The publisher of the Bay City-Flint - Saginaw newspapers describes how he plans to save newspapers and his new venture. I looked on MLive.com and either can't find any public announcement or it hasn't been posted yet.
The audio of his announcement about the new "Great Lakes Bay" edition was on line, but has been removed.
Flint launches a new Tuesday edition on March 23. Apparently this new venture includes Midland, which, according to insiders, will include some financing by Dow Chemical and is set to take on the Midland Daily News. The Great Lakes Bay edition begins on Tuesdays starting March 30.
The publisher got scattered applause when he announced the new Tuesday editions.
My favorite part: "We need to change the way people think about newspapers." How about changing back to the old model of writing actually news stories that people want to read and change their hearts and minds. The problem for this faux publisher is that he seems to really believe that people will buy his product even though the public knows they are getting crap.
"Gotta get off our heels and on our toes." This is his comment on going after WNEM-TV and taking back market share.
Good luck, though.
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19 comments:
Link does not appear to be working? Please advise when it is, 'cause I'm dying to learn if the new edition will cover the region surrounding 'Saginaw Bay,' or perhaps Tawas Bay, or Thunder Bay, or Hammond Bay, or Grand Traverse Bay ... or any other of the hundreds of Great Lakes bays? Who comes up with this stuff, anyway, and do they think repeating it often enough, even publishing a weekly special edition, will make folks in the 'Tri-Cities' plus Flint (a.k.a The Saginaw Valley) buy in? Maybe they should've considered Saginaw Vally View? Oh, wait a minute ...
I just got out of my meeting in Flint. Times have changed, pal. Moving forward without you and doing just fine. Boy, are you in for a rude awakening....long live the newspaper long live Booth Mid-Michigan. "Faux publisher"? Haha. Try someone who leads a team who is instituting good change. Don't worry about our company. Just sit back, relax and let us take care of that pension check for you.
As I said anonymous, I wish you good luck.
But if the publisher still thinks this is a perception problem and no a product quality problem he needs to go have lunch downtown at Bailiwick's and talk to the folks who kept coming up to our "geezer" table on Thursday telling us how awful the "new" Journal is.
Most of them have quit the paper and long for it to be relevant again.
There is nothing that I want more than the paper to succeed. I still have friends who work there.
By the way anonymous, since times are good, I'm just waiting to hear how the salary and benefits will now be restored for those hard working folks who deserve it.
Let's reward those responsible for the success that you are broadcasting.
I would have to agree with you, Jim. I see the Kalamazoo paper when I go home to visit my mother, who has been subscribing to the Gazette for more than 45 years -- hell, I once read a story in the paper about her job performance evaluation. For better or for worse, it had impact. Today Mom reads more out of habit but clearly notices that it offers so little. It simply isn't competitive with other demands on her time. And for God's sake, this woman is retired! If you can't get a retired librarian to read, well, you're kinda screwed, aren't you?
I don't especially relish pissing on Booth, which I left in 1993. But nothing I have heard or read over the past 17 years -- and don't get me started on MLive, whose navigation recalls nothing if not a visit to the catacombs -- changes my belief that it is too late and that nothing can be done by anyone currently in charge there to reverse the inevitable, whatever form that inevitability takes. You tell me. I was going to say something about "death by a thousand pricks." But that can be interpreted a couple of ways, so I won't say it.
Yeah, this publisher is a true visionary. And his uber editor-in-chief is an absolute genius. I'm surprised they haven't been recruited for management jobs at CSX, because they're the only two people I know who could screw up a train wreck.
Yup, Jim, it's not like you EARNED that big, fat, humongous pension check, working nights, weekends, bad shifts, homicides, fires, township meetings, etc.
It's a GIFT from the visionaries.
I just hope the gift keeps on giving till I get the pension I EARNED.
:)
By the by: Do the visionaries get a pension?
I wonder just how great things are going. In the past four months there have been two nationally-known women in Clio; Elyse Luray of History Detectives and Wanda Colon of 24 Hour Design. While the Journal did preview articles, at neither event did I see a member of the Journal or Flint Community News there.
I USED TO HAVE FRIENDS THAT WORKED THERE, BUT THERE ALL GONE. I WAS IN JOURNAL A COUPLE OF WEEKS AGO AND THERE WAS TWO PEOPLE ON THE MAIN FLOOR, EVEN THE CLOCK HAD STOPPED.HOW IRONIC....THE PAPER HAS HAD A SLIGHT IMPROVEMENT BUT STILL HAS A LONG WAY TO GO. I STILL WANT THE PAPER 7 DAY'S A WEEK. JUST CAN'T GET USED TO READING IT ON A SCREEN....
"I just got out of my meeting in Flint. Times have changed, pal. Moving forward without you and doing just fine. Boy, are you in for a rude awakening....long live the newspaper long live Booth Mid-Michigan. "Faux publisher"? Haha. Try someone who leads a team who is instituting good change. Don't worry about our company. Just sit back, relax and let us take care of that pension check for you.
05 March, 2010 10:16
Looks like this is the exact person management loves to have, one who thinks they can build a better mousetrap and buys into their "vision.". You're already a half newspaper anyway, delivering three days a week. You "Go" and show all of us who've been in this field most of our lives how to do it "right." The comment about Jim's pension is assinine. He earned every nickel for a thankless job. Do you rail against your comrades in the public sector who get even MORE for LESS service and work? We can all rest easy knowing you're on the job now. Hope and change will be coming your way soon....
what's this?
http://bit.ly/ciXPck
GLB Tuesday Facebook page?
"Great Lakes Bay"??? WTF??? That's better than the term Saginaw Bay, or better yet, Saginaw Valley, which would A) actually take in Flint, Bay City and Saginaw, and B) actually mean something?
Brilliant! Just more of the same Booth B.S. Oh, for the benefit of young Anonymous 05 March 10:16, Booth management has ALWAYS had dumb freakin ideas like this, even back in the stone age when we were young and one could make a living as a reporter.
In my day, sonny, they did a Fenton area edition that the big cheese decided to call "the Lakes edition" Of course, just like the Great Lakes Bay of today, nobody in the community (which still read the paper in those days) knew what the hell that was supposed to mean.
Jim, you are right. I don't see the paper anymore, but I still had periodic dealings with Flint area folks. Just by coincidence in the last week, I talked to two old contacts of mine, both longtime FJ readers, both Flint born and bred, both who in days gone by wouldn't have dreamed missing the paper. Both quit the paper over the course of the last year.
Keep up with the "good change," Anonymous 10:16. you and the publisher are doing a helluva a job.
Used to enjoy this blog. Seems it has turned into an I Hate Booth blog. I get it, you all are unhappy about not working there anymore. Guess I'd be bitter too. I work in the industry and used to come here for info, but find myself more often than not rolling my eyes at the obviously biased posts on here, both from the author and from the commenters, which should be taken with a grain of salt. I don't work for Booth, but would if I had the opportunity. I think what they're doing with Ann Arbor is great. I applaud them for looking to the future. Too many people in this industry are clinging to the past and their dead trees, and aren't proactively searching or the future of journalism. If you think 10 years from now we'll still be picking up a newspaper, you're very wrong. The Web is it boys. You either figure out a way to make it work, or someone else will and put you out of business. With the ipad coming, digital content will become more mainstream. My 53 year old mother no longer reads books. She uses the Kindle app on her iPod Touch. This message was posted from my iPhone, where I get ALL my news content, despite the fact that I spend my days creating those dead tree editions.
My sources within Booth said they are doing well. They are turning a profit for the first time in forever. So you can speculate all you want, but that wouldn't be using your journalism skills very much, would it?
Journalism is changing. If you don't change with it, it will change without you.
Yes, Journalism is changing, Mr. Anonymous, but Booth is not an example of a company that is embracing change, or going about it strategically, or deserves any praise whatsoever for its Internet innovations.
I STILL CAN'T UNDERSTAND WHY THEY CALL THIS COMPANY BOOTH NEWSPAPERS WHEN IT'S OWNED BY NEWHOUSE. WHEN THE BOOTH FAMILY OWNED THE BUSINESS IT WAS A REAL NEWSPAPER. IT'S NOW RUN BY BEAN COUNTERS, AND WE THE READERS SUFFER....
Their latest strategy, at least for The Community Newspapers, is to solicit news, features, photos and video from the public. Why would anyone do that? If you already know the news, you know it, why write something up and send it to them for free. Oh, those are the key words -- free labor!
Forget the argument over what platform better represents the future of journalism -- the Internet or printed newspapers.
The real issue is whether the citizens in these communities (Flint, Saginaw and Bay City)are being served with timely, thoughtful, in-depth, news-based stories that can't be found anywhere else. Nothing I've seen online or in print in the Booth products tells me this is the case.
Furthermore, calling the region "Great Lakes Bay" sounds to me like somebody in Booth is trying to make the area seem more exotic. I don't think the proud citizens of these communities have asked to be reinvented as the products of Swiss boarding schools -- I think they'd be far more appreciative of getting a real newspaper.
"I don't work for Booth, but would if I had the opportunity."
Really, Anonymous? 'Cause, well, they've been hiring copy jockeys and hack "writers" and all kinds of other "talent" for $12/hour, part-time, no pension and skeletal benefits for the past several months. I mean, assuming you've got any talent at all, you should be able to pick up the pom pons and join in the whole festive atmosphere that is this company today. You can even smirk and use the phrase "dead tree" 40-50 times a day if you'd like; heck, the "leadership" around my place will probably even let you talk ad nauseum about IMacCrap this and IMacCrap that. I mean, what's holding you back?
But don't go off on that whole "dead-tree" thing too much. You see, as much as this pains people like you, that is the only thing making any semblance of money right now. 'Not sure if your "inside sources" let you in on that little tidbit. In fact, your beloved "Booth" (another poster was correct -- it's been Newhouse-owned for decades) is planning on chopping down a few more trees to add an extra day of print publication. Yeah, these visionaries are changing strategy again. Or making it up as they go. Naaaaaaah.
Oh, but your sources and mine DO jibe on one thing; the papers around here ARE making a few bucks these days. But it has absolutely nothing to do with that abomination of a Web site. It has a whole lot to do with the first 50 or so words of this post.
Finally, the later comment in this thread regarding content is absolutely correct. No matter the platform, you've got to give the readers what they want. Our readers want news, our readers are not getting news because of stupid policy, and our readers are finding other sources.
Free markets are a beautiful thing.
Used to enjoy this blog. Seems it has turned into an I Hate Booth blog. I get it, you all are unhappy about not working there anymore. Guess I'd be bitter too. I work in the industry and used to come here for info, but find myself more often than not rolling my eyes at the obviously biased posts on here, both from the author and from the commenters, which should be taken with a grain of salt.
Dear Anonymous, You are right when you think some of the posters here are bitter, but you have to understand why. You see most of the people who were laid off from the various Boothie papers were long-term employees who gave ..in many cases... most of their lives to a company that had given them a lifetime job pledge. These people were devoted to their jobs, there were a few duds who only cared about a paycheck, but the vast majority were dedicated employees. Employees who cared so much about their job that they fought to do it well. In order for this company to become profitable they had to get rid of the employees who had been there the longest, thus earning the most money. They are still, mostly all un or under-employed. Are they bitter, yes. Most would have stayed and taken a cut in wages if they had been given the chance. They weren't. Now the newspaper they loved and gave most of their lives to has turned into a piece of crap. That's not meant as an affront to the people who work there now for $12 an hour. They too are good people, but most of them are untrained and newbies. The advertising people don't give a crap about the news all they care about is selling ads. It's a bottom line business now, now a newspaper. Sell the ads and fill the space with the kind of stories that $12 an hour writers can put together. Those who still work there are trying to have pride in what they do, and it takes some pretty fine rose colored glasses to do that. Bitter on one side, rose colored glasses on the other. And in the middle a newspaper that no longer functions as the watchdog of society, but rather an ad riddled fish wrap.
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