Final Days? A Newsroom Diary
by Ian Lind, Star-Bulletin reporter
Final Days? A Newsroom Diaryby Ian Lind, Star-Bulletin reporter
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Another month begins.
It's peaceful out here in Kaaawa. Not as peaceful in the newsroom.
Yesterday's entry brought a lot of reaction, at least from Star-Bulletin staffers, but reporting them wouldn't do much for relations with the Advertiser, so I'll forgo that exercise.
Freedom Communications Inc., parent company of The Orange County Register, announced earlier this week that it is buying four daily newspapers in Arizona from the Thomson Corporation. Coming on the heels of Gannett's purchase of the Arizona Republic, it looks like an newspaper war could be brewing out there in the desert. It's something to watch in the months ahead.
The judge in the San Francisco newspaper trial has again postponed his ruling and asked the Department of Justice for still further clarification of their intentions, according to a story in yesterday's SF Examiner by reporter Bob Egelko.We dutifully attended a friend's wedding reception last night. It really wasn't our kind of crowd. We were, for example, the only ones in jeans, and that's only one visible indicator. But everyone I ran into expressed interest in the status of the Star-Bulletin, whether a sale would go through, etc. I want to believe that their support is sincere, but I've got my cynical doubts.
I'm thinking back to the early 1990's when I was publishing a little newsletter about Hawaii politics. I vividly recall the day that I received an irate call from an acquaintance who complained that he hadn't received his copy. He heard accounts of a "hot" story, but couldn't find his copy in the mail, and was upset. I dutifully booted up my subscription records to locate the problem, and found it right away. He didn't subscribe. He was one of the large group who professed interest and support, but somehow never got around to writing a check.
I have no way of knowing just how many expressions of support for the Star-Bulletin are as hollow as those of my would-be subscriber, but circulation figures would suggest the number is not insubstantial. I'm sure there are things we can do to convert these folks into subscribers, but whether we get the chance remains to be seen.
It was last October when S-B photographer George Lee first referenced "Monty Python and the Holy Grail" and suggested "Not Dead Yet" as a working slogan for our newsroom.The reference now seems more apt than ever, so I tracked down the script of this famous scene, as well as an audio clip from the movie.
If you're not familiar with this short scene, a cart is picking up plague victims when one "customer" tries to add one that isn't dead. This "victim" protests, "I'm not dead! I'm feeling better!" etc, etc. The customer pleads with the cart master to take him anyway, then asks for help. "Isn't there something you can do?"
Whop! The cart master's club ends the argument and they throw the victim onto the stack.
For more than nine months, Gannett's been trying to declare the Star-Bulletin dead but we've refused to get on the cart.
"Not dead yet!" Thanks, George.
It's a holiday for most of us, with the newsroom running on a minimum crew. I was going to say it could be the last holiday for Star-Bulletin staffers, but even if no deal emerges in August, it appears that we'll still be around for Labor Day, if only because the gears of the court grind very slowly. Realistically, we'll almost certainly put out another New Year's edition as the legal process plays out.But if I'm not mistaken, today marks the end of the 45-day notice period announced back on Friday, May 19, and so it's our last day of certain employment. With the notice properly given, we could be terminated immediately if the court were to lift the injunction for whatever reason.
Happy day of independence.
"Bad Blood" is an interesting take on San Francisco's newspaper trial appearing in the current American Journalism Review. The article by Susan Rasky, former congressional correspondent for the New York Times who is now teaching at the UC-Berkeley School of Journalism, looks at the long-standing feud between the various parties involved in the case.Her description of the plans for the "new" Examiner are more than a bit sobering for those trying to envision the shape of a future Star-Bulletin:
During trial testimony about his plans for the new Examiner, Fang said it would have the look and feel of a suburban daily, with San Francisco as the burb. The streamlined 40- to 50-page paper, in which the Fang family will be investing no money of its own, would employ 30 to 40 people on the editorial staff, a fraction of the 210 who make up that staff at the current Examiner. Reporters, Fang says, would be expected to write six stories a week, something he characterized as just below the industry average. In words that would come to haunt Hearst executives and fascinate Judge Walker, Fang described the essence of the new Examiner: "We are not going to make any pretense of being a metropolitan newspaper. We are going to be a local newspaper."No wonder current Examiner staff are less than enthusiastic about joining the new team.
We're obviously hoping for a relatively better outcome, but whether that's realistic remains to be seen.
And in the "better late than never" category, SaveOurNews.com, which offers unusually detailed information from the SF case, including daily transcripts of the trial itself. It's definitely worth browsing, even at this late date.
"What a great time to be in journalism!"That's how Phil Currie, Gannett's senior vp for news, summed up the company's move to a "new information model" to guide their newspaper and online operations.
"At its head is the aim of establishing Complete Community Coverage, making us the primary source of local news and information," Currie says.
It's a bit tough to wade through the plan's emphasis on local news, local understanding, and community trust, in light of Gannett's long-term practice of stripping its newspapers of people capable of pursuing such goals, or putting them to work in authoritarian news structures in which those without local experience or understanding tend to be promoted quickly to the top.
Interestingly, with the proclaimed emphasis on "local" community news coverage, one major concrete thrust already announced is a new weekly technology section to be written by Gannett News Service in Arlington and distributed to their newspapers around the country for publication, with the first issue due around Labor Day.
In any case, it's interesting to see this outline of the plan, which will also replace Gannett's "NEWS 2000" guidelines in the corporate reviews of their papers and, presumably, individual reporters.
I have to admit nothing new to report today.There were rumblings that the investment banker representing the Star-Bulletin ESOP is either here in Honolulu, or expected soon, to review the financial information that has been made available by HNA. But no official word, and as far as I know he hasn't been sighted.
Nothing else to indicate due diligence investigations by any other buyers, although I'm sure some are out there.
We seem to be drifting, with another five weeks to go.
A brief staff message yesterday announced that managing editor Dave Shapiro is going on leave for at least two weeks for health reasons, seeking the curative powers of a good rest. Dave's been a key to the Star-Bulletin's long-term success, and he'll be sorely missed during his absence. Ass't M.E. Frank Bridgewater will take over.
Happy Birthday to George Steele, Appalachia's 50-something gift to Makiki. George is a key communications link whose routine friendliness keeps different parts of the newsroom in touch with each other. Keep it up, Mr. George.The Court of Appeals for the D.C. Circuit yesterday overturned an NLRB ruling which had put the blame for the 1995 Detroit newspaper strike on illegal moves of the Detroit News Agency. Yesterday's decision appears to be a major victory for the employers and another blow to the unions' effort. The decision contains a long and detailed description of the bargaining process, with focus on a management move to implement a merit-based salary system. I haven't made it through the whole decision yet, but it's probably something we all need to do.
With our own bargaining process well underway, we need to be reading between the lines of the Detroit experience.
Something's in the air. I went to grab a quick digital photo of one of the cats squeezing happily into a recently emptied box, and the camera's tiny status screen blandly announced "E17". Without a list of error messages, I'm not wholly sure what this specifically means, apart from the certainty of a trip to Canon's repair shop.There are two bits of good news and some not quite as good news. Canon does have a repair facility in Honolulu (good) and the camera should still be under warranty (good). And I think I can find the receipt to qualify for the warranty service (not quite as confident, so not quite as good).
Meanwhile, another computer upgrade effort is giving me anxiety fits. And to top things off, Meda is flying out this afternoon for a week of consulting in the mountains of western North Carolina, leaving me to cope with the full cat care craziness.
What a week it's going to be!
Meanwhile, Business Week has an interesting analysis of Gannett's recent newspaper buying spree and future prospects ("Reading between the Lines of Gannett's Growth Strategy").
According to the story, Gannett head Doug McCorkindale is "convinced that local news is where the action is. If he can continue to gain efficiencies through acquisitions and drive up revenues by penetrating further into small markets, profits will keep rolling in, he argues."
The story continues, quoting Lee Dirks, chairman of Dirks, Van Essen & Murray, the newspaper broker selected to market the Star-Bulletin: "Indeed, smaller papers tend to be more profitable than their big-city counterparts because small-town advertisers usually have only one outlet in which to market their products, says merger specialist Dirks."
That's a long winded way of saying that Gannett wants and needs to establish a monopoly in the markets where it operates in order to take advantage of those "small-town advertisers" who have nowhere else to go. And the Star-Bulletin happens to be sitting in that dangerous zone between Gannett and its desired monopoly.
There was a flurry of questions at the end of the week when word slipped out that a hastily called "status conference" among attorneys in the antitrust case was underway in federal court here in Honolulu. The best guess was that some kind of question had come up regarding the confidential financial data being made available for inspection by "qualified" parties, but I was in and out of the newsroom and don't know if the actual purpose was ever disclosed.Every unexpected event hits a nerve, and it takes a while for things to settle down again, even though we know things are almost certainly stable until next month's deadline.
I was again thinking about how well Star-Bulletin staffers have been coping with nearly a year of uncertainty. Few have left, despite the pressure. And while there is a group of us who are really keying on events as they develop, some seem to keep it all at bay, or carefully bracketed away from everyday tasks. There are a few folks who I've never heard discussing the fate of the paper or themselves. In all likelihood, they just do it in more private spaces than the rest of us. But on reflection, I find the differences striking.
A bit of excitement yesterday with an appearance in the newsroom of "our" investment banker, Josh Wolf-Powers, who is here in town to review financial records on behalf of the Star-Bulletin ESOP group.At an impromptu newsroom conference attended by perhaps 1/3 of the staff, we were asked to keep his comments confidential, so I'll just share the impression that he seems guardedly optimistic and upbeat. It was confidence boosting for us to meet him and get a personal sense of his approach to this very complicated and sensitive matter.
Earlier in the day, I was told that last week's status conference was held after a complaint by one of the interested parties about Gannett's handling of the financial data. Apparently no copies were being allowed to leave the designated data room, so that there would be no real world opportunity to review, digest, and assess the data. The outcome was that Gannett's lawyers have been directed to make copies of certain information available, although it remains to be seen whether the problem is "solved".
Thanks to SaveStarBulletin.org for calling attention to the Indianapolis Star's fascinating look at what can be expected following the Gannett takeover of that paper, based on experiences in Des Moines and Louisville.
To be fair, the Star-Bulletin survived its years as a Gannett property, as did many of the staff here, although Gannett's departure seems to have released a considerable degree of pent-up creativity. What seems pretty clear is that few in our newsroom would voluntarily,or under normal circumstances, choose to move back into a Gannett newsroom.
I fussed and grumbled after arriving home last night and finding my Roadrunner service unavailable. It gave me an excuse to head for bed early, but not in a good mood. Much to my chagrin, the light of day revealed that "someone", and I have a furred suspect, carefully pulled a key power cable out of its proper destination, rendering Roadrunner unreachable. So to the folks at Oceanic Cable, I'm sorry for doubting you!Back at the news building....watch out, car thieves. A security camera at the back of the print shop building is now taking sweeping views of the back parking area where recent thefts have occurred. Thanks to folks in HNA for responding.
Josh stopped by for another newsroom session Tuesday morning aimed at those who hadn't been around the day before. His reports continue to bolster confidence that a positive outcome is possible. There was some concern when an Advertiser staffer called minutes later seeking some news on the meeting, and we were all advised once again that the sessions were confidential.
Here's one interesting point I initially missed in the Indianapolis Star's assessment of Gannett referred to yesterday. In a reference to Gannett's earlier takeover of the Louisville Courier-Journal, the article notes:
"The paper's circulation has fallen, in part because it cut back its distribution, ending the practice of offering same-day home delivery throughout Kentucky."It's the same step Gannett took after purchasing the Star-Bulletin, when they ceded primary distribution on the other islands to the Advertiser. The lingering effects of that decision still haunt the Star-Bulletin, since population growth in recent decades has centered on the neighbor islands, making them natural targets for circulation growth to stem declines here on Oahu.
There has been on and off discussion of the possibility that the Washington Times, or its primary backer, the Unification Church, might have an interest in the Star-Bulletin. Staffers have stopped to ponder the inevitable question: "How bad could it be?"
I really don't know, but you don't have to look too far to find viewpoints like the following, from a 1992 Napa Sentinel series.
The newspaper policy was subtle, in which editors were to use key words to emphasize political messages. Specific organizations were targeted. The Washington Times gained access to American television. The newspaper fostered the likes of Pat Buchanan, Bill Rusher and Mona Sharon, who suddenly became TV personalities, but were little known before the Times. When Martin declined the assignment, James Whalen accepted it, but he soon became disillusioned. "When we started the paper, there was never any question that it would, in any fashion, project the views or the agenda of Moon or the Unification Church. All to the contrary. We said, look, we're going to put a high wall in place It's going to be a sturdy wall, and it will divide us from you," Whalen said. But Whalen's wall of editorial independence was often breached. "Moon, himself, gave direct instructions to the editors, of who <ETH> in fact, called the shots. Ultimately, Moon calls all the shots. The Washington Times has become a Moonie newspaper," Whalen said.The Washington Times is quoted virtually every hour on the hour by Voice of America and on the BBC. When Whalen resigned, Arneau de Borgrave took over. He maintains that the editorial department has complete freedom. But no way, says William Chester. "I protested to Mr. de Borgrave and I was honest when I saw this happening, telling him that this was unethical, improper, unprofessional, and ought to stop. And I also said it was dumb." Chester and four other editors resigned after de Borgrave ordered an about-face on an editorial critical of the South Korean government. The U.S. Justice Department won't investigate complaints that the Washington Times may be in violation of the Foreign Agents Registration Act.
The Times provided editorial and financial support to the Contras. When Col. Oliver North wrote a top secret memo proposing the formation of a private foundation called the Nicaraguan Freedom Fund, the Washington Times announced the formation of the foundation on their front page. The Times contributed $100,000 to the cause.
Moon also founded the World Media Association, which pays journalists for junkets all over the world. He told a television show, "There is a total war, basically a war of ideas, war of minds, the battlefield of the human mind. This (the media) is where the battle is fought. So, in this war, all weapons will be mobilized, political means, social means, economic means and propagandist means, and basically trying to take over the person's mind. That is what the Third World War is all about, the war of ideology."
There was a scramble Wednesday afternoon when it appeared an order would be issued by the end of the day that would clarify the new timetable and process for the ongoing attempt to sell the Star-Bulletin. But as the minutes ticked away, the expected order didn't emerge from the judge's chambers, and we'll have to wait until this morning for these details.It was quiet otherwise on the newsroom front. Too quiet. Managing editor on leave, publisher traveling. Staff vacation schedules have taken their toll, and we're shorthanded again. Thank heaven for interns.
The multi-cat vigil was underway when I went to bed, and the sounds of the chase could be heard through the night. But by morning, no rat, no parts, no hunt.
On the home front, the good news and the bad news are the same: I haven't seen Ms. Rat since Leo carried it through the cat door Monday night for a good indoor bit of playing. It was a moderate size rat, and Leo had lots of backup. A second team of more experienced ratters arrayed themselves several feet away as he went through the pounce-and-wait routine several times.
With all the supporting cast, I wasn't worried about an escape, but I should have, as Leo suddenly stood aside and let Ms. Rat take refuge behind an 8-foot buffet filled with hundreds of collectible dishes recovered from thrift stores over the years.
Don't worry, this one is just catnip.Thus, the good news and bad news are the same.
The deadline for Star-Bulletin bidders is a month from today, August 14. I'm not sure whether I should say it is "only" a month away, or seek to convey how far off that deadline appears emotionally. Time is, after all, so subjective, especially borrowed time like ours.We've still got only informed guesses as to the interested parties, although there was a meeting (or meetings) of some sort yesterday between the Star-Bulletin ESOP committee and one or more potential bidders. Information from those will likely be closely held by the committee members, who have accepted the additional responsibilities that go with the court-imposed confidentiality agreement and the niceties of this negotiating process.
FYI: The Canon authorized repair center in Honolulu doesn't handle digital cameras, much to my surprise and dismay. So I'm handicapped on the visual front until the camera makes the round trip to a service center in Illinois. No more cat or sunrise photos for a while, unless I dip into the existing stock. I'm trying to repress my best guess on how long the repair process is likely to take. Come to think of it, I don't think any of camera I've purchased in the last 7 years has lasted more than a year, whether film or digital. All have been serviced at least once while still under that 1-year warranty, with a tendency to die during the last vacation of the warranty period, just when you really want a camera. I wonder if that's just my bad luck, or a reflection of the general state of affairs?
Click here for a viewpoint from Minneapolis, prompted by a rumor that Gannett might be preparing a bid for the McClatchy newspaper chain, which owns the Minneapolis Star-Tribune. It seems you can find this particular sentiment in lots of places around the country. Further commentary not necessary.It feels like we're running on fumes in the Star-Bulletin newsroom. Folks are still hitting great stories, and the paper has been looking good, but the ongoing pressure is a drag on everyone, from management on down. Perhaps its time for another "Not Dead Yet" party.
Here's a relatively thoughtful review of our Honolulu newspaper situation found online. Interesting to see how a relatively newcomer to the islands looks at the two dailies.
Since 11/2/99
