When I started at the Flint Journal it was a great place for a reporter to work. When you were hired, in my case to be a night police reporter, my editor turned me loose and simply asked that I find out everything newsworthy on my beat. It really was that simple.
In return, the reporters prowled their beats daily and turned in great news and feature stories.
The most frequent assignment I received from my boss was: "Go do what you do."
A couple things happened that changed that. The paper got 'sensitive.' The fad was to reach out to groups of readers - focus groups - and in kind of a group think find out what we were doing right or wrong.
These polite groups of readers told editors they wanted more uplifting features and not so much 'bad' news. So we started backing off on some crime news and coverage. We stopped listing the number of each homicide. At one time we kept a running tally of homicide victims and would let the readers know this was the 15th homicide of the year.
Good accident and crime photos were rejected because they were "too graphic." Focus group think again. In a word the newspaper went 'soft.'
Forget that any realistic readership survey indicated that the subscribers want blood and gore and lots of it. Everytime we had a major news event, the best survey you could ask for was newstand sales and they were always good when news was bad.
MEETINGS
In the first five years of my career at the Flint Journal I maybe went to two staff meetings.
In the last 14 years I probably went to six staff meetings each month. Sunday story meetings, recognition meetings (until I stopped going), special anniversary section meetings and others so stupid I've forgotten what they were about. The bottom line was that is was six hours a month I was away from my phone and sources and getting news.
But it provided more control for those in charge and a theater of the absurd.
Let's talk for a moment about what is still wrong.
The same people who have engineered the destruction of a once proud and profitable company, remain in control. One or more who are leaving are taking a small king's ransom with them. The incestuous Newhouse management is a breeding ground for mediocrity.
Most obvious is that the architect of the new AnnArbor.com is the same old, tired Booth manager who once help lead the newsroom in Ann Arbor and then captained the newsroom in Flint until just recently. His incompetent leadership at those two places has now been rewarded with a new venue for incompetence.
No one lower than a Booth/Newhouse captain apparently had any say or was asked for advice in the recent catastrophic decisions for the newspapers. That speaks volumes about the type of management that has taken over Booth/Newhouse.
THE BEGINNING OF THE END
If I could put a date on when the demise began it would be: December 12, 2000.
That was the date that our fairly new publisher, a refugee from the business side, made the fateful, national-news-headline-grabbing-decision, not to publish because of heavy snow.Most of us had reported for work, were ready to trek through the snow to bring the news to our readers, document the event, when the editor told us we weren't publishing. It was mind-boggling news to those of us who live and breath news.
It's not like the Journal hadn't published in worse storms in its history.
Not publishing was unheard of, it was not even thought of, but here we were watching ourselves on CNN. Our journalism friends from around the country were calling and taunting us. It was a wear-a-bag-over-your-head kind of day.
But that's what happens when you turn a news organization over to the bottom line folks. And that's precisely when we learned it. It wasn't important to publish, only important to save paper, ink and personnel costs on a day when it would have been difficult to deliver the paper.
It was the beginning of the end.
THE INTERNET
Then came the Internet intrusion. We were called into meetings where the suits told us that there was this new Internet thing and that we had to be part of it. That would mean more work, posting stories during the day and continually revising stories for the online venture, that we came to know as MLive.
Some of us boldly asked: "How will we make money from this?" Which shows that while we may be ink-stained wretches, we knew where our paychecks came from and we couldn't see how posting all these stories for free would work to our advantage.
The suits patted us on the head and told us not to worry about that, that the presence was what was important and not the money, and that "we simply had to be there (online)." So we left scratching our heads and talking behind their backs about what a stupid business model this was.
What we did do was start producing online content as we were told. It was put up on MLive, but some of us openly wondered and asked again, how would MLive have any identification with the Flint Journal (or the Kalamazoo Gazette, Saginaw News, etc.). We wondered why each paper would not have its own, profit producing website.
Again, the suits told us not to worry, this was all under Newhouse control and the suits all knew what they were doing. How does that look in retrospect?
When we realized that some newspapers (Detroit News and Free Press) were actually producing a fine online product, we again wondered aloud and at meetings why we weren't going in that direction instead of the goshawful MLive. Again, the suits told us not to worry.
Then the tsunami hit, Craig's List and any number of online advertising sites ate our lunch with free advertising. We were caught flatfooted and still tied to MLive, which can best be described as an anchor tied around our leg. The suits sat around, wrung their hands and didn't have a clue what to do about it. Nor did they reach out to their veterans for help.
Their egos were too big to look to the subordinates and ask them for help. That's what happens when you concentrate leadership in a tight little clique.
Mix into this a middle management editor with total control who believed the salvation of the newspaper lay in such mundane features as "Making a Difference" and "Golden Apples" instead of hard news.
We backed away from hard news stories like a robbery victim from a man with a gun. Lawyers took over the newsroom and mediocrity ruled the day. Features were the order of the day and none were more valued than the Sunday features.
We spent hours in meetings, as opposed to being on our beats looking for stories, feeding the ego of one editor who loved planning the newspaper weeks and months in advance. Even when breaking news would come up, the editor would insist that reporters leave a breaking news story to finish some lame feature he had planned for a Sunday two weeks away.
Weekly recognition meetings became a forum for the top editor to feed his own ego by holding court with the staff and rewarding reporters with his glib prose: "This story was written with authority," whatever the heck that means. Or he would compliment an editor for overseeing a breaking news event, even when the editor had been clueless about what to do or what we were doing to cover his butt.
Once he complimented a reporter for using a reverse directory to find someone at a house near a crime. Sheeesh, any first year college reporter would know to use a reverse directory. It wasn't a compliment it simply pointed out how devoid the editor was of reporting experience.
Fortunately, the recognition meetings were voluntary and I quit going early on. It involved an hour of my life each week that I knew I could never get back. Besides when everyone is in a meeting, phones ring and no one answers, tips come in that no one gets and time is wasted.
THE FUTURE
I hope it's not too late to turn the ship around. There are many good reporters and other employees still at the Journal who, if given the chance, and the room to succeed will.
I've always believed that the best bosses are the ones who make sure they hire good people and then turn them loose. What's the point of having a winning thoroughbred if you hitch it to a hay wagon?
If the new bosses will simply get out of the way, there's enough folks left that can make them look good. Heck, if I were them I'd drag a couple of the folks back who they sent out the door. If you really want to make the place work you're going to need some of the talent you've already dismissed.
Tom and a couple other posters here aside, I still believe that the print product has a loyal audience, one worth keeping, at least until the transition is made to the Internet. Giving up on the money side of the business seems foolhardy to me.
Sure, it's time to really go forth into the Internet and find a model that works, but don't flush the loyal customers you already have.
In the two weeks since Booth announced its big changes I couldn't tell you the number of times folks here in Lapeer (and remember the FJ barely covers Lapeer any more) have said how disappointed they are that they will no longer get the paper seven days a week.
I try to explain to them about advertising, newsprint costs, etc., but they simply want their daily newspaper, the one they can hold in their hands and read.
23 comments:
Great blog Jim. Your right on the mark with everything you said. To bad the rudderless ship is sinking.
The FJ once was a wooden ship with iron men and now has become a iron ship with wooden men.....
You hit the nail on the head Jim - especially in the emphasis on "soft" news. It became a culture where a small minority of readers - who lodged the usual illogical complaints you get on a daily basis from people who don't understand how a paper works - were trusted as being the voice(s) of an entire readership.
Readers want a paper that takes a stand and is tough - and from time to time says, "We don't care what YOU think, this is what WE think and we think it's important."
I think the fall has more to do with declining revenues from the overall economy, especially in mid-Michigan, which is heavily tied to the auto industry.
For years Flint had a Cadillac newspaper, with a well-paid and talented staff who produced high-quality journalism. But with the slow migration to the Internet ensuring that revenue growth, even when the recession ends, will be all but impossible, the Newhouses finally couldn't justify such a large investment here.
While you make some good arguments about coverage — some I agree with, some I don't — IMO, it wasn't the determining factor. There were simply larger forces beyond anyone's control, except that of the Newhouses', who, in the end, decided, to shrink the paper to conform to the unfortunate depressed economics of the local market.
P.S. I also think the paper - despite everything - has continued to produce relevant high-quality journalism (although not as consistently strong as it did historically - it just lacks the reproting/editing depth it once did).
The bottom line issue is, once June 1 hits, how good will it be, given what they're paying and the new reduced staffing level of reporters, photographers and copy editors (who won't even be in Flint)?
Right now, several talented journalists are leaving simply because a 25-50 percent pay cut is too much to bear, even in this economy. Who will replace them? Can they get talented people at $10 to $14 an hour?
The News and Free Press went to three days a week, but still are publishing on the newsstand. Both cut, but not in their news operations. With these cuts, Newhouse has transformed Flint from a destination paper to a place where you start your career that promises to be a journalism sweatshop.
In the final analysis, these cutbacks/realignment might be the biggest mistake of all.
Irony of ironies … you talk of the good ole days of when the editors turned reporters loose. With one main editor for the FJ newsroom after June 1, it looks like the paper has little choice, but to return to that model.
Anonymous 11:51. It is ludicrous to think that the decline of a product had nothing to do with the decline of the business that produced it. Cutting everyting that ONLY the Flint Journal could provide and replacing it with stuff people could get for free elsewhere certainly hasted the demise.
The economy was a factor, but in a bad economy, you get rid of things you can do without. The Journal made ITSELF one of those things.
Being ranted at by Andrew Heller 4 times per week also didn't help. As a local sports coach who wrote for the FJ, I can't tell you how many people who weren't political at all, came up to me and complained about that-- and the fact that Ricky Hampton so often turned the sports page into a debate on race. One Sunday, might have even been Mother's Day, ALL THREE Journal staff columnists ran columns saying anyone who was against gay marriage was a bigot. The echo chamber was getting pretty monotonous. This is a pretty evenly divided community outside Flint, which is where you would most likely be able to sell newspapers. Alienating half the audience to that extent did not help.
Anon. 13:10, come to think of it, gay marriage might be even less popular inside Flint, but the rest of the point is well taken.
Anonymous 13:10.
I think you make some sound points about cutting back on what makes the paper unique, but I think that endangers the paper more going forward than explaining its demise. And I have to respectfully disagree about the politics. The paper does have conservative voices, as well. On the sports page, Bill Khan is not a liberal (Just read his blog about what he was doing when Obama was inaugurated). Then the paper has John Tomlinson, plus several syndicated columnists and a spate of routine letter to the editor writers/talk back items who consistently espouse conservative views. It's always easy to see what you object to in the newspaper (This is similar to those who complain the paper doesn't have enough good news -- but if you objectively measure it, there is a ton of stories about people doing good things (J.S. would object that there's too much, especially with the standing features).
And getting back to the overall issue, for the moment, The Flint Journal actually has one of the highest penetration rates of any newspaper in the country (a number that at one time was considered more important than circulation). So, up to this point the problem really isn't a decline in readership. It's really about the ad revenue and the change in the business model and what that can support.
Ultimately, after the dust settles will it still provide a product that people want to buy? That's the $1-million question.
12:25--With the job market the way it is, they very well might be able to get good people at $10 to $14 per hour. Unfortunately, that's also whas has kept salaries in this business so low. And when those good people burn out or leave because they can't live on that, in come more people willing to take those wages. Another example of management short-term thinking hurting journalism in the long term.
To say falling circulation is not the issue, it's falling ad revenues is just silly. Advertisers left when the readers did. They are down at least 25,000 readers in the last 10 years. 75,000 circ in a county with 200,000 residences is not enough "penetration" for many advertisers. Some grocery stores even went direct mail for a while. If you spend a few grand on Channel 12 news you will be seen. That's one half page in the Journal to reach 20% of the county one time-- if they turn that page. It's a bad advertising deal, that's why advertisers left, and the suits did nothing to adjust to this reality. They just bought up the NEWSPAPER competition and thought that made them a monopoly. But they are an advertising business, and there is a lot of competition that is more flexible and cost effective.
You called the Internet "an intrusion."
The online dictionary says an "intrusion" is an inappropriate or unwelcome addition.
Outside of the newspaper industry, I can't think of another soul who would define the Internet in such a matter. And that was part of the problem.
You say, "We wondered why each paper would not have its own, profit producing website?"
There are two possibilities for that: the Internet Genie didn't grant us that fourth wish and the first three were wasted on plasma TVs.
Or, after 10 years of trying, there is no such a thing as a "profitable website" in the newspaper business.
The LA Times has come the closest. But even it admits that it could only sustain the editorial department, which accounts for about 1/3 of the workforce at a newspaper.
I would say you buried the lead.
You think newspapers are the only place where management sits in meetings all day? You've led a pretty sheltered business life, I'd say. But many a company makes money with its top execs buried in meetings.
The newspaper industry woes are all about advertising.
Not who newspapers endorsed for president. Not that they didn't publish one day because of a snow storm. The Ann Arbor News published when there was no electricity. Advertising dollars still went south.
It's advertising revenue.
And it didn't leave the newspapers because of a editorial content issues.
It left for Craigslist. It left for Vehix.com.
It left because car dealers can put a $140 link on a newspaper Web page and direct it back to its own Web site instead of paying thou$and$ for a full page print ad.
I'm not saying management in newspapers across the country didn't mishandle situations.
What I am saying is the advertisers no longer use newspapers as a venue because newspapers allowed them to find better, less expensive options.
You got a solution for that?
If so, your Ferrari awaits.
You describe what some call the feminization of news, although male editors presided over the soft-peddling or massaging of news to make it friendlier. The meeting culture did not serve traditional reporters or traditional news judgment. The Sunday feature was elevated to job one, followed closely by the package, the centerpiece, the bright. Anything but hard news, even though crime news gets the most hits on news Web sites. I knew I had lost the fight when I had to begin arguing to use names in "sensitive" stories.
I'm told the new "exec" editor spent his Christmas Eve calling a select few employees at home to "strongly encourage" them to take the buyout. One reporter who didn't receive a phone call went in to hear what she thought would be the amount of her pay cut. Instead, she was told she was out of a job, only nine weeks severance and no health insurance. If she'd gotten a phone call, she would have taken the buyout and had at least 26 weeks severance and kept her health insurance for a few more months.
Wonder how Tennis Boi decided who would get the special calls and who wouldn't? That's who he is.
A friend at a non-Booth paper says his place is also going through firings, but it's a privately owned paper so severance packages don't exist. He asked me why no one at my paper, also non-Booth, isn't laying people off, cutting pay, etc. It's because we have fiscally responsible professionals running our outfit who make sure the company carries no debt. They've never gotten greedy and overextended the company the way the Newhouses have.
I don't understand why people post things like the one at 11:51.
Yes, we get it. The economy is in the tank; newspapers probably would have suffered anyway.
But the constant responses in the realm of "NO ONE should have done anything differently; death was coming for us NO MATTER WHAT" are useless.
Newspapers may have been bludgeoned by external forces, but they incurred a thousand cuts from within. Both factors have combined to make today's newsroom a den of vipers and a haven for the lazy and the skill-less.
Couple of points:
When your top three local columnists all harp on the same point, in highly prominent positions in the print product, it has more impact than tomlinson/khan somewhere/sometimes inside...
journalists always poo-poo that, but it's true. and a lot of TFJ readers are conservative, period. Not brain-dead conservative, but they believe in the sanctity of life, they believe in the 2nd amendment, etc.
as to the "take the buyout" calls: I'm sorry, again, and I understand everyone's situation is different. But this train wreck was visible for miles down the track, and it was clear leadership was gonna say whatever it had to say to keep the "good" troopers on the Titanic.
and it was clear they had no control of what was actually going to happen, regardless of their promises. and they had no plan.
now, many of them are bailing to other jobs and their own retirements.
leaving their promises aboard the Titanic while they scramble into the lifeboats.
Meetings not the problem, Tom? Where you been in the last three years? Every manager gone from 10:30 a.m. to 2 p.m. 4 days a week, sometimes to 4 p.m. Meeting after meeting. Had to text them when news was going on, or to edit a story (that's supposedly their job). Free lunch, too. All that time/money wasted would have paid for thousands of plasmas.
Wonder what they talked about in all those hours when they should have been working? How to fix things? Who gets the latest parking space? I guess it wasn't locking the doors. Seems no one ever mentioned we'd be shutting down. Should have gotten rid of all those non-workers years ago and we'd all be better off.
How about the man that spent an entire year carrying around blueprints and a tape measure, flushing $7 million down the drain on a remodel that no one thought we needed (other than new lighting). Content was always an afterthought w/these managers. But they sure got a nice parking space.
Meetings are a tremendous waste of man-hours.
"or to edit a story (that's supposedly their job)"
Every paper I worked at had that problem. (And don't read that as the usual tripe of "You shouldn't complain if every place did it.")
At one paper, the city editor refused to read any copy until she had opened EVERY piece of mail. This was pre-Internet, so it could take a while, especially on Mondays. It could be 9 p.m., and we'd still be waiting for copy. Then she'd wonder why we were still working on pages at 10:30.
One SW Michigan paper had FOUR alleged city deskers of one type or another. Only one of them did anything approaching real editing. Of course, he was hated because he had the gall to take his job seriously and to expect people to do things.
At least that experience was bad enough to make me pull the eject switch. Haven't regretted it since. Whatever newspapers used to be, they aren't any more.
At the Bay City Times, I hear, meetings sometimes include guitar sing-a-longs. Maybe Mr. Breeze will bring that management technique to a newsroom near you.
(That's the vanity plate of your new ex.ed, by the way.)
Jim, i sure would like someone to tell me what they think is going to happen to The Saginaw News come June 1
Is there anyone out there willing to open up. Someone must know something.
For those of you who think it's Flint or Newhouse or the economy: I got news for ya.
Different state, different paper, different chain but almost everything in this post could be applied here. The pointless, time-eating planning meetings, the focus groups, the revulsion to facts and a hard-news approach.
It's over. Journalism is dead. Long live journalism, in whatever form it takes when it finally rises from the ashes.
You just may be right, 18:34. Giving a damn could be a moot point, and maybe we should all just pack up the tent and leave. No sarcasm at all meant here, either. Besides, it appears as though Newhouse agrees with you.
But why did we give up on journalism in the first place? This touchy-feely, community-boosterism crap started 20 years ago, and has only intensified through the years. The publisher, ad director and editor return from the luncheon at the country club with the editorial framework for the stupid paper, we devote X amount of space and X x 4 amount of man hours to some breathtaking story on someone's art collection on 1A, then we throw up our collective hands and wonder why circulation drops more, followed closely by yet another drop in ad lineage.
And when someone dares cross the line with a column that makes a difference, the biggest questions that arise during the proofreading are: "What will the city manager think?" "What will the police chief think?" "What will the school board think?" "What will the United Way chair think?" And after that, if the work doesn't get spiked entirely, it gets watered down to the point of becoming senseless.
Here's a wild idea: Before last month's purge, my paper's newsroom was extremely close to a 1-to-1 ratio of managers to reporters. Would it not have been better to have gotten more people out in the field, and perhaps covered things of some substance?
People still want journalism. I get approached by readers all the time -- current and former, young and old -- who ask why we stopped caring about the meat-and-potatoes stuff that is local news.
Radio? Forget it. TV? They get most of their story ideas from the paper. Internet? Not for stuff taking place in your backyard, at least not yet.
We were the last bastion, we were the ones with the niche product. And, quite frankly, we threw it all away.
And don't forget the man on the street commentary to even the most technical story. I remember the Journal did a story smacking the truck plant because if the wind is right, you can smell the fumes from the paint shop. Great idea, go after the last factory left in town.
So,they talk to some "holistic healer" and say he's the Michigan president of some kind of medical society. When you look it up,it had a half dozen members in the state! He asserts that the plant is defintitely making people sick.
Then they start calling people who live by it, and one woman with MS says she hadn't thought of it before, but now she wonders if it is making her worse. Then they call another woman who is told this doctor says the plant is making people sick, who says something like, "I guess that's the price you pay for jobs."
Not a single real scientific source was consulted. Buried in the middle was a PR flack for GM saying that the plant was far below the EPA allowed emmissions, and you had to read the stat table to see how much cleaner it had goten over the years.
I called Tony Dearing about the story, and he was placid about the reporters obvious slant and that everyone knows where she is coming from. He agreed the sources were weak. But when I made fun of bringing people with NO expertise into a science story and giving them prominent space, then he got excited. "We will ALWAYS involve the public in our stories! That is the way it is, that is the future of jorunalism!"
Welcome to the future.
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