(I've moved this back to the top of the blog, but there are a couple new items below)
Some internal communications indicate where Booth may be headed with the consolidation of newsroom operations between the Bay City Times, Saginaw News and eventually the Flint Journal.
Specifically, reporters are being put into three categories: Buyout candidates, protect candidates and a third category, that seems to indicate that an employee should be coached to stay or be reassigned. This is apparently in advance of a Booth wide buyout offer yet to be announced.
Not surprisingly, the buy-out candidates are mostly full-time folks. Also a couple employees currently on sick or maternity leave may not have work to come back to when they are well. That seems unduly harsh, but maybe part of the new economic reality.
More interesting are the plans to combine the newsroom operations, or "optimization," as the company refers to it. While these plans appear to be solely for Bay City and Saginaw, it's hard to imagine that a similar fate is not in store for Flint.
These consolidations will gut the individual papers' sports, photography and entertainment sections. The operations of each of those departments would be in one location. Plans are to seek content that would be produced once, but shared with the Bay City and Saginaw markets.
In sports, Booth management believes there is enough of overlap in leagues that will allow coverage to be centralized.
What is proposed is a sports department that would go from 2 sports editors, 1 assistant sports editor, five full-time and eight, part-time reporters to:
One sports editor, 1 assistant sports editor, three full-time and eight, part-time reporters among the papers. The model also assumes that the sports editor and assistant sports editor will write stories and columns in addition to their management role.
Part-time workers are among the safe employees because they are considered key to this model because they are cheaper than full-timers.
The new photo department would have one photo manager who would manage the remaining photographers who would work out of the two separate newsrooms. Editing of photos and assignments would be centralized although newsrooms would retain some authority to direct local photographers for breaking news. (Gees, I hope so).
Currently there are two photo editors, four full-time photographers and one part-time photographer. Under the new plan there would be one photo editor, two full-time photographers and one part-time photographer. About three or four interns and freelancers would be used to fill holes in coverage.
These are breathtaking changes that will certainly compromise the editorial contents of the newspapers. While I understand the horrible economics of the day, I just don't see how this works, even as a stop gap measure.
Entertainment is also a target. Currently entertainment staffing includes two features editors and seven full-time reporters and clerks. Under the new staffing proposed there would be one entertainment editor and one full-time reporter. Additional coverage would be aided by freelance writers and an intern.
For web coordination there would actually be a slight increase. Currently the two papers have 1 Web content producer. With the new plan there would be one manager and the current web content producer. Hopes are that as the web content area grows, that the staffing for this would grow.
If your plans are that web is your future, why wouldn't you invest in it now, make it great and roll the dice with that. Other than the obvious of saving money, the web commitment (or lack thereof) is the most startling of this plan.
In Flint, there is word that some of the specialty sections, particularly the Religion page and Features page, are on the way out. This all part of some additional downsizing apparently. It is hard to imagine how the Flint Journal coverage could be consolidated with any of the other Booth papers, simply by geography, but these are desperate times and so, who knows?
Soon, I'll give you a look at the new Journal health plan and the reductions in coverage for medical and prescriptions.
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6 comments:
Wow, Jim, it looks like the "de-professional-ization" of the Booth newspapers continues at a rapid pace. So part-timers are what the bosses really want? What a shock!
In Flint, part-timers are under relentless pressure by the petty tyrants in charge to put in the work of full-time reporters (and more). Of course, they aren't paid full-time salaries. It's despicable, but not surprising, given that the full-timers who remain are treated like they were brainless cattle.
So local features, sports, religion and entertainment sections will disappear in the new-but-not-improved Booth newspapers? Yeah, that'll be great for attracting younger readers and for keeping those long-suffering readers who have put up with the incredible shrinking paper. Well, the A section of the Journal is usually a feature section anyway, with the occasional news story thrown in when they can get around to it.
Let's hope the young people out there thinking about journalism as a career are paying attention. Please, kids, please, for the sake of your future, DO NOT GO the news business and if you are already in by all means do what you have to get out.
Real careers in newspaper journalism are going fast, to become a reporter or copy editor now is like running up the gang plank to get aboard the Lusitania. Slaving away for dipsticks who never wrote decent stories themselves but who are pounding on you "content providers" is not a career, it's just abuse.
Spaulding T. Gypsum
Dear Spaulding:
I have said for years that if Michigan's Wage & Hour Division ever got a real look inside the Flint Journal if could get ugly.
Making salaried folks work overtime for free, is one thing. But requiring, or expecting, part-time employees to work for time they are not getting paid is another.
One real complaint to Wage & Hour and maybe someone would own a newspaper. But then what would that get you: A big fat drawer full of red ink.
Never mind.
Jim
Thank you for putting out this information! The management isn't saying anything! Another reason so many people flock to the Internets.
The staffing model is upside down. Why not keep the reporters and replace the editors with interns?
i agree with inky.
they are part-timing the wrong people, the content providers, er, journalists.
isn't it easier to consolidate the business functions, publisher, editor, assistant to the publisher, etc.?
given the mistakes and typos I see daily in The Flint Journal now, I can't wait until someone in Grand Rapids or Saginaw or India is editing the local stuff. (And good luck reaching someone for a correction.)
For the track record on how consolidation has gone in the past for The Journal, look no further than www.mlive.com.
Wait, wait! Look at the weeklies, and the bizarre flip-flops on trading news from the daily to the weeklies and vice-versa. (Same newspaper family, different "products.")
No, no, no, look at the "copy editing" currently taking place.
We are witnessing the deaths of local newspapers, and The Journal, an award-winning much-better-than-average mid-sized paper, as we know them.
Sad. So very, very sad.
There's simply no reason to have a publisher AND editor in Flint -- one or the other can steer what's left of the ship and do the requisite community schmoozing for ad dollars. If a reporter can cover six beats, surely the editor or publisher can take on a little extra work. Other Booth papers have rolled up these jobs into one.
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