35 lower-level editors innews, sports and business, and six additional business side employees
Advertising sales employees could be fired or disciplined if they do notmeet company-set goals in three consecutive months, or in four months in a12-month period

In response the guild said they will challenge these proposals and plan to meet with their members by the end of the month.

LA Times Resists Staff Cuts

2006-09-17T22:24:00.000-07:00

"To make substantial reductions would significantly damage the quality of the paper."
-Dean Baquet

In a rare piece of good news for print journalism, LA Times editor Dean Baquet has resisted his bosses demands for staff cuts. After 200 job cuts at the LA Times in the last five years Baquet told Times' management more staffers were needed to provide quality coverage of local, national and international issues.

Santa Cruz Sentinel up for sale

2006-09-15T17:47:00.000-07:00

In this week's sign of the Bay Area media apocalypse, MediaNews is bidding for the Santa Cruz Sentinel-formerly owened by the Wall Street Journal. Bids are to be announced in a month.

New York Times on Knight Ridder breakup

2006-09-12T23:27:00.000-07:00

"Today, many people in the newspaper industry are still scratching their heads over how and why a company with relatively high profit margins and a trophy case of 85 Pulitzer Prizes allowed itself to be wiped off the media landscape. "
Kathryn Seelye, New York Times

Kathryn Seelye explores in depth the demise of Knight Ridder in what she calls a cautionary tale tale, writing "Historically, the newspaper industry has produced even higher [profit] margins [of 20 %], which helped to raise expectations of investors ... despite the industry's problems. "

Seelye points out the role of the Internet in these problems. That role could get worse if legal ads are allowed to be published online and if the housing market-whose print ads help prop up local papers-also takes a dive.

FCC

2006-09-10T22:59:00.000-07:00

A little ironic its published in Media News' San Jose Mercury News but good to see the FCC is getting around to looking at media monopoly issues (in LA Oct. 3). If the FCC did something about media monopoly issues that would perhaps be even better news ...

Nosey News

2006-08-31T23:49:00.000-07:00

Now that MediaNews is officially in control of its Bay Area newspaper acquisitions changes in the old papers can be expected. Word on the beat is new MediaNews flagship the SJ Mercury News is nosing around the former ANG papers, sniffing out adverstising accounts. The Merc has taken over a lot of advertising accounts in at the Silicon Valley Comm. Newspapers in the South Bay and started running their articles too in the Valley section, perhaps ANG is next.

Menage a Trois

2006-08-27T22:19:00.000-07:00

"It does not appear that these transactions will result in a substantial reduction in competition."
Cal. Attorney General Bill Lockyer

With the sale of McClatchy's Bay Area papers to MediaNews officially okayed last week, MediaNews now owns three of the Bay Area's biggest papers, the San Jose Mercury News, Contra Costa Times and Oakland Tribune. It's also making bedroom eyes at the biggest-the San Francisco Chronicle. Chronicle owners plan to give MediaNews two papers in Monterey and St. Paul in exchange for a 3o percent of MediaNews operations outside the Bay Area. With all this journalism foreplay, and the real possibility of a media owner monopoly in the Bay Area, AG Lockyer says his office will investigate.

Journalism Jobs in Black and White

2006-08-22T09:50:00.000-07:00

"There is a word for this-insourcing."
Colbert Report

From Craig's List:

The Pulitzer-Prize winning Point Reyes Light, located in Point Reyes Station, is seeking an intern who can help edit and proof news copy. We are in greatest need of help on Wednesday nights from noon until 2 a.m. The applicant should be well educated, meticulous, and versed with the Associated Press handbook. The internship, like all internships at the Light, is unpaid for
a period of four months.

Hell, if you play your cards right perhaps you could work your way up to a reporting job at the Light. No word on if this one pays but who cares when you get to be a "a literary journalist who plans on becoming the next Orwell, Kapuscinski or Didion." Hopefully you won't have student loans either since,

"Applicants should be experienced newspaper or magazine writers. A graduate degree in
journalism from Columbia, NYU, Medill, Berkeley or Missouri will be favorably
considered. Please send an email with ten clips."

Singletown meets Competition

2006-08-20T14:08:00.000-07:00

A Singleton/MediaNews news town meets some competition, and the news improves. A San Francisco Chronicle article from last week, Behind the Redwood Curtain, explores life in a small town with two rival newspapers.

Show me the $

2006-08-13T14:29:00.000-07:00

Information is the enemy of the process right now.
-Gary Pruitt, McClatchy exec on sale of Bay Area papers to MediaNews.

More numbers:
30 percent. Or $299.35 million. That's the amount Hearst plans to give MediaNews for papers outside the Bay Area. While DoJ approved the MediaNews sale last week, the ruling did not include SF Chronicle owner Hearst's horse trading with MediaNews to help make its Bay Area take over happen. With the plans for a single Bay Area Hearst/MediaNews website in development, that 30 % is worth remembering in future considerations of a Bay Area media monopoly.

Buy the Numbers

2006-08-07T23:22:00.000-07:00

$1 million-bonus to McClatchy's Gary Pruitt for brokering the Knight Ridder deal
$575,000-bonus to 4 other McClatchy execs for same

$29,000-median salary for 2005 journalism graduates

700,000-number of MediaNews subscribers in Bay Area, August 2006
400,000-number of Hearst-owned San Francisco Chronicle subscribers, August 2006

1-proposed number of Web sites in future for MediaNews and Chronicle, both companies are considering sharing the same site

62%-number of 2005 journalism graduates who found a job in media
8.6 %-number who took jobs at newspapers or wire services (source: Los Angeles Times)

Colbert Speech

2006-08-06T22:00:00.001-07:00

Fox News gives you both sides of every story, the President's side and the Vice President's side.
-Stephen Colbert

Colbert, of Comedy Central and the Colbert Report, dishes it out to the press and a seemingly oblivious Bush at the White House Correspondents Dinner:
http://video.google.com/videoplay?docid=-869183917758574879

Singletown Times

2006-08-01T00:30:00.000-07:00

The DOJ approved the MediaNews take over of Knight Ridder July 31, the day before MediaNews' financing of the deal expired, which seems a little convenient.

Perhaps Bay Area readers can expect more inch-high, bolded front page headlines like this from July 31 Mercury News (fiercely local or fiercely provincial?) on the weekend's Grand Prix race:

A SMOOTHER RIDE THIS AROUND

For now at least the San Francisco Chronicle is taking a different approach to news. Here's its July 31 inch-high bolded front page headline:

ISRAEL PAUSES AIRSTRIKES AFTER 37 CHILDREN KILLED

Illston got the ill communication

2006-07-30T22:32:00.000-07:00

"The Internet is nothing without content."
David Payne-v.p./general manager cnn.com

In the face of Clint Reilly's attempt to block the MediaNews take-over of Knight Ridder, a sort of bloodless coup, Judge Susan Illston seems to not quite get the information food chain.

According to sfgate, she ruled, "As an initial matter, there will continue to be other sources that continue to provide consumers with 'news, editorial, entertainment and advertising content' such as the television, radio and the Internet."

This overlooks the fact that much of the media outlets she mentioned get their content from media's bottom feeders-newspapers.

A related story in the San Jose Mercury News makes this point clearly, a point Illston would be wise to consider.

Taking on Bloggers

2006-07-23T21:54:00.000-07:00

any blogger would love to be paid to write.
-Richard von Busack

San Jose Metro film critic, Richard von Busack had some salient points on the difference between bloggers and reporters in an essay in last week's issue. Although writing about full time film reviewers versus bloggers, his points apply to general reporters and bloggers too.

"A blogger's 40-hours-a-week job—those credentials that prove him a man of the people—is 40 hours he can't work on his writing," he writes. "It's 40 hours he won't have to read a novel a film is based on. It's 40 hours he doesn't have to compare a remake to an original. It's time he won't have to look over the vast section of the human experience that isn't online yet... "

When you put it like that, it makes bloggers seem like, well, amateurs.

Opus Bares All

2006-07-17T23:31:00.000-07:00

For a spot-on look at where newspapers and magazines are likely heading (hopefully without the underwear product placement on reporters) check out the July 9 Opus:

New West San Jose Newspaper

2006-07-16T22:57:00.000-07:00

"June 1, 1980. Ted Turner launches 24-hour news network. People doubt there will be enough news to fill 24 hours, people are right."
-Daily Show

But will there be enough news to fill a nebulous place known as West San Jose?
Silicon Valley Community Newspapers aims to find out and is planning to launch a West San Jose newspaper this summer. At the moment, there are no plans to add reporting staff but to instead fill the paper with articles from the neighboring Sunnyvale Sun, Cupertino Courier and Saratoga Sun. And likely articles from freelancers. With SVCN's papers becoming de facto local bureaus for the San Jose Mercury News, the new West San Jose paper could later provide a way for the Merc to hire a local reporter at SVCN's cut rate, non-union wages.

Sayanora KR

2006-07-08T11:41:00.000-07:00

One subtle sign of the June demise of Knight Ridder is right there in black and white.
The San Jose Mercury News used to carry articles from other local KR papers under the Knight Ridder byline. With KR no longer, the Mercury News is now running the name of the paper where the article originally appeared. These papers nclude the Daily News group and Silicon Valley Community Newspapers. Plans are also underway to have Daily News and SVCN reporters turn around same-day stories for the Mercury News website. The newspaper Guild is none too pleased about this development, since it violates their union contract with the Merc, and makes reporters from the non-union smaller papers union busters by default.

Black Death of Journalism

2006-07-01T00:04:00.000-07:00

As any writer or editor will tell you, mistakes (and divorce) happen. The
Peninsula Press Club had a good one this week, sent out to club members in an email, that informed award winners more plagues could be ordered. PPC later fixed it to plaques. The mistake was particularly fitting since the PPC has charged a small mint on its awards contest. Those interested in applying for an award had to foot membership costs of about $50, submission costs of about $35 per article, awards dinner costs of $50 per plate and now ... plagues. Here's the original post:

PPC winners can order more plagues
Winners in the Peninsula Press Club's Greater San Francisco Bay Area Journalism contest can order additional plaques. Click here to download an order form, which can be faxed to (650) 372-0279. Deadline is July 1 (postmark). You can change the order of names or order a plaque from a past year. Call the Peninsula Press Club office if you have questions, (650) 341-7420.

Which Brings Us To...

2006-06-26T09:28:00.000-07:00

Bradlee's comments on the need for more good articles dovetails nicely with another item briefly on Romanesko. Along with fewer compelling stories to read, newspapers are also hurting themselves by low-balling their employees on salary (basically encouraging them to look elsewhere for work) and treating them like the writing equivalent of day laborers. Check out the article, originally printed in the Baltimore alt. weekly, the City Paper .

Nailing jello

2006-06-22T23:38:00.000-07:00

"1974: Watergate! President brought down by investigative journalists. Investigative journalists declare "nice work," take rest of the millenium off."
Daily Show

In a PBS interview, Ben Bradlee, guru of the Washington Post newsroom, brought up something that's been overlooked lately by media companies trying to nail jello to the virtual wall. It's seemingly basic, but worth keeping mind as newspapers and mags try to reinvent themselves with podcasts and blogs, turning their print publications into imitation Web pages-heavy on graphics, light on text. By doing so, print seems to be giving readers a gun to shoot print with. As posted on the Romanesko site:

LEHRER: Do you think that the newspapers, faced with this decline in circulation, should reexamine what they're doing?
BRADLEE: They're examining, reexamining it. Boy, that's topic A. Every, every paper you go to, they've just had a meeting and they're discussing what to do about falling circulation. And there's one word is the answer.
LEHRER: What is it?
BRADLEE: Stories.
LEHRER: Stories?
BRADLEE: Good stories.
LEHRER: So, when you say stories, what stories are they not doing, kinds of stories that they're not doing?
BRADLEE: Well, I mean, they're just well written stories, some story that makes you, you know, say I'll be damned, that's a good story.

Playing Well With Others

2006-06-17T12:37:00.000-07:00

"It is absolutely clear, I think, that the newspaper publishers have sat down in a room and allocated all the markets .... they purport to be competitive yet they are partnering," Todd Miller, attorney adviser for the Newspaper Guild-Communications Workers of America.

An article in the American Journalism Review makes the good point that the news media in the Bay Area have already essentially conceded regional monopolies. The San Francisco Chronicle has only glancing coverage of the South Bay-even though the Chron news boxes in San Jose are routinely sold out (while the Merc is as easy to come by as a South Bay Starbucks). The San Jose Mercury News too also largely leaves the news in San Francisco alone. So, the MediaNews acquisition of the Knight Ridder papers would in one way simply officialize the status quo. As the article, "Surrounded by Singleton" points out,
"The ANG papers and the Chronicle are quite different, and until now they haven't seen each other as principal rivals. ANG makes little effort to cover San Francisco — it doesn't even have a reporter assigned to City Hall. And the Chronicle can't put enough people into ANG's communities to compete for highly local news. "

Journalism Jobs in Black and White

2006-06-10T23:42:00.000-07:00

Since the jobs pays about $26,000 at the high end, one would hope it allows time for a side gig as a barista or bookseller, but probably not:

Bay City News Service, a 24-hour regional news wire for the greater San Francisco Bay Area, seeks a general assignment reporter for its San Francisco office. Our reporters cover government, police and fire activity, the courts and other regional news developments. BCN stories go out to most major news organizations in the Bay Area, including print, broadcast and Internet outlets. Applicants should have some professional reporting experience, knowledge of the geography and issues of the Bay Area, an eye for detail, a solid grasp of spelling, grammar and AP style, and a college degree. They should be energetic and accustomed to juggling many tasks at once. Applicants should be comfortable working under tight deadlines and be able to respond immediately to breaking news. Pay is $440 to $550 per week, based on experience, plus company-paid benefits including health, vision, dental and life insurance. Respond by email to Wayne Futak at bcn@pacbell.net. No attachments, please. Paste your cover letter and resume into the body of the email message.

(-from craigslist, http://www.craigslist.com/sfo/wri/)

Buy the Numbers

2006-06-07T08:49:00.013-07:00

"The decline in the number of reporters, especially at newspapers, means less digging into the affairs of government and business."
-Howard Kurtz, Washington Post

13-feet -height of Knight Ridder sign on top of corporate headquarters in downtown San Jose
94-feet -width of sign

30ish -number of non-Big Three newspapers in the SF Bay Area after MediaNews acquires KR
47ish -number of Big Three newspapers (MediaNews, Hearst, Village Voice media)

$86 -cost per paragraph to publish a reader-submitted obituary in the San Chronicle
$25 -extra fee to also have the obit published online on the Chronicle's site

$700 million -price of Hearst's (Chronicle's corporate parent) new headquarters in New York

7 percent -drop in newsroom jobs (reporters, photographers, editors) since 2000 according to
the Project for Excellence in Journalism

June 30 -date three of five union contracts at the San Jose Mercury News expire
July -date MediaNews is expected to take over the Mercury News and Knight Ridder

Sign of the times

2006-06-02T22:36:00.000-07:00

Knight Ridder isn't the only thing about to be dumped like last year's significant other.The company has significant, Big Pimp'n' signage (also known as Tony Ridder's last erection) on top of its 17-story corporate headquarters in downtown San Jose. According to an article in the Mercury News, http://www.mercurynews.com/mld/mercurynews/news/columnists/14697419.htm, the sign could be as up for sale as the whole Knight Ridder chain. Hopefully, it will fare better than some of the KR papers and has negotiated an exec-level severance package.

nincompoops ranting in their underpants

2006-05-30T23:53:00.000-07:00

"I want to congratulate you all upon your graduation from the University of Maryland College of Journalism, and wish you luck as you prepare to embark on exciting careers in telemarketing or large-appliance repair."
-Gene Weingarten

Here's what passes for journalism humor:

What do you call a person with a journalism degree?
A paralegal.

In that spirit, here's Washington Post Magazine writer Gene Weingarten's commencement address to a group of 2006 journalism graduates, many of whom are no doubt looking into paralegal certificate programs as they ponder that job offer from a paper in Muskogee paying $25,000.

http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2006/05/23/AR2006052301304.html

SF Talk on Media Monopoly

2006-05-21T11:08:00.000-07:00

The Society of Professional Journalistsand Media Alliance is holding a June 1 panel discussion on
"The Coming Media Monopoly: Concentration of Press Ownership and ItsEffects on Democracy." With Media News set to control two-thirds of the newspapers in the San Francisco Bay Area, the discussion will address such issues as:
"Can journalism survive in an era of corporate mergers and acquisitions? What about public service and community needs? What can be done in response to these trends to strengthen the quality of our news media workplaces?"

Panelists include Linda Foley, president of the national newspaper guild, and Tim Redmond, editor of the independent weekly, San Francisco Guardian. Too bad the yet to be named panelist isn't going to be a working local reporter to get a perspective from the front lines.

The talk takes place at 7 p.m. at the San Francisco LGBT Community Center, 1800 Market St. at Octavia. Admission is $5. For more info go to, www.spj.org/norcal.

Viva los independistas

2006-05-17T23:31:00.000-07:00

"One fish, two fish, red fish, blue fish ..."
-Dr. Seuss

With MediaNews' pending acquisition of Knight Ridder, bumping up their Bay Area newspapers to 44 (from 11), what papers are outside the Big Three of Media News, Hearst (SF Chronicle) and Village Voice Media (SF Weekly, East Bay Express). Here is a rough count, clocking in about 25 to Media News' 44. Most are weeklies. The North Bay, esp. Sonoma County, appears to be the strongest pocket of Big Three resistance. Sonoma's also got the biggest remaining daily with Santa Rosa Press-Democrat. The Peninsula and the San Jose area appear to have the biggest newshole, so to speak, of papers outside the Big Three.

www.alamedasun.com
http://www.arguscourier.com/ (Petaluma)
www.berkeleydailyplanet.com
Business Journal of San Jose
www.danvilleweekly.com
http://eastbay.bizjournals.com/eastbay
http://www.hmbreview.com/ (Half Moon Bay)
http://latc.com/
http://www.independentnews.com/ (Livermore)
Metro, Silicon Valley's Weekly Newspaper
http://www.almanacnews.com/ (Menlo Park)
http://www.mv-voice.com/ (Mountain View)
www.napavalleyregister.com
www.novatoadvance.com
www.pacificsun.com/ (Mill Valley)
www.paloaltoonline.com
www.pleasantonweekly.com
http://www.ptreyeslight.com/ (Point Reyes)
San Francisco Bay Guardian
www.sfbayview.com
www.sfexaminer.com
www.sanleandrotimes.com
http://www.pressdemocrat.com/ (Santa Rosa)
www.smdailyjournal.com
www.sonomanews.com
Sonoma West Times & News (Sebastapol)
http://www.sunreporter.com/ (San Francisco) )

San Jose Murky News helps itself

2006-05-13T17:23:00.000-07:00

"We don't know what [the Mercury New's sale] is going to look like in the end, but I absolutely do not see any diminishment in our ability to do great local coverage or our commitment to watchdog stories about our community,''
- Mercury News Executive Editor Susan Goldberg.

Uh, does that "great local" coverage include continuing to lift stories from the smaller competition? The Mercury News has "borrowed" articles from the Silicon Valley Community Newspapers for a long time but a May 12 story took it to another level when the Merc reporter put her name on it. That's the kind of newpaper clustering that leads to murky news, murky ethics and seriously pissed off reporters.

The Mercury News' May 12 article essentially repeated a May 11 article published by the Silicon Vally Community Newspapers. Perhaps to cover her butt after putting her name on the story, the Merc reporter threw in a "Knight Ridder contributed to this article" at the end of the story, when in fact it was the other way around. SVCN reporter Sarah Holcomb did the reporting, interviewing and attended the event. Other than her byline, the Merc reporter contributed, well ... some paraphrasing, some deleting and a couple of details. And no doubt makes way more than Holcomb for her efforts. Check out the two articles, especially the lead and end paragraphs.(Holcomb's first, of course).

http://www.community-newspapers.com/almaden/cover1.shtml

http://www.mercurynews.com/mld/mercurynews/news/breaking_news/14562151.htm

Just desserts for Monsieur Singleton

2006-05-09T00:20:00.000-07:00

Silicon Valley Community Newspapers, often overlooked in the sale of the Bay Area Knight Ridder newspapers, had this commentary in last week's newspapers. While the San Jose Mercury News and the Contra Costa Times have been mostly blowing kisses at new publisher Dean "Singletown" Singleton, the editorial cartoon by SVCN staffer DeCinzo provides a good example of the differences of opinion that could be lost under a Singletown/Media News conglomarate.

Journalism By the Numbers

2006-05-07T15:32:00.000-07:00

$31,250-median salary in 2004 for reporters according to the Dept. of Labor
$101,310- current bonus of Knight Ridder Vice President Hilary Schneider in addition to her salary of $593,856

11-former number of Dean "Singletown" Singleton's Media News group newspapers in the Bay Area
44-number of Media News group newspapers in the Bay Area if the Knight Ridder sale is approved

419,000- circulation of the Hearst' San Francisco Chronicle
814,000- combined circulation of these Singletown papers

60 percent- increase in morning newspaper circulation since 1980 according to the April 3 New Yorker

$1 billion- cash involved in the April sale of the Knight Ridder newspapers

Singleton/Media News View of the Bay Area

2006-04-25T22:52:00.000-07:00

With the news that Media News has acquired the Bay Area Knight Ridder newspapers, the newspaper Guild has a map showing what that concentration would look like.

Said the Guild, "that would leave MediaNews free to pursue the same consolidation strategy ... resulting in fewer staff and resources dedicated to covering local communities and a decline in the breadth and quality of news coverage .... Lack of competition means cookie-cutter coverage and fewer voices contributing to important public policy debates."

View the map at:

http://sjguild.org/Info/SingleTown.htm

Greed is

2006-04-23T13:01:00.000-07:00

Greed is good.
-Gordon Gekko, Wall Street.

Greed may be good for Knight Ridder's shareholders and the salaries of high-level executives, but it doesn't do much for their boots on the ground-the reporters, production staff and photographers who gather the news and on whom those fat salaries depend. The news staff fares about as well as the average barista.

According to the Peninsula Press Club's, www.penpressclub.org, KR executive salaries include:

Chairman and CEO Tony Ridder, $980,000 in salary and a bonus of $281,304 in 2005
Steven Rossi, senior vice president, CFO, $602,923 in salary and $101,310 in bonus
Senior Vice President Hilary Schneider, $593,856 and a bonus of $101,310
Art Brisbane, senior vice president, $592,308 and a bonus of $101,310
Senior Vice President Mary Jean Connors, $580,000 in salary and a bonus of $97,933

Their compensation, collected from federal filings, also includes significant shares of stock, relocation reimbursements and moving expenses. Additionally, "executive officers stand to receive a lump cash severance payment equal to three times the sum of salary and cash bonus for the last full calendar year preceding the severance."

Knight Ridder's news staff should be so lucky. Instead of a severance check. staffers are lucky to get an exit interview. By way of salary comparison, check out the official figures in the Department of Labor's Occupational Outlook Handbook, www.bls.gov/oco. The numbers match or exceed the pay at Knight Ridder and most newspapers and magazines.

"Median annual earnings of reporters and correspondents were $31,320 in May 2004. The middle 50 percent earned between $22,900 and $47,860.... Median annual earnings of reporters and correspondents were $30,070 in newspaper, periodical, book, and directory publishers and $34,050 in radio and television broadcasting."

-Occupational Outlook Handbook, Department of Labor

Knight Ridder is More than San Jose Mercury News

2006-04-09T12:16:00.000-07:00

"Established media (radio, television) haven't vanished when new forms have come along. They have adapted by playing to their strengths. For most newspapers this will mean abandoning what is ubiquitous on the Internet and investing coverage they can own, like serious local coverage and in-depth reporting."

James Surowiecki, The New Yorker

Knight Ridder is More than Mercury News

All the talk about the ongoing sale of Knight Ridder's flagship San Jose Mercury News overshadows other key newsmakers in the San Francisco Bay area. To be sure, the Mercury News, with its history of Pulitzer Prizes and circulation of roughly 270,000, casts a large shadow—one that has occluded much attention of other local newspapers. But there are several other Knight Ridder papers in the Bay Area including the Hills newspapers in the East Bay, and the Silicon Valley Community Newspapers in the South Bay.

Although these smaller newspaper chains have been bundled together with the larger dailies—the Mercury News and the Contra Costa Times— McClatchy has said it doesn't want to keep,such packaging overlooks key differences in how they gather and report the news. Whoever decides to buy the Knight Ridder cast-offs, such as Dean Singleton's MediaNews group—which owns the Oakland Tribune, should pay close attention to these differences.

With the Silicon Valley Community Newspapers and its geographic cousin, the San Jose Mercury News, for instance, other than being geographically close, they are very distinct. The Mercury News provides a graphics-heavy, high-tech, interactive form of journalism, complete with blogs and podcasts—coverage that focuses generally on big picture issues, or breaking local news . They also do strong ivestigative series and environmental reporting.

At the same time, SVCN has stuck with the low-tech basics of in-depth coverage of local communities and their city governments and schools. The Mercury News has dabbled in variations on this type of community journalism, particularly with its weekly guide series. The guides focused on news and events targeted to certain geographic areas in the South Bay. But their approach was scattershot and uneven. The reporter covering the communities of Sunnyvale and Cupertino, for instance, rarely attended city meetings and often re-wrote what came out earlier in SVCN.

Eventually, the Mercury News conceded and its owner, Knight Ridder, bought SVNC instead. At the time of the transaction last fall, advertising synergy was the buzzword used to explain the deal. (And the cheaper, non-union labor at SVCN likely also played a role).

However, strong local coverage—something the Mercury News had largely moved away from—helped drive SVCN's success with local advertisers. In a sort of tacit endorsement of such local reporting, the Mercury News also began to run SVCN articles under the Knight Ridder name. The Contra Costa Times has done the same with the intensely local Hills newspapers in the East Bay. According to the numbers, this made sense.

Independent audits of how readers got their local news showed SVCN's papers, for instance, outpaced the Mercury News by margins of 70-80 percent. Whoever buys SVCN, the Mercury News and the others, those audit figures on readers are worth keeping in mind, as is investing in reporters and old-fashioned, local coverage-retro journalism at is were.

Admittedly it is not flashy, particularly the low-tech Web sites. Even so, the smaller papers have dedicated followings in their respective communities. In part, this is because the papers provide a sort of forum for individuals to weigh in on local issues through letters to the editor and op/ed. columns.

Additionally, the papers also help serve as an intermediary on issues and help watchdog city councils and school districts, subjects largely not covered by the bigger dailies. McClatchy has a strong reputation in both these areas, so those working at the smaller papers were optimistic they would be included in McClatchy's purchase of Knight Ridder.

But, packaged in with Bay Area's bigger KR dailies, those small papers feel like they are being passed around like a party favor instead. Even as package, whoever decides to the Knight Ridder South Bay papers will hopefully value the differences etween the papers big and small, and value old-school, local coverage.

Flashy it is not. But as local readers will tell you (and local advertisers), it is journalism that works.

2006-04-05T23:29:00.000-07:00

What news on the rialto?
Merchant of Venice

The news on the rialto, kids, isn’t good. Newspapers are folding or merging, jobs are tight and the Internet and yes, blogs, are the wolves salivating at the newsroom door.

Check out the Department of Labor’s Occupational Outlook Handbook,
http://www.bls.gov/oco/, where the official word includes:

Competition will be keen for jobs at ... newspapers, broadcast stations and magazines
Slower than average employment growth is expected

Even so, the San Jose Mercury News appears optimistic, publishing this blurb in March.

Thinking About a Career in Journalism?

Learn the ropes from Mercury News professionals at Mosaic, a two-week summer workshop. Bay Area high school students who have an interest in journalism can apply.
For more information or to download an application, visit, www.mosaicworkshop.org.

Hmm…wonder if this workshop includes extreme journalism survival skills, such as what to do when your organization stops ordering office supplies (as the Mercury News did last May)? Or how to figure out the ever-complex, greased-pig of corporate health benefits? Or what to do when your newspaper is sold…then re-sold.
Kids?