Both Chicago Newspapers Now In Bankruptcy, USAToday Publisher Quits, Even The Editor Of British Vogue Loses Her Newspaper Fashion Column And, No, None Of This Is An April Fool’s Joke!

Philip M. Stone April 1, 2009

Chicago, the third largest US city, now has both of its daily newspapers operating via the bankruptcy courts, In Detroit home delivery has a whole new meaning – like no home delivery on most days – the USAToday publisher figures this is as good a time as any to spend more time with the family, and the Editor of British Vogue who writes a Saturday fashion column for the Daily Mail has been told she’s not doing it any more. And that’s just Q1, 2009.

Perhaps the most amazing thing about the Chicago Sun-Times’ bankruptcy filing is that it took so long – it is hemorrhaging still from the Conrad Black days and it has a huge tax bill  for years dating back to the mid-1990s relating to Black’s shenanigans. But to think such a major US city as Chicago now has both of its daily newspapers needing bankruptcy court permission for most of its major decisions sure settles the mind on just how grim things are out there.

The stories this year about the newspaper industry have taken a turn from what we read last year. Then, it was cut, cut, cut anywhere one could – that mostly meant people plus consolidating such activities as printing and delivery often with neighboring newspapers that used to be arch rivals. But this year, while the cut, cut, cut is still ever-present, as is the consolidation, we now have unpaid furloughs, pay cuts, metropolitan newspapers being closed, and according to a recent AP survey around 100 newspapers have cut back on their publication days.

In Detroit, home delivery for the Detroit News and the Detroit Free Press now means just Thursday and Friday with The Free Press also delivering on Sunday. Other days there will be condensed editions available at newsstands and, of course, there are the Web sites.

And then there is The Christian Science Monitor that no more is a daily newspaper having heralded “Farewell, Daily Print”: on its front page last Friday. A weekly 44-page Monitor debuts April 12 that is said to provide a $10 million annual savings, and its Web site has been spruced up with more frequent updates.

In Seattle, where Hearst closed the printed Post-Intelligencer, fired around 160 staff, including most of the major beat reporters, and kept some 20 on to produce what it said would be an unprecedented Web site, the people of Seattle are showing that they are not easily fooled – when will newspaper publishers learn that when they cut editorial staff by some 80% that their readers really will notice? The Web site no doubt is undergoing much tweaking but the first week on non-print activity showed that actual  page views were averaging around 1.4 million a day while back in January when there was a print edition it was more like 1.7 million per day.

The Web edition makes far more use of AP copy rather than own-produced stories.  Hearst’s business model apparently takes into account that it will take the readership some three months to get comfortable with the site and for the page views to increase significantly.

And while on the subject of the AP, it is seeing loads of newspapers across the country form their own little co-operatives to share news – isn’t that why the AP was set up in the first place? These little co-operatives, of course, don’t have a fee and that’s why the AP is in the midst of soul-searching its fee structure. In the meantime Metro USA has announced that beginning today its three US newspapers will no longer be using AP copy.

Consolidating news reporting is rife at Tribune. Last November it combined various Tribune Washington bureaus into one that outputs to all its newspapers and now it is now taking a similar approach to its foreign correspondents, too. The Chicago Tribune and The Los Angeles Times can justly boast of an outstanding foreign news heritage with correspondents based in major centers, but now those operations are to be combined --- Los Angeles to head the operation – and it seems likely therefore that in those cities where each had a correspondent then one will probably depart – if not to another overseas post then back home. In today’s economic climate, apparently, there is just no money for editorial overlap.

Even at The New York Times where pay cuts have been announced, speculation is rife that the newspaper is planning to cut way back on its freelance reporting budget and that apparently means that local weekly sections for various locales may well disappear including the New York City stand-alone section. Editorial management, while accepting they have to give up the ghost of separate sections is apparently trying to work out how to spread some of the copy into other sections.

None of this sounds like very much fun these days – where have gone the days when a Reuters senior executive used to exhort to employees, “Above all, have fun!” – and that may be as good a reason as any why the publisher of USAToday has decided to call it a day and spend more time with the family as he looks at other opportunities. 

And then there is this from across the Atlantic at the UK’s Daily Mail – which is aimed very much at the female reader – that is has dropped the Saturday newspaper column by British Vogue Editor Alexandra Shulman, who is considered to be extremely influential in fashion circles. Saturday newspapers are the new big money spinners in the UK – competing hard with their Sunday rivals -- but the Daily Mail bluntly told her it was looking to make savings and she took it in good grace. “As an editor myself I can hardly be critical of people who drop a column,” she told The Guardian.

All of this in the first quarter of the year. There don’t seem to be any forecasters predicting happy advertising times ahead in the foreseeable future, so it really makes one really shudder in thinking what Q2 will produce.