Sometimes it is the little things, such as television schedules, that get the readers’ attention.
And other times it is the great conflicts within an industry that can help determine how good or how bad a newspaper will be.
In the first instance, The Bee devoted the cover of Encore Magazine to a television show featuring Patty Hearst at San Simeon. It turned out the Travel Channel was not actually available to the majority of Sacramento Bee readers. At least three editors believed, when the article was assigned, that the show was to be carried by Comcast. The Travel Channel folks apparently didn’t check either, because they invited The Bee down to San Simeon and set up a chat with Hearst.
The editors assumed the Travel Chanel was available on all local systems, assumptions that turned out to be based on faulty recollections.
The same assumptions carried over to Monday’s television page, when the show was touted as a best bet.
On Tuesday, The Bee apologized and explained as best it could how things went wrong.
Some readers were amused. Some outraged. At least one thought it was “idiocy,” and seemed to think a whipping post would be an appropriate response.
After printing the apology, an editor summed it up well in one word: “embarrassing.” A lot of Bee readers were not aware they could not get the cable channel, and it wasn’t until they sat down to watch that they discovered the problem.
That doesn’t let The Bee off the hook. Editors who choose and edit stories about television are expected to know what is, and what is not, available, despite the complexities.
Quick fix or shortsighted?
It is testing time for the newspaper industry, once again.
Jay Harris resigned last Monday as publisher of the San Jose Mercury News. He quit his high-profile job, at which he had earned great acclaim, because his bosses at Knight Ridder newspapers wanted — in his opinion — too much profit at the expense of journalistic quality.
The newspaper had announced layoffs in order to maintain high profit levels in the wake of a weakening economy. After Harris’ resignation, the layoff plan was abandoned.
The Business section story in The Bee covered essential details, and a column by Geneva Overholser about the industry’s business practices appears on Page 5 in Forum today.
Knight Ridder was looking for a quick fix to keep stockholders and Wall Street analysts happy.
Quick fixes won’t work, but some companies try this every time the economy gets a little soft, advertising drops off or newsprint prices go up. All three happened in the past three months.
Layoffs look attractive to Wall Street, but there are real problems with that approach.
Newspapers need editorial quality to meet customers’ legitimate expectations, and papers can’t get around needing enough people in every department to do the work. If you reduce the number of copy editors, for example, from 20 to 15, you will see a direct drop in quality, unless you also reduce the number of stories and pages they handle, which means less news.
The bad newspapers in America, and there are many, don’t see a problem with the layoff approach. Times get tough, and they cut staff and reduce the news space. That works for a while, until they go out of business.
The flap in San Jose — home to a good newspaper — was caused by a corporate push to maintain 22-25 percent margins in a year when classified advertising in that market is falling like a rock and newsprint prices have been climbing. Stock analysts contend stockholders expect improved profits no matter what. The corporation apparently sought a short-term fix.
Harris urged a longer-term view. He made his point by quitting.
Profit pressures increase
His resignation should not have been a surprise at Knight Ridder, as they claimed. It certainly was not the first embarrassment for the corporation. The company’s newspapers in Miami, Philadelphia and Akron all have lost ground, readers and some industry respect in recent years.
The corporation took another hit recently when its debate with the majority owner of the Seattle Times, Frank Blethen., became public. Knight Ridder — a minority stock holder — insisted the Times should cut back staff and make more money. Blethen told them to take a hike.
As the dust began to settle in San Jose, the Knight Ridder folks were assuring everyone that they would not mess with the Mercury News other than the normal “keep expenses down” credo, which involves losing 20 positions by attrition. That leaves the newspaper’s exceptionally large news staff essentially in place, for now.
The downturn in newspaper revenues in 2001 is fairly widespread, though San Jose was hit harder than most because of the decline in high-tech companies. That doesn’t mean newspapers are not making money, just not as much money as planned.
The San Francisco Chronicle, which added people to its newsroom last year as a result of the changes in that city, felt obligated to announce at midweek that they have no plans for layoffs.
The Bee hangs on
Closer to home, The Sacramento Bee has experienced some of the same revenue problems as San Jose, and reacted somewhat differently.
The Bee currently is holding down on discretionary expenses and requests for extra news space, and is delaying or avoiding hiring replacements.
The McClatchy company announced Wednesday a slight decline in advertising revenues so far this year, mostly due to lower employment advertising, and said it has taken various cost-cutting measures. The company has avoided layoffs during past economic slumps as a matter of policy.
During the industry’s decline in the early 1990s, most McClatchy publishers delayed large capital expenses, cut travel and other discretionary expenses, trimmed news space requests and imposed a freeze on hiring. Some papers reduced the work force through attrition and early buyout offers.
So far this year, despite the changing economy, The Sacramento Bee maintains plans for changes and improvements in the paper, including several to be initiated next week.
The Bee staff was enlarged recently, primarily to deal with technology and production changes, and news space was enlarged during the past two years. No one has had to threaten to quit to make the point that Harris did. But the subject of economizing will come up again, and the lessons of the past need to be remembered.
Readers buy newspapers because they provide quality news and information, even in down cycles. Without that information, profits do not flow. Kings fans speak up
Other items attracting reader attention recently:
- A few Kings fans were irritated with columnist Ailene Voisin’s opinions regarding the league’s reaction to recent accusations against Jason Williams.Readers are not required to agree with columnists’ opinions, and should express their opinions in letters to the sports editor. Several already have done that, and I relayed all the civil messages I received.
- Other Kings fans were bemused, or irritated, by the “expanded Kings coverage” provided in a page labeled “Kings Plus” inside the first edition on Wednesday. The page was plugged with a large house ad for classified advertising, and included one 10-inch notebook item. It was more helpful in the final edition.
- A horse racing fan complained about the missing Bay Meadows results. Sports Editor Tom Negrete agreed, and said the demand for space for Kings coverage and the inability to ask for and get extra space (see economy item at the beginning of this column) has squeezed that out.
- Several readers complimented The Bee on coverage of the energy crisis, but others wanted to know why the paper does not tell readers when and where blackouts are due. Editors agree that is a good idea, but have a problem with PG&E, which won’t announce blackout areas for Yolo, El Dorado and Placer counties.
- A reader asked why The Bee ran similar stories on Rio Americano High School’s jazz band in both the Metro and Neighbors sections the same day.The Metro desk decided the story, already done by one reporter for the Neighbors distribution area, was important enough to duplicate for the readers that would not see that Neighbors edition.
