Chicago Sun-Times bankrupt, CSM ends print pub

One of which was a paper I read religiously, and daily. One of which was a publication of occasional reading for me, usually in the realm of a reference point for projects and research papers coming up in school. Sadly, both papers are threatened.

The latter first...Friday will be the final printing for the Christian Science Monitor. AFP reports the CSM, like other print publications, had been losing money. The publication will go 100% web-only in the coming days.

AFP:

Like other US dailies, the Monitor had been losing readership and print advertising revenue to online media for years and circulation was hovering around 50,000 by the time the decision was made to shut down the presses.

Editor John Yemma said the award-winning newspaper will still print a weekly edition for subscribers and a printable three-page daily news digest by email but the main focus will be on its website, CSMonitor.com.

He said visitors to the website, which currently attracts more than two million unique visitors a month, should not expect an immediate and dramatic change overnight but a steady improvement over time.

*****************************
The Chicago Sun-Times was always a staple in my home growing up on the South Side of Chicago. When my father told me: "Son, always read the newspaper everyday..." I never knew how his words then would resonate now into a career I was once proud of, of one I miss dearly, and now fear for.

That paper, which I, in fact, did read everyday--whether it was on the CTA bus in the morning going to high school or the commuter train headed for work--is now threatened. The Sun-Times Media Group announced this morning it was filing for bankruptcy.

Sun-Times:

The company has one significant creditor -- the Internal Revenue Service. The IRS has said Sun-Times Media Group owes up to $608 million in back taxes and penalties from past business practices by its former controlling owner, Conrad Black, now imprisoned for theft from corporate coffers.

Unlike other newspaper owners that have filed for bankruptcy amid steep dropoffs in advertising, including Chicago-based Tribune Co., Sun-Times Media Group has no bank debt. But its IRS debt thwarted efforts to raise new capital.

[Chairman Jeremy] Halbreich said Sun-Times will continue talks with the IRS while implementing a "strong and impressive" business plan. It also will pursue a deal with buyers and has hired Rothschild Inc., which was involved in the bankruptcy of United Airlines' owner, to field offers.

Several potential buyers have approached Halbreich since he took over Feb. 10 as chairman and interim chief executive, he said. "We're very confident that there's going to be some interest here," he said. "We intend to start that process immediately."

***********************************

Just please...accept NO offers from McClatchy, Media-General, Scripps, Hearst, or any other money-losing media outlet.

The way newspaperin' is going lately, I somehow suspect they won't make it. Reading the Sun-Times was a major impetus in me wanting to choose journalism as a career. If they shut down, I will definitely be in mourning.

E.C. :)

More positions cut at the W-S Journal

Thirteen Winston-Salem Journal staffers are no longer Winston-Salem Journal staffers this morning as the Media-General-owned publication cut more positions yesterday from the employee rolls.

My friend and former High Point Enterprise colleague Richard Craver inked this piece in today's issue, saying that including vacancies, 23 positions were eliminated out of a full-time staff of 260 at the paper. 85 part-time employees are also employed at the paper.

W-S Journal:

It is the third job-cut announcement by the Journal since December, totaling 37 positions through eliminated positions and unfilled vacancies.

In recent weeks, the newspaper also has reduced the number of pages, eliminated weekly redelivery in the Winston-Salem area, and reduced vendor support and circulation-promotion spending. Employees have taken and will continue to take unpaid furlough days.

The bleeding at Media General sadly won't stop.

E.C. :)

FCC Should Reconsider Newspaper Ownership Rule (Bloomberg)

Acting FCC chairman Michael Copps says the agency should reconsider restrictions on combined ownership of broadcast stations and newspapers as daily publications struggle with a plunge in revenue, according to a recent Bloomberg News story.

Bloomberg:

Members of Congress and Attorney General Eric Holder have said they’re concerned with the newspaper industry after four bankruptcies in as many months. Sales and advertising are dropping amid the recession and a migration of readers to the Internet. Daily papers have announced staff or pay cuts in New York, Atlanta, Washington, D.C. and Boston in the past two days.

Copps, a Democrat, said the FCC’s rule didn’t meet “the needs of the industry, the economy or the public.” The rule generally bans combined ownership of a daily newspaper and nearby broadcast station, except in the largest markets.

**************************

E.C. :)

FOX-8, WSJS take home AP awards

FOX-8 (WGHP) were among stations that took home top honors at the NC Associated Press Broadcast Awards this past Saturday. The station accepted awards for best feature, best sports feature, best photography, best consumer report and best series.

Separately, 600/1200 WSJS reporter Alex Meade won rookie of the year in Radio Division One.

Congratulations to all.

E.C. :)

Greensboro Telegram reports on N&R correction

The Greensboro Telegram inks an article on the recent correction of a column written by the News & Record's former columnist Lorraine Ahern regarding the high-profile Scott Sanders case. Ahern may have been demoted as a result of what was printed in that column.

Embarrassing.

E.C. :)

Lenslinger ponders how TV coverage of spot news is changing

FOX-8 cameraman Stewart Pittman, a.k.a. "Lenslinger," covered yesterday's job fair at GTCC, and makes some startling comparisons:

1) Our nation is in dire peril. For a community college job fair, there were more forty-something Dads with lost looks in their eyes than at Home Depot on a Saturday morning, and 2) the average news crew has dropped a lot of weight…

Of the four fancycams in attendance, three were being operated by teams of one. Not by shooters sleepwalking through their third spray-job of the day, not by college kids with lenses the size of yo-yo’s, but by reporters who shoot, shooters who speak (and one jack-ass photog who thinks he’s Hunter S. Thompson). My point: The future is here. With on-air advertising in the cellar and TV stations about to go through the same cutbacks now eviscerating the newspaper industry, the solo-newsgatherer now walks among us.

As Bruce Hornsby sings so eloquently..."gonna be some changes made."



E.C. :)

More furloughs from Gannett

Employees at Gannett are being ordered to take more unpaid time off to offset the company's steep decline in advertising revenues. This may mean more unpaid furloughs for employees at the Gannett-owned CBS-2 (WFMY).

This, from Editor & Publisher and the AP:

The furloughs spelled out Monday in a company memo are being imposed to avoid laying off more employees as Gannett tries to offset a steep drop in advertising revenue.

This marks the second time this year that most of Gannett's 41,500 workers have had to give up a week's pay. Most employees, including CEO Craig Dubow, were furloughed for at least five days during the first three months this year.

This time around, the owner of the USA Today and more than 80 other daily newspapers is requiring its higher-paid workers to relinquish up to two weeks pay during the April-June period.

******************
E.C. :)

Carrboro Citizen editor believes in the future of journalism

The Western Triangle's Carrboro Citizen celebrates three years this week, happy anniversary.

Its editor, Kirk Ross, opines in an open letter that the paper remains committed to the community despite the overall state of newspapers (and the sobering amount of layoffs at the larger Triangle paper, the News & Observer):

To be honest, when we started that was a pretty lonely place. Some of the better business minds in the area were quick to point out that we were daft since print is a dying part of the information industry. Our contention was then, and is now, that print may be shrinking, but it is hardly dying. Having the opportunity to start from scratch, post Internet, provided us with the chance to incorporate a lot of hard-learned lessons.

So yes, we’ve got blogs and Twitter and Facebook and Flickr and, according to the N.C. Press Association, operate the third-best website in the state for papers our size.

But all that and the print product too would be worthless without the one thing that gives purpose to our endeavor: journalism. It is quality work, solid reporting and good storytelling that empties the racks each week. Technological advances can enhance that, but not replace it.

*************************
E.C. :)

Newspaper readers are reading

Research shows that local Triad-area consumers are reading newspapers on a somewhat regular basis, this from the media research company Scarborough Research, via the N&R's John Robinson.

Our combined GSO/HP/W-S area shows that seventy-four percent of our citizens read the newspaper in print or online, slightly better than Charlotte (72%) or Raleigh (71%).

See the numbers here.

But Mike Orren from Pegasus News in Dallas asks a pertinent question:

...how do those numbers break out online vs. print? The disconnect is that while so much of the reader value is online, the ad dollars are in print.

Until that is solved, it doesn't matter if the total market coverage is 105%.

Robinson replies:

I don't have an answer for you there, Mike. (I haven't seen our Scarborough results.) I will say, though, that readers do find value in the print publications, too, with the evidence being that they pay for it.

********************
E.C. :)

Bye-bye Bee?

News from the Northern Piedmont and fresh from rumor-ville...apparently the Media General-owned Danville Register & Bee is in serious trouble. A blogger reports that the entire paper may fold as soon as the first of the month.

Excerpt from this post:

The newsroom hasn't been shuffled around yet, but since some editing is going to India, obits and ads are in Lynchburg and now the newspaper layout itself is in Lynchburg as of April 1, 2009 (not a joke), pretty soon we'll all have to go to Lynchburg to read the Danville News!

Maybe the NORTHERN end of the county will finally get some coverage now that the Danville paper is mostly stationed in Lynchburg eh?

May have something to do with this bit of news broken earlier in the week from Winston-Salem Journal editor Ken Otterbourg about the reorganization of Media General (see their corporate spin here).

We'll be watching.

E.C. :)