Pay walls coming

They said they were going to do it, and now it's official.

MediaNews Chairman Dean Singleton announced yesterday that the company would begin implementing a "pay wall" at two MediaNews Web sites.

Initially, only the Chico Enterprise-Record and the York Daily Record will see portion of online content restricted to paying customers, but according to Editor & Publisher, the plan may spread to other properties if successful. The Chico Enterprise-Record is located in Chico, Ca., and has a circulation of 27,000. The York Daily Record is in York, Pennsylvania and has a circulation of 55,000. MediaNews says the sites were chosen because of the size of their respective markets.

"We wanted to get sites that were not metro sites for the same reason that you don't open on Broadway," said Howard Saltz, vice president for content development. "But not a site that has Web traffic so small that the change would not affect anything."

Saltz said more sites, including MediaNews Group's larger papers such as The Denver Post and San Jose Mercury News, would likely add a pay wall approach if the York and Chico efforts prove successful: "We are going to be rolling out for the next two years."

Despite the near-inevitable public mutiny awaiting the decision, MediaNews' plan cuts to the heart of the online conundrum. In an environment where advertising is so grossly undervalued, how does a newspaper get paid for the content it produces? Their solution isn't what matters, what MediaNews is trying is an assertion that real journalism isn't cheap, and it isn't easy to produce. Even after being slashed beyond comprehension by layoffs and cutbacks, most daily newspapers still have no peer when it comes to the scope and quality of the news they produce each day. The question is whether or not anyone cares...and perhaps more importantly, will anyone pay for it.

What do you think?

Free Speech Assembly, October 24

It's short notice, but we've just received information on an upcoming journalism conference, hosted by the California nonprofit First Amendment Coalition.

The Free Speech Assembly will discuss "journalism, technology and public policy - explained and debated from the standpoint of freedom of speech and freedom of information."

Saturday, October 24 is the date. The place is Southwestern Law School's Biederman Entertainment and Media Law Institute in Los Angeles. The event is FAC's annual Free Speech and Open Government Assembly, jointly sponsored by the Coalition, the Biederman Institute and the McCormick Foundation.

For our colleagues in the ethnic media, some sessions will be conducted in Spanish and Vietnamese, as well as English.

The program includes panel discussions on topics ranging from journalists' use of social media for reporting, to new online tools to track the influence of money on legislation, to journalism training sessions on how to get sophisticated, insider news stories (and avoid being "spun" by government officials on one hand, or union officials on the other) about: local police and the criminal justice system; public school financing and the ranking of schools and teachers; salaries and pensions of government employees; and much more.

Attendees will have a chance to listen to featured speakers Alexandra Berzon and Alex S. Jones. Berzon was awarded the 2009 Pulitzer Prize as a reporter at the Las Vegas Sun, and currently covers Las Vegas for the Wall Street Journal. Jones, Director of Harvard University's Shorenstein Center on the Press, Politics and Public Policy, is a fellow Pulitzer winner and former host of NPR's On The Media, and PBS’s Media Matters.

Discussion panelists include: Dan Gillmor, Director, Knight Center for Digital Media Entrepreneurship; Geneva Overholser, Director of the USC Annenberg School of Journalism; Claudia Nunez, La Opinion; Evan Hansen, Editor-in-Chief, Wired.com; Neil Budde, President, DailyMe; Ricardo Sandoval, Sacramento Bee; Mary Perry, EdSource; Kathryn Baron, Fellow, UC Berkeley; and LA Times reporters Mitchell Landsberg and Matt Lait.

Best of all, attendance is free. But space is EXTREMELY limited. So if you're interested in attending, please register now.

You can register to attend at the firstamendmentcoalition.org Web site.

'Accidental' owners

As newspaper fortunes decline, the banks that financed the ambition of chains like MediaNews will increasingly find themselves the new owners of media properties, said MediaNews CEO Dean Singleton in an interview with The Salt Lake Tribune.

"Whether by supervision of the courts or by negotiation to convert some debt to equity, America's banks will own a large position in the newspaper sector going forward. Get used to it."

In a surprisingly candid moment, Singleton also suggested that the eventual denouement of corporate newspaper empires might be the best thing that could happen to the industry.

"Is this all bad? Probably not," Singleton said, predicting the result could be that newspapers are eventually owned once again by people wanting to cover news and shape opinion through editorial pages instead of being publicly owned corporations forced to meet Wall Street's profit expectations.

Breeze Names New Top Editor

Management of the Torrance Daily Breeze announced Friday that Managing Editor Toni Sciacqua has been named to fill the top editor position at the paper. Sciacqua has been filling the top position on an interim position since the departure of former editor and publisher Phillip Sanfield in August.

The announcement was made by new Breeze and Long Beach Press-Telegram publisher Linda Lindus, who joined the MediaNews Group-owned papers last month.

Lindus highlighted Sciacqua "soccer-mom" bonifides in making the announcement, saying that Sciacqua "is from a different constituency than the Breeze's traditional newsroom leaders. Her perspective will allow the Breeze to broaden its coverage, not only in print, but online as well."

LINK: http://www.dailybreeze.com/news/ci_13412143?

Sciacqua is an 11-plus year veteran of the Breeze, moving from copy editor and designer to city editor and then to managing editor. She previously worked on the copy desk of the Press-Telegram.

MNG Decides to Charge Online

Dean Singleton, CEO of MediaNews Group which includes the nine newspapers of the Los Angeles Newspaper Group, said Thursday that MNG has decided to start charging for at least some online content on each of the MNG websites.

The comments from the typically media-shy Singleton came in a short interview with the Salt Lake Tribune (another MNG outlet).

LINK: http://www.ksl.com/?nid=148&sid=8048316

In previous statements, Singleton had said that MNG was considering charging for some online 'premium' content.

"We can't continue to give everything away for free," Singleton told the Salt Lake Tribune. "When you give it away for free, it has no value. When you begin charging for it, it has some value."

Singleton said that each MNG paper would most likely move into the future with two sites, one for free that offers breaking news and some user-generated content, and one that charges, populated with what Singleton describes as the "most valuable content" -- sports, hyper-local news, and maybe even entertainment news.

President "happy to look" at nonprofit bill

He's not familiar with the legislation yet, but President Barack Obama told the Toldeo Blade he'd "be happy to look at" bills like the Newspaper Revitalization Act.

"What I hope is that people start understanding if you're getting your newspaper over the Internet, that's not free and there's got to be a way to find a business model that supports that."

Can it work?

According to Alan Mutter, a recent survey shows 51% of newspaper publishers support fee-based online content. 49% are either unsure if the plan will work, or believe it will fail.

Losing faith in the news

Confidence in the accuracy of the media is at a two-decade low, according the the Pew Research Center.

Just 29% of Americans say that news organizations generally get the facts straight, while 63% say that news stories are often inaccurate. In the initial survey in this series about the news media's performance in 1985, 55% said news stories were accurate while 34% said they were inaccurate. That percentage had fallen sharply by the late 1990s and has remained low over the last decade.

The impact of diminishing variety in coverage that comes with so many mergers and acquisitions of media properties is never addressed by the study, but many groups like Fairness & Accuracy in Reporting suggest that the two are closely intertwined.

Expense voucher issues

We're hearing reports from members that company policy regarding expense vouchers has changed. We're investigating the situation, and we need your help. Have you experienced any difficulty filing expense vouchers? Let us know by either sending an email to scmg9400@gmail.com, or log on to our message board at http://lang9400.com/phpBB3/

Rumors

Guild members are invited to participate in a private online discussion of some possible developments from inside LANG.

http://lang9400.com/phpBB3/viewtopic.php?f=5&t=6981

For topics like this, registration is required in order to access the forum - so everything is completely private. If you haven't registered yet, stop by and check it out. It's fast, easy, and free.

New publisher announced

The latest joint publisher for the Torrance Daily Breeze and Long Beach Press-Telegram was introduced today. Linda Lindus, 61, steps into the recently-vacated shoes of Mark Ficarra, who left for a position at the San Diego Union-Tribune. The post had been held by Breeze EiC Phillip Sanfield, who left the company last month.

Lindus is currently the publisher of the Longview Daily News in Washington. She steps down from that position Aug. 14. She assumes her position in LANG Aug. 10.

The Longview Daily News is a 21,000 circulation daily paper, according to the most recent numbers from the Audit Bureau of Circulation.

Here's the notice sent to P-T staffers:

Linda Lindus has been named publisher of the Press-Telegram and the Daily Breeze. The appointment is effective Aug. 10. Her most recent position was as publisher of the Daily News in Longview, Wash., but her career stretches back to a number of stops, including at the Daily Illinoisan in Carbondale, Ill. and as publisher of The Spectrum in St. George, Utah, plus positions at Lee Enterprises. She is being introduced in Torrance right now and will visit here later this afternoon.

More at the Daily Breeze and from Gary Scott

Cutting costs, or profits?

Although controlling costs is undeniably a necessary part of managing a successful business, sometimes it's wiser to wield a scalpel, rather than an axe. This is something we've seen time and time again lately, as newsrooms across LANG and the rest of the country fall into the same herd mentality and reflexively slash newsroom staff every time revenue starts to droop.

Unfortunately, as we and many others have said all along, cutting into your core business product isn't a smart business decision. You don't need an MBA or a PhD in economics to see that. And now there are hard numbers to back up that argument.

Gary Scott posted a link to this study by the University of Missouri, which indicates that short-term savings, eked out by cutting news expenses, quickly translate into lower revenue and profits down the road.

The authors advised that newsrooms should be the last department cut. When cutting costs, newsroom cuts are by far the most damaging to revenues – and the longer the reductions occur, the greater the acceleration of damage. The authors wrote, “We find that newsroom cutbacks hurt a newspaper’s revenue many times more than cutbacks in either distribution or the sales force departments.”

This of course isn't news to anyone familiar with the vagaries of life inside LANG. MediaNews' ongoing pursuit of lower costs has been a case study in what happens to the bottom line when newsrooms become less important than the boardroom.

The real question is, what can we do to change course?

Sanfield out of Torrance

We're told that according to LANG management, Breeze EiC and interim publisher Philip Sanfield has left the company.

That's all we have for the moment. We'll follow up as more info becomes available.

...According to Gary Scott (posting from the phone, so no link), Sanfield told staffers in a memo that he's leaving to join the Port of Los Angeles as Director of Media Relations.

CWA Legislative Conference

The 2009 CWA Convention and Legislative-Political Conference adjourned last week, with several important resolutions. Guild rep and Vice President Vicki Di Paolo was good enough to share her take on what the conference means for working journalists facing the worst industry conditions in history, so here's a partial list of some of the issues CWA is tackling right now.

The subject matter is a little dry, but the information is critical to understanding how the Guild is working to help improve and preserve the lives and jobs of journalists in America.



United Labor

Because unity and solidarity are some of our guiding principles, CWA and other labor organizations like the AFL-CIO, Change to Win, and the NEA established a National Labor Coordinating Committee to work together and create a labor movement that maximizes the strength of its' members.



Employee Free Choice Act

Most of us realize that U.S. labor laws are no longer enforced as intended. The National Labor Relations Act of 1935 established rights for workers for the first time, and helped pave the way for the laws we take for granted today. But in the 70 years since its passage, the NLRA has been under constant attack by big business. In the last few years particularly labor laws have been interpreted vastly differently from those early days, and again the rights of workers are overlooked, unenforced, and disregarded by employers.

In an interview with Multinational Monitor magazine, David Bonior, Chair of American Rights at Work and former Michigan Congressman, says abuse of labor law by employers has become an "epidemic."

It is a huge problem. To give you some perspective on that: the International Labor Organization arm of the United Nations ranks all member countries based upon compliance with labor law, and the United States ranks in the bottom twentieth percentile. We are down there with Iran and with Afghanistan. We do not comply with our own labor law. As a result, we've seen the numbers of illegal firings and discriminations shoot up from five and six hundred in the 1960s to a few thousand in the 1970s now to epidemic proportions of 23,000 to 30,000 a year.

That's why CWA and so many others support the Employee Free Choice Act. Human Rights Watch says EFCA is absolutely necessary to "help remedy glaring deficiencies in current U.S. labor law that significantly impair the right of workers."

Despite what big business says, EFCA is not a way to sneak unions into a workplace, and it doesn't eliminate "secret ballot" elections. Instead it gives the decision over elections to the workers - not management, where it rests today. Currently, employers are legally entitled to force employees to "confirm" their decision, and endure harsh anti-union campaigns where employees are harassed, intimidated, and fired for supporting union representation. In some instances, employers have been able to force workers to vote more than six times before their decision was finally accepted! EFCA levels the playing field, and that's why big business has spent hundreds of millions of dollars fighting to maintain their stranglehold on employees.



Health Care Reform

With the support of President Barack Obama, CWA has joined the call for national health care reform. The high cost of health care is not only the leading cause of bankruptcy in America, but hurts our ability to compete in the global marketplace. Affordable health care is probably one of the biggest issues facing Americans today, and CWA is working hard to support passage of legislation that will ensure quality affordable health care is available to everyone. Coalitions like Health Care for America Now! stand at the forefront of this fight, and CWA is a proud member.



Trade Reform

The U.S. trade deficit continues to wreak havoc on our economy, and the effects travel far beyond the manufacturing sector. That's why CWA supports balanced trade agreements that will create genuine opportunity and make it harder for multinational corporations to move production overseas. The Trade Reform, Accountability, Development and Employment (TRADE) Act of 2009 calls for a comprehensive review of U.S. trade policy, with a priority on the interests of working families, farmers, the environment, and domestic manufacturers.



Shield law for journalists

Although most states have a shield law in place, there is still no federal protection for journalists.

Irwin Gratz, SPJ president, points out that without this legislation, protection for journalists remains an uncertain proposition.

Posner's findings have been echoed by several other judges in the past two years, leading to the increased likelihood that prosecutors would subpoena reporters. And they have. In the most notorious case to date, New York Times reporter Judy Miller has been jailed for refusing to comply with a subpoena. So, we, and other journalism groups are turning to a practical solution that has worked in 31 other states: a shield law.

CWA recognizes the importance of ensuring that the media's ability to gather information is not compromised, and is a proud supporter of the Free Flow of Information Act of 2009.



Media Antitrust

Although the media conglomerates might argue that relaxing the rules on media ownership is necessary, CWA knows allowing even more local newspapers to be swallowed up will only "accelerate newspaper monopolies, thereby perpetuating a downward spiral of layoffs and closings." CWA-TNG President Bernie Lunzer spoke with Congress about the need to preserve independence and diversity, as part of this commitment to protect journalistic freedom and integrity.

Although there's no legislation related to this issue, CWA opposes any efforts to relax the rules on media ownership.

Bankruptcy ahead?

Bankruptcy is imminent.

That's the word from Michael Roberts, longtime MediaNews watcher for the alt-weekly Denver Westword.

Unfortunately much or Roberts' evidence - a subscriber-only report with anonymous sources - can't be easily verified, so it's hard to determine the accuracy of these dire predictions. But the numbers Roberts cites are downright horrifying if they're correct.

According to numbers pulled from Debtwire, and culled from a filing with the Securities and Exchange Commission, Roberts calculates MediaNews' debt obligation at $1.28 billion. Spread out over six loans ranging from $100 million to $350 million, these obligations establish a constant set of hurdles for the company to negotiate. The first of which, a $235 million "revolving" loan, is due December of this year.

MediaNews has disputed the accuracy of the story. In response to the Debtwire report, the company released a statement saying the plans were not a bankruptcy, but merely a restructuring of their debt and organization. But while the statement calls Bankwire's report "inaccurate in almost all respects," they don't dispute the fundamentals of the story, only the details.

MediaNews acknowledges that the proposed restructuring will trade debt for equity, but claims such a move will not affect control of the company. They also state that these plans are in no way a bankruptcy procedure. But with an unknown amount of company equity in the hands of lenders, the question is whether MediaNews' executive control will be an extension of their authority, or a matter of agreement between the company and lenders who simply have no interest or experience in managing a newspaper empire.

The difference of course, is that a subordinate leadership organization is responsible for implementing policy, not setting it.

An independent executive team, freed from the burden of meeting an impossible payment schedule, could develop a long term plan for viability and profitability. But a financial institution intent of recouping or minimizing their losses may not offer the same opportunities, if short-term profits are on the table. There's been enough of that already, this industry doesn't need any more.

Circulation station closure postponed

The impending closure of the Press-Telegram's sole remaining circulation station has been postponed until further notice, according to MediaNews Group SVP Jim Janiga.

The company notified the Guild on June 8 that due to a need for further operating expense cuts at the P-T, it planned to shutter the Signal Hill location by June 23 and perform the work out the Daily Breeze's circulation facility in Torrance. The nine Guild-represented workers at the P-T station were offered transfers to the Torrance facility, albeit at the loss of their Guild representation and coverage under the Guild-negotiated P-T contract. Transferees would have become "at-will" employees of the Daily Breeze and faced serious changes in their job status and compensation.

Janiga said Wednesday that the decision to postpone the closure came after the company learned that all nine of the P-T circulation workers declined to transfer to Torrance. This scenario would have left the P-T will no circulation staff following the closure of the Signal Hill facility.

"Current [P-T circulation] staff will not be released until some later date," said Janiga in a message to the Guild yesterday. "Hopefully, this delay will not be too great. As a result all employees currently working out of the Signal Hill office will remained employed and expected to continue working their assignments until otherwise notified."

The Signal Hill facility will remain open, according to Janiga, until sufficient staff can be found to perform the work out of Torrance.

Under the Guild-negotiated P-T contract ratified in January, the circulation staff--once let go by the company--will be entitled to 60-day pay in lieu of notice, enhanced severance, extended COBRA medical coverage and participation in the company's tuition reimbursement program.

On the move

Press-Telegram operations will be consolidated onto the 1st floor of the downtown Long Beach ARCO Tower Building by July 1 and the newspaper plans to vacate the building entirely by the end of 2009, according to P-T General Manager Joe Brenneman.

Brenneman told employees Thursday that the company has hired an agent to look for property and the hope is to keep the paper in Long Beach, preferably downtown.

In July 2006 the P-T's parent company, Denver-based MediaNews Group, sold the more than 100-year-old P-T building at 6th and Pine Avenue for roughly $20 million and signed a 15-year lease for four floors of the ARCO Tower Building. According to MediaNews Group's past financial reports, $16.7 million of the sale of the P-T building was funneled back to Denver as profit directed toward dividends to the privately-held company's small group of shareholders.

MediaNews financial documents reveal a likely reason for the end-of-the-year deadline to vacate the ARCO Tower Building space. Under the terms of the original lease for the space, the minimum annual cost of the lease jumps from $800,000 a year to $900,000 a year on Jan. 1, 2010.

Currently, the main P-T operations, including the newsroom, are operated out of the ARCO Tower Building's 14th floor, with smaller ancillary operations located on portions of the 4th and 1st floors. P-T management plans to consolidate all operations, including the newsroom, to the 1st floor, with 4th floor operations remaining in place. Brenneman acknowledged that the much smaller 1st floor space is untenable for all the paper's operations in the long run.

When questioned by newsroom employees on the possibility of remaining in their current 14th floor location until the planned full move out of the building, company officials replied that this was not an option.

The P-T subleased the 12th floor more than a year ago and plans to sublease the 14th floor once the consolidation to the lower floors is complete.

Update on PT circulation station closure

Additional details of MediaNews Group's plans to shutter the Long Beach Press-Telegram's sole remaining circulation facility were presented to Guild members yesterday.

The company, citing a need to further reduce operating expenses at the P-T, plans to close the Signal Hill facility by June 23 and move the work to the Torrance Daily Breeze. The MNG-owned Los Angeles Daily News circulation department, which is not represented by the Guild, is also being consolidated to the Breeze.

The nine Guild members at the Signal Hill facility, the last P-T circulation station of five shuttered and consolidated by MNG since 1998, are being offered transfers to the Torrance Daily Breeze. The company has said that there are nine slots available in Torrance for the nine Signal Hill workers. However, not all of the nine slots are in their same "District Advisor" position currently held by the Signal Hill workers.

Any Guild member accepting a transfer will lose their Guild representation and become an "at-will" Breeze employee.

In addition to traveling the extra miles to Torrance, transferees will no longer receive a per-mile reimbursement for work travel (a much smaller per-day lump reimbursement will be provided), will have to use their own vehicles to perform their work, and will be forced to accept future wage and benefit cuts if enacted by the company.

Five of the positions at the Breeze are also set to be salaried, meaning transferees accepting these positions will not be eligible for overtime, a common occurrence for circulation workers.

Guild members at the Signal Hill facility who are interested in transfer will able to meet with management at the Torrance facility and look at the operation before making their final decision about transferring.

The Guild and members at the Signal Parkway circulation station are set to meet with MediaNews' SVP Jim Janiga on Friday morning to discuss further details of the situation.

The Dark Clouds Continue

MediaNews Group, citing a need to further reduce operating expenses at the Long Beach Press-Telegram, will shutter the P-T's sole remaining circulation facility and move the work to the Torrance Daily Breeze, according to a company notification to the Guild.

The station, located in Signal Hill, now employs 10 P-T unit members. Each will have the option of taking a buyout or transferring to Torrance. Circulation department members have been led to understand that the positions in Torrance will be salaried with no Guild representation. The company is making the move to outsource the P-T circulation under the terms of a Memorandum of Understanding in the current contract. Some aspects of P-T circulation are already being performed at the Daily Breeze and by the Los Angeles Times.

An exact date for the Signal Hill closure and move has yet to be announced by the company. A Guild meeting with SVP Jim Janiga is being scheduled for later this week.

The impending move of the Press-Telegram newsroom and offices out of the 14th floor of the Arco Towers will also see the shuttering of the local office of the Pasadena Federal Credit Union, formerly the Media News Credit Union.

The credit union, originally formed by the P-T decades ago, has been asked to vacate the first floor Acro Towers office space they have leased from the P-T since the paper moved to the downtown high-rise in 2007. P-T management has said that it will need the space to accommodate the paper's personnel as part of the move. The three PFCU Long Beach employees will be moved to the Pasadena office of the PFCU.

Credit union members will still be able to do their banking locally at several credit unions and banks the PFCU is partnered with. A list of partner sites in Long Beach is available from the PFCU at the P-T.

The credit union has been asked to vacate their first floor offices within the next several weeks.