Consider the text of the pay-no-attention-to-that-Web-behind-the-curtain speech by Ken Paulson (left) to the National Press Club, on his last day as top editor before assuming the No. 2 job at the Freedom Forum journalism foundation in Washington, D.C. (Hint: Hammers are not newspapers.)
Friday, February 06, 2009
Happy talk: Why USA Today is in such trouble
Consider the text of the pay-no-attention-to-that-Web-behind-the-curtain speech by Ken Paulson (left) to the National Press Club, on his last day as top editor before assuming the No. 2 job at the Freedom Forum journalism foundation in Washington, D.C. (Hint: Hammers are not newspapers.)
37 comments:
Jim says: "Proceed with caution; this is a free-for-all comment zone. I try to correct or clarify incorrect information. But I can't catch everything. Please keep your posts focused on Gannett and media-related subjects. Note that I occasionally review comments in advance, to reject inappropriate ones. And I ignore hostile posters, and recommend you do, too."
Note: Only a member of this blog may post a comment.
Subscribe to:
Post Comments (Atom)
What a bonehead. Fact-checking? Suitable for all the family?
ReplyDeleteI worry a little that he thinks Kindle (which is a poor and proprietary platform that isn't going to reach critical mass) is an emerging technology...although the Spawn of Kindle might get there. Still, it's hard to fault a man for saying this:
ReplyDeleteWhen we do our jobs the right way, when we strive everyday to publish reports of integrity and balance, when we ask the tough questions, when we fight to keep the public's business public and when we provide the kind of thorough and balanced reporting that is the life blood of a democracy, we fulfill our promise to that first generation of Americans who believed that one of the best ways to guarantee a democracy was a free and vigorous press.
That's not a bad little exit interview right there. I was glad I got to work with the man. I still don't get Jim's rage over a guy he couldn't have met more than a couple of times, and who worked thousands of miles away from him...but c'est la vie.
Ken's speech is quite inspirational if anyone actually reads it.
ReplyDeleteJim's knee-jerk negativity is a requirement, it seems, to run a successful blog because it feeds the everyone-sucks, my-bad-life-is-somebody-ELSE's-fault mentality that feeds this blog and others.
On the matter of Paulson, sorry, but Hopkins has no clue what that man did to try to protect USA Today. Oh, but that's a reasonable, human spin. Can't have that, can we?
Remember, everyone sucks. Come here and wallow in it.
I'm sure he means well.
ReplyDeleteI read it twice and never found anything that would make for an engaging lede. In other words, this is pretty boring stuff, I think.
We've heard it before. Just as the VCR didn't end the movie theater, the internet won't end the newspaper.
ReplyDeleteI don't get the hammer anology. These are not apples to apples.
Maybe he just likes hammers.
ReplyDeleteIt worries me that people who write and read this blog can't understand the hammer analogy.
ReplyDeletePlease... do you really think that buying a hammer is anything like buying space in a newspaper? The engine is the ad sale... the fuel is the copy.
ReplyDeleteYou might buy a hammer every few years... in order to survive in this business, you need customers buying ads every day.
And the reality is... they're not.
1:23 pm. Please tell us all the ways Paulson tried to protect USAT. And be specific: I want First Amendment projects with dates. I want instances where he tried to save jobs (how many?), and newshole (in pages).
ReplyDeleteLOL: Rage? Annoyed and disappointed, yes.
ReplyDeleteI've focued on Paulson for the same reason I will focus attention on his successor (yikes!) He was the top editor of the nation's largest-circulation paper.
Actions speak louder than words. It seems everybody these days is talking, but few people are doing anything. Kudos to Jim for pushing for specifics. Talk is cheap.
ReplyDeleteJim: We were there; you weren't. Layoffs were delayed, wild ad configurations were rejected and he returned the newspaper to a semblance of normalcy.
ReplyDeleteDid he succeed in preventing layoffs? No. But he showed backbone and pushed back -- hard -- as long as he could.
Just because he's the editor of the biggest newspaper in the country doesn't mean he's automatically an enemy.
Similarly with Barbara Wall. She goes an extra mile and answers your inquiry. Do you view here as hey, a potential ally in seeking the truth? No, you immediately ridicule her and her response, show her photo and lump her in with the other masters of evil.
Of course Gannett's feet should be held to the fire, of course we all should be skeptical and of course things are going downhill. But your knee-jerk everyone's-a-tool approach isn't tough-minded journalism. It's self-defeating, it's mean, it's unfair and it paints good people as villains.
Now if the only way to view all this is cast every person you encounter as a liar, no wonder no one returns your emails. Look what happened to the person who did.
Be an adult. Take a higher ground. This blog is valuable, your reporting's been solid when based on documents and analysis. But the nastiness only devalues the entire experience and encourages your readers to be just as nasty.
Paulson and Wall are good people. There's no need to kick them for the sheer blog-fun of it.
Let's look at Paulson's faulty revisionist history about "if Gutenberg had invented a digital modem rather than a printing press."
ReplyDelete"It will save you time and money and keep you better informed than ever before."
Really? The cost for a month of newspaper delivery is comparable to a month of Internet access. And you don't have to wait for the presses or delivery.
"Just consider the hours you've spent on the internet looking for information of interest to you. We've hired specialists who live and work in your hometown to cull information sources and provide a daily report tailored to your community, your friends and your neighbors."
And to the prejudices and special interests of a publisher. Forget about opposing opinions, if our publisher doesn't want it in, it won't go in.
"We also know that you sometimes wonder whether you can trust the information you see online. We plan to introduce a painstaking new process called 'fact-checking' in which we actually verify the information before we pass it along to you."
Of course that doesn't explain the number of Correction and retractions, but put that aside.
Will your paper product allow for the variety of dissenting opinions I can find by doing a Google search?
"In addition to saving time online, you'll also save money. You won't need those expensive color ink cartridges or reams of paper because information will be printed out for you in full color every day."
Oh yeah. When I find a story I want to read, I always have to print it out first. Reading it off the screen is just not done. And if I want to save a story online I have to copy and paste or "print to PDF" to a file that is searchable by my computer. Nowhere near as easy and convenient as clipping and shoving in a drawer where it will yellow and fade. (End sarcasm)
"You worry about your kids stumbling across porn on the internet, but this product is pre-screened and guaranteed suitable for the whole family."
Yeah, that Metromix is so bad. Does he actually think that in 400 years of development there wouldn't be better parental filters? Also, no teen ever hid Playboy behind or in a newspaper.
"And in a security breakthrough, we guarantee newspapers to be absolutely virus-free, and promise the elimination of those annoying pop-up ads."
But the ads will determine how many stories we can give you, not like that pesky Internet where everything is there in its entirety.
"It's also the most portable product in the world, and doesn't require batteries or electricity. And when the flight attendant tells you to turn off your electronic devices, you can actually turn this on, opening page after page without worrying about interfering with the plane's radar."
No, but that ink is going to stain everything and we'll have deforest the country to print it. Batteries take a few hours, at most to recharge, forests take years, even centuries. But you'll be able to annoy the person sitting next to you on the plane because of having to shift around turning the pages.
"To top it all off, you don't need a long-term warranty or service protection program. If you're not happy with this product on any day, we'll redesign it and bring you a new one the next day."
Gee, will that paper product also let me send e-mail, write stories, create and save images, do my budgets and taxes, do quantum physics equations in a blink of an eye rather than use a slide rule?
Oh yeah, the computer is just so inferior to a newspaper.
2:39 pm: Finally, something we agree on!
ReplyDeleteYou are correct: Barbara Wall isn't the enemy. Barbara helped me get some of my best work in print. I suspect she remains my ally. Her challenge is that she is now in a position where she must lend her name to sorry episodes like this.
Whether or not one like to admit it, the Internet is changing the way in which we live, primarily in the way we obtain information.
ReplyDeleteThe daily miracle will soon be no more. There still will likely be weekly and monthly newsprint publications for a while, but the daily newspaper is teetering on the verge of extinction. Yes, they might not be gone in one or two years, but probably so in a decade.
Paulson is an ass-kissing nothing and an unoriginal man whose career was a masterpiece of accomplished ass-kissing in a company that has perfected the art. He's not particularly smart, and he's done little to improve that by educating himself. But he did serve as a stablizing force after the Jack Kelley debacle roiled USAT's leadership.
ReplyDeleteHe didn't protect my job! If he would have taken any interest in the sketchy circumstances surrounding why I was placed on the chopping block -- which I would think should be part of his job -- I probably would still be working there.
ReplyDeleteThose who seem to defend Ken appear to know something about the man that the rest of us don't. But they are rarely specific in their praise of him. Not saying he was a horrible human being, but I saw no tangible evidence that he was a leader who went to bat for his people, including people lower down on the ladder. He often portrayed himself publicly as an accessible editor, but again, unless you were part of the "in crowd," I saw no proof that he reached out to his staffers or even had a clue as to what his MEs were doing from day to day.
Ken let some of the best people the paper ever had escape through buyouts and, worse, layoffs. There really was no rhyme or reason to who was selected to be axed. That falls on him. He should have been on top of his managers and maybe even met with those who were to be laid off, or those who worked closely with those candidates to be chopped. I think at least a couple mistakes could have been avoided. I think there were other options including transfers and job sharing/parttime work that would have kept some people employed. But no one ever asked any of these people as to whether they would go parttime or transfer to Cherry Hill. Ken entrusted his MEs to make good decisions, and those MEs failed in several cases. As the top dog, Ken needs to take the blame for that.
He also let some other good folks get away over the years who were just tired of the lack of leadership during major efforts to merge print and online. He didn't find creative or innovative solutions to longtime problems. He spent too much time on schtick and not enough on the nuts and bolts of the operation.
Ken was a better front man than a leader. Gave a folksy, relaxed speech now and then which some people seemed to actually enjoy. But in terms of being a leader who led the charge or made sacrifices to keep good folks...no, I don't see it, never did. He said he did those things -- put his own job on the line for us. But I have no proof of a single job that he saved.
I can also tell you that he made no effort to offer any kind "thank you" to those who were thrown out into the worst economy ever after being loyal to the paper for years. He rarely said a pleasant goodbye to those other longtime employees, outside of his inner circle, who left on their own. His idea of a sincere goodbye (or hell) was to make an announcement at a staff meeting.
To me, the man lacked professional class. Hope he's enjoying his new six-figure salary, doing God knows what, while those he let go or drove out can't find $10-an-hour jobs. We were the ones who helped build the paper, and pay for editors' salaries! Ken Paulson is just another example of how companies put the wrong emphasis on the wrong qualities in employees.
I give a profound thumbs down to the Paulson era!
I have never worked for or with Ken Paulson. However, I have met with him and spoken with him several times over the years both in his role as editor of USAT and his previous role with the Freedom Forum.
ReplyDeleteI have always found him to an intelligent, interesting man who truly believes in the 1st Amendment and the rights it guarantees. I am not shocked to hear his final words as editor of USAT speak to the importance of the 1st Amendment to the success of this country.
Jim, several people posting here are correct. Your blog is a source of information. But too often you use it as a ax to simply swing away at anything and everything related to Gannett. It reduces the value of this blog because I begin to wonder about your attacks on people I don't know when I believe you are being unfairly critical of people whom I have met.
Ken Paulson was/is one of the good guys in the business.
The Paulson regime at USAT was sort of like a long weekend: nothing much happened that was memorable.
ReplyDeleteGimmie a break 3:28: Name a newspaperman who doesn't believe in the First Amendment. It's sort of like believing in mom and apple pie.
ReplyDeleteI am with Jim. Name one accomplishment at USAT that you can attribute to Paulson. His days leading USAT came in the heyday of the paper, and left just as the worst economic recession required a strong leader to man the fortress against a rapacious corporation. There's no blood on his hands, but that's because he avoided tough choices and wimped out.
ReplyDeleteWhat did Paulson actually do for anyone? What innovation did he bring to the paper? I can point to more damage that occurred on his watch than successes. He was negligent in many ways. Those defending him seem to be defending a perception or style rather than actions and truths.
ReplyDeleteToo many of my friends and respected colleagues left under his administration. Many of those departures were directly or indirectly due to him or what he allowed to happen right under his nose, as I agree with a previous poster.
There is no doubt in my mind that USAT is not as good a paper as it was under other editors. It is not designed as well. It is not edited as well. And it has become totally predictable. Morale sucks. Old wounds haven't healed. New wounds have erupted. So big deal, we got beyond the Jack Kelly crisis. Whoopee!
Paulson and Moon can't blame it all on the economy. Overall, they have not been good for USAT, a newspaper that was poised to make a turn for the better in terms of journalism. For the last couple of years, we're back to being a template of crap. Too many creative and can-do type of people have left. Now it's just a chore getting the damn thing out every day.
Ken bailed. That was his final act of self-preservation and in line with his entire time at the paper. He never put his ass on the line for usat. Never saved a single job if it meant going to war with CM. Professionally speaking, he seemed to be all show and little substance.
ReplyDeleteI feel for those who loved the paper but were forced out. I feel for those still here who have no one in high places in their corner, and haven't in a long time.
Relax folks. KP's biggest crime was in not paying attention to the little things. Yes, that led to some significant losses and failures. But at least he appeared to appreciate the print product. Now the dot.commers get a chance to lead us further into the abyss! Does anyone have any faith in any of those people? Damn, half of them are former rejects of the newspaper who couldn't make it when standards were high (so they fled to the web site), and the rest of them, well, 'nuff said...
ReplyDeleteWhatever the plusses or minuses of the Paulson regime, the wolves are now at the door and about to break through. We are about to see some truly severe changes.
ReplyDeleteUSA Today was on the verge of becoming a great newspaper. Can anyone claim the same of the web site?
ReplyDeleteWhat was Ken Paulson's role in the deterioration of USA Today? I am on the outside and have noticed the paper has become so bland and is filled with errors.
Meanwhile, if most of the attention is going into the web site, it sure doesn't show. I really can't stand the USA Today site. Seems like they are losing ground on both fronts. With Paulson gone, are things likely to get better in print and/or digital, or has the brand taken too many hits to thrive on a national stage much longer?
From my perspective, USA Today is losing its credibility with all the countless mistakes/oversights and lack of inspiring journalism. I scan several papers a day and look at countless web sites. I've been following USA Today for 20 years and recognized its progression. The decline, however, is very evident. Seems to me that a new editor will have his or her job cut out for them.
Often when a newspaper declines, its the small things that go first. Attention to copy editing might get diluted. Design is replaced by plugging things into holes. Quality control/production is lost. Enterprise is sacrificed. Morale suffers because the work is not engaging. But the worst problem is that institutional knowledge is lost and not replaced. At a small paper with a newsroom staff of 20, one retirement can have ramifications that directly impact the product. At a publication the size of USA Today, it would take more than the loss of one person to change things. This leads me to believe that USA Today has lost a lot of talent in recent years. The new editor is going to have to restore talent and provide hands-on leadership, almost to the point of micro-managing, to right this ship. It doesn't sound like Ken Paulson was that type of editor, which probably accounts for the pedestrian product that I now see five days a week.
My guess is that there are a lot of skilled people in that newsroom, but there probably are some gaping holes, too. You can't ask skilled people to do more than they are capable. It cuts into morale and productivity, which is what you really DO NOT want during bad economic times. Yet, it appears the company that runs USA Today chose to follow the herd and cut cost in ways that in effect make it even harder to be successful.
This is a time that USA Today could have blown away the competition. As far as I have read, the paper is still turning a profit. So why didn't the publisher take advantage of the current market by trying to turn up the heat, much the way the U.S. did during the arms race with the Soviet Union. Was Paulson and advocate for getting aggressive, or was he a yes man? If he was an advocate, why were people lost as people here have mentioned? I find that companies use bad times to justify cuts that really don't need to be made. If that's the case at Gannett, USA Today, with or without Paulson, will struggle to get back to what it once was or to mold its web site into what it should be.
Thanks for obliging me!
Bring on the wolves! We might as well know what we're going to have to deal with.
ReplyDeleteUSAT's top editor, in this case Paulson, is not as important to the success or failure of the paper as one might assume.
ReplyDeleteAt a paper like The Washington Post, yes, the editor is crucial to the paper and staff. Ben Bradley's influence was vital. His charisma drove the paper. His knowledge, personality and values made a huge difference. But Ben Bradley was there for years. USAT turns over editors every few years. They each tweak things a bit, but generally do little harm or good. The real influence at USAT is at the managing editor and mid-manager level. And that is where the real failings have been lately.
I am not a fan of Paulson's for many of the reasons stated here. But USAT's decline has more to do with folks who are closer to the front lines. If you can blame one thing on Paulson, it's in not straightening out the mid-management level before he left. Things, in fact, have worsened.
To clear up a continuing misperception: In most cases it was Paulson and Moon united against changes forced by the other Tower, especially the second round of layoffs, which they failed to stop but at least fought.
ReplyDeleteIt was never Moon vs. Paulson on the big issues that counted. For what it's worth...
Paulson was an idiot when he worked in Brevard.
ReplyDeleteThere seems to be a pretty vast disconnect between the ivory-towerists who "still believe in newspapers" and the reality on the battlefield.
ReplyDeleteAnd there seems to be a serious misjudgment thinking people will accept a less-timely, more costly version of the news on their doorstep after having the freedom to "choose their own" newspaper on the Web whenever they want.
Why Gannett, with its large number of properties, hasn't done a test on how paid-for online content impacts print and ad sales is suprising. Let the market decide.
So, he remains "bullish about the future of newspapers and the journalism they produce..."?
ReplyDeleteSo tell me, sir: How much money have you invested (lost) in newspaper stock in the past 12 months?
Or are you not really quite that "bullish?"
Why the hell did he quit if he's so bullish?
ReplyDeleteWell said 3:28!!
ReplyDeleteI'm amazed at the number of airbags...it's laughable really.
But whatever floats your boat.
I wish Ken nothing but the best. He was a good fit for USA TODAY and did a fine job. He will be missed!
Ken Paulson's departure seems to have had little impact on the newspaper, at least from the perspective of this lowly reporter. He was all show, with his jokes and his new baby announcements, with absolutely no substance to back it up. What did anyone expect? The man hadn't been in a newsroom for eight years before coming to USAT. But he was a safe choice, a man who lacked vision, a man who wouldn't rock the Gannett boat. And, I'm afraid, his successor will be more of the same, someone who won't have the energy to make changes where changes are needed (like the MEs).
ReplyDelete8:31, you must be a member of paulson's inner circle. yes, those chosen few with whom he played tennis or discussed rock music. i suppose you're right. he was a good fit for a paper infamous for having editors who avoided talking with their staff as much as possible. talk about a hands-off guy. unless, of course, you were one of the chosen few, the ass-kissers.
ReplyDeleteI don't think anyone expected him to hang around after the softball field was sold.
ReplyDelete