In the latest phase of the current big budget cut, many Gannett newspapers are rolling out thinner papers, starting tomorrow. Sections are being combined, features moved around -- or eliminated altogether.Cincinnati Enquirer Publisher Margaret Buchanan offers the best spin so far. After reeling off a litany of changes in a nearly 600-word (!) note to readers on page one today, M.B. writes: "These changes are not because we have an audience problem, but rather are to meet the revenue challenges we, like many other businesses and families, face."
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She neglects to say that 30 pages will be cut from the Monday-Saturday papers and six from Sunday.
ReplyDeleteAnd the op-ed page is killed.
Looks like another cookie cutter approach in the explanations to readers. Our publisher wrote the same thing in his column. What a crock. Isn't anyone original anymore?
ReplyDeleteOriginality cost money.
ReplyDeleteOriginality defeats the purpose of chain ownership. Who needs a wordsmith as publisher for every paper? Better to have one wordsmith and 84 managers.
ReplyDeleteBuchanan's "issues" go well beyond the revenue challenges that she shares and they started well before the economy began to decline.
ReplyDeleteLucky for her she has yet another excuse to use for her poor results.
From Wilmington:
ReplyDelete"In an extraordinarily difficult economy, The News Journal is moving to a more compact format. Yet, like bakers who take great care with each batch of bread baked, I can assure you that we will continue to pour enormous energy and brainpower into every edition that rolls off the press."
http://tinyurl.com/a4s8qk
We've shrunk three times in the past two years. We're at a 44-inch web now. All of the newspapers in the eastern part of Wisconsin will see their ad design move to mecca (Green Bay) early next year. The page layout for those sites is now done in Green Bay, with often disastrous results. Many of the sites have a consolidated copy desk/pagination function. Most of us have dropped our weekly entertainment tab, to the joy of the alt entertainment publications in the area. The smaller sites will drop an average of four pages a day in 2009. And we keep cramming useless calendar lists and lunch menus in the paper. We couldn't chase off more readers if we tried.
ReplyDeleteToday's Enquirer is the first to feature the changes. I'm surprised by how much I like it! It feels and reads like a newspaper; tighter layout, more newsy focus, less of the stuff I never looked at anyway, which i wouldn't have noticed missing if i hadn't been looking for it.
ReplyDeleteMontgomery Advertiser is now down to two sections on Monday and Tuesday, effective today. Twenty full pages with one page a bunch of local photos of kids playing in a park, and geese in a field, all wasted space. In clasified there is another full page of wasted space with 1/2 page for "moms like me" and another for apartments.com. So, now we are down to 18 pages of hard hitting news. Oh, wait a minute. Another wasted 2/3 page on a fluff piece called "Finding Kwanzaa". And then there is that 2/3 page in MY LIFE with an article on Mondova and Longines watches. "My life" can't afford such crap, nor can most people, so why bother with this piece. Now we are down to 16.5 pages. At 75 cents, that is a real economic stimulus!! At least they admit on the front page that "Reducing the number of sections helps us save money".
ReplyDeleteClarion-Ledger Executive Editor Ronnie Agnew said something similar to readers: http://www.clarionledger.com/article/20081228/COL0402/812280313/1161/OPINION
ReplyDeleteIn central Wisconsin, the same thing is going on. No editorial pages, letters to the editor part of the news, less sports and features, etc. -- pages were reduced by 10 percent.
ReplyDeleteBTW: We are about ready to walk out and not have a paper. With less than 20 employees now after cuts and consolidations, it's is a possibility. How long would Mother Gannett hold out before shutting down (then we could open another paper) or selling? We care about out community paper but don't get the same feeling from Gannett. Employee owned or locally owned is our goal.
I canceled my subscription this morning. This streamlined "newspaper" is an insult to journalism! I refuse to fund Dubow and the other idiots at the Mothership any longer!
ReplyDeleteNow, if someone had the cash to start a locally owned paper...
I'm wondering why the high up editors at Gannett write like government officials. You'd like they'd want to sound a little bit local local local.
ReplyDeleteIf today's Cincy Enquirer is any indication, then editorial page editors better start looking for work. The one editorial page today has one short editorial that says the state smoking ban should be enforced (an intern could have written that one), and the rest of the content is the usual filler of letters and syndicated columns.
ReplyDeleteHere's a collection of Gannett newspapers reducing sections:
ReplyDeletegannettoid.com/news2.html
or
gannettoid.com/news2.html
Had to laugh.
ReplyDeleteA reader pointed out this spelling goof that apparently topped a sports story:
Illinoise!!!
Hmm that article didn't mention the Pensacola News Journal as a paper dropping sections . . .
ReplyDeleteyeah, where's Carl Lindner when you need him? Oh wait, he already funded one Cincy paper -- the Enquirer and said selling it to Gannett was one of his biggest regrets.
ReplyDeletere>I canceled my subscription this morning...Now, if someone had the cash to start a locally owned paper...12/29/2008 11:58 AM
Thanks MB, I mean Anon 10:25. Less is still less. And, charging more for less will ultimately result in less…readers.
ReplyDeleteBy the way, if you hadn’t noticed, you weren’t the first to go as many of your peers jumped when told too.
Some time ago, The Arizona Republic dramatically reduced the Monday paper. In a management meeting the new size was presented and everybody thought it was a joke. Then they presented the results of one of those infamous focus groups supporting the new size. Apparently one in a hundred surveyed didn't mind the change (or the hospital visit as they must have been in a coma). A couple months later after countless calls of "where's the rest of my paper", Monday was returned to nearly it's original version in yet another display of doing what the reader wants. This time around it's more dire and management really doesn't have the skills to navigate the real issues and present changes specific to markets. And unfortunately from the top down, I think everybody's now in fear of losing their jobs which results in a massive cookie cutter mentality which is the exact wrong approach for nearly 90 newspapers of varying sizes and diverse markets.
ReplyDeleteI am liking the new Cincinnati Enquirer, just like the previous poster. It is less filled with useless waste, it is efficient and tight. I am looking forward to the physical downsizing.
ReplyDeleteI feel like I am repeating the previous poster, but they cut out the stuff I couldn't care less about.
I really do like it--and no, I have NO association with anything Enquirer.
i guess it's probably taboo to say this here, but, again, i like what's left in the enquirer. the pages have kind of a "RETRO" feel. it looks like a newspaper, even if it feels physically lighter.
ReplyDeleteit feels more like the old Post, before Scripps reduced pages and local coverage.
i don't miss AT ALL the junk they took out, and a lot of what was removed was apparently just looser (less space-efficient) presentation. it's more dense with information. who cares about tv grids, stocks, etc? Yawn!
however, i'd like another several pages of business, local and nation/word.
also, i wish the pages were about five to eight inches shorter so the pages weren't so deep
Huh? 10:22 likes what’s left in the Enquirer yet wants more business, local and national/word pages. Isn’t that the point…it’s provides even too little of what people really want most.
ReplyDeleteAnd, if this is such a great idea, then why didn’t MB/Gannett do it years ago? We all know why and charging people 50% more for a newspaper that will have at least 20% fewer pages will get them their faster.
Soon, you won’t need Lindner’s bucks to buy it back, let alone deep pockets like his to even compete with what’s being put out.
sheesh ... the "Careers" section just vanished from Wednesday's paper.
ReplyDelete...and apparently a lot of color is missing too.
ReplyDeleteGuess is that more than a few advertisers and subscribers will be removing a lot of "green" out of the paper too.
Well, kids, that's how it started in Detroit. Less content, local columnists bought out and press service generic content substituted, Business section reduced from a section to a single page on Mondays, thinner and thinner papers over the last few years.
ReplyDeleteAnd you all know how the Detroit story goes!