MCLEAN, Va., May. 15, 2009 -- Gannett Co., Inc. (NYSE: GCI) today said it will cease print publication of the Tucson Citizen. The Citizen will continue operating its web site, www.tucsoncitizen.com. The last print edition of the Citizen will be published on Saturday, May 16.
"Dramatic changes in our industry combined with the difficult economy – particularly in this region – mean it is no longer viable to produce two daily printed newspapers in Tucson," said Bob Dickey, president of the U.S. Community Publishing division of Gannett. "We are pleased that the Citizen’s web site will continue its role as a place for a separate community conversation. Its staff will focus on stimulating public engagement in local affairs. We look forward to moving in this exciting direction." Dickey said that the parties' partnership with Lee Enterprises, Inc. in Tucson, TNI Partners, will print a Tucson Citizen editorial in the Arizona Daily Star weekly to expand the reach of the Citizen’s voice. Lee publishes the Arizona Daily Star.Dickey added, "We applaud the hard work of our employees at the newspaper. Their dedication to journalism and to the community of Tucson deserves the highest praise."
Gannett has owned the Tucson Citizen since 1976. The Citizen was founded in 1859, and it is the oldest continuously published newspaper in Arizona. The Citizen has reported on some of Arizona’s biggest stories, including the 1881 gunfight at the OK Corral and the 1934 arrest of bank robber John Dillinger.
Gannett’s joint operating arrangement with Lee under the Newspaper Preservation Act will also terminate on May 16. Gannett and Lee will continue to be equal partners in TNI Partners.
Please post your replies in the comments section, below. To e-mail confidentially, write gannettblog[at]gmail[dot-com]; see Tipsters Anonymous Policy in the green rail, upper right.
How many employees are losing their jobs under the scaled-down model?
ReplyDeleteOUTRAGEOUS. Here is concrete proof this company is only interested in money, and is not in any way interested in journalism, no matter what they say. Here they are killing a thriving and profitable newspaper because they have a deal with the opposition to continue to be paid for not publishing. They don't care about the employees, they don't care about the product. It is all bottom line.
ReplyDeleteTucson Citizen printing final edition Saturday
ReplyDeletehttp://www.tucsoncitizen.com/daily/breakingnews/116641.php
Start watching the Detroit News very closely. They will be online only very soon.
ReplyDeleteIt seems unlikely Gannett will need very many people to preserve the Citizen's online presence. A corporate official told staff that the new site most likely would include "opinion" stuff, mainly to preserve that second "editorial voice" in Tucson. Also, the Daily Star (other half of JOA) would print Tucson Citizen editorials from time to time. It appears to be a weak attempt at "continuing to publish."
ReplyDeleteThe Tucson Citzen newsroom "staff" soon will consist of a couple of clerks, maybe a copyeditor and maybe an editorial writer.
ReplyDeleteThis plan is a sham, and a shame!
"With big potential implications for joint operating agreements in Detroit and elsewhere..."
ReplyDeleteSo what are the potential implications?
Online edition only? That's a joke. When will this company admit that online is not ready to carry the load? There are plenty of small papers out there making money. Gannett doesn't own many of them because Gannett doesn't know how to run an efficient print operation. Gannett does not know how to hire good managers. The Gannett-way is totally flawed. The waste in this company at papers like USA Today just sucks out the profits. The pool of talent is so diminished after the layoffs and buyouts that this company is not even capable of putting out decent news products anymore.
ReplyDeleteGannett should just fold. Forget about calling itself a media company. Go start some version of Yahoo or Google and be done with journalism. Do us all a favor and go do whatever it is you want to do with the techies and 20-year-olds you keep hiring. See if you can reduce the workforce enough so that you can just operate web sites. That should only take about 50 folks nationwide. Then will you be happy?
Most of all, please stop lying and spinning constantly. It's really insulting to our intelligence. Tucson's situation will be repeated in other markets. Count on it. Jobs are going to be lost.
But there is a glimmer of hope. Someone is going to look at GCI's dismantling of print and step in with better-run newspapers. Ironically, they probably will even have better web sites (damn, Gannett sites suck). Those companies and family-run publications will have to hire. A lot of Gannett talent will jump ship and work for startups that will further damage Gannett.
In essence, Gannett is self destructing and paving the way for big and small competitors to march into these markets.
Fuck you, Gannett, for closing the Tucson Citizen.
ReplyDeleteYou have to love clowns like 2:13. He/she thinks some some knight in shinning armor is going to do a better job than a big corporation, Gannett or any other. Obviously you've never run a business. the mom and pops can't compete with resources, benefits, salaries, newsprint, ink etc. Keep dreaming thumbalina but it ain't going to happen. You go work for the Daily Idiot and I will stay with Gannett. One of us will be looking for a job in a year and it won't be me. Yeh I know, thanks for stopping by Craig. That's all you idiots have, that and star nails.
ReplyDeleteThe Citizen editors dragged their feet getting online and spent the last few years comparing its online numbers to the Star's and saying it was only because the "Star got online first" and that they couldn't overcome that dubious achievement.
ReplyDeleteLate last year, a group of staffers asked Citizen management about using social media to help spread the word about Citizen articles.
The editors couldn't have been more disinterested.
So the reporters started doing it on their own.
And then word came from the Evil Empire that newspapers should develop social media relationships to help promote the paper and WOW! Did the editors snap to it then!!!
So to think that these people can manage an online-only product is truly laughable and a thinly disguised method of getting the Justice Department off Gannett's greedy back for wanting to keep its $14 million annual share of the JOA.
And one presumes that the top editors will keep their lofty positions and keep editorializing and protecting their friends in high places (gosh, didn't I read something in the ethics manual about not forming personal relationships with those who seek to influence the news? Must only apply to reporters because the Citizen editors certainly didn't adhere to that!!!)
Lame!!!!
I guess I'm not clear here -- isn't this better than closing the whole shop?
ReplyDeleteA minimal staff to host a community forum, no news, no sports, just commentary? You think that's better? The reporters won't be needed, that's for sure!
ReplyDeleteDoes this mean the fairwell column controversy from two months ago can go away for good?
ReplyDeleteThis part of the news release makes no sense (not to me, anyway):
ReplyDelete"Gannett’s joint operating arrangement with Lee under the Newspaper Preservation Act will also terminate on May 16. Gannett and Lee will continue to be equal partners in TNI Partners."
If the JOA terminates, how can they remain as equal partners in the company that was BORN of the JOA?
http://www.tucsoncitizen.com/daily/frontpage/116641.php
ReplyDeleteHadland said he planned to call Arizona Attorney General Terry Goddard to request the state file a temporary restraining order to require Gannett to "continue publishing the Citizen pending a court order requiring the sale, such as the Hawaii Attorney General did with the Honolulu Star-Bulletin when Liberty and Gannett attempted to shut down the Star-Bulletin to increase their own profits."
This does it!
ReplyDeleteHaven't they figured out that the CPM online is a little over $1 because myriads of small non-media sites get aggregated and can afford to virtually give away their ad inventory?
Haven't they figured out that with $1 CPM, bills cannot be paid?
Haven't they figured out that consumers are not going to pay for news online when they can get them (good or bad) for free?
Finally, haven't they figured out that local newspapers online cannot pay their bills with online revenues if they provide original, professionally produced content, therefore they are either going to become Yahoo! news or they are going to run out of money quickly?
People were paying over $500 million dollars for a large city daily 2/3 years ago? All crazy? Heck, uncle Rupert paid $5 Billions for the WSJ. Crazy too?
I tell you who is crazy.
Those stupid drones that have been spread like arsenic jam, who knows why, in the crystal towers, in a room full of nuclear buttons, without knowing what the buttons are for.
They are closing down dailies and non dailies like they own them personally.
The truth is, when a newspaper is dead it is not going to be easy to bring it back to live, even after the recession is going to end and advertising expenditure starts to grow again.
Too late then.
Hundreds of millions of dollars of asset value thrown to the wind, Hundreds of families put through hardship, hundreds of talented careers wasted, an important voice lost, and worst of all, a local community gone backward fifty years.
These guys need to be fired, their offices fumigated and padlocked. Period!
"Here is concrete proof this company is only interested in money, and is not in any way interested in journalism, no matter what they say. Here they are killing a thriving and profitable newspaper because they have a deal with the opposition to continue to be paid for not publishing. They don't care about the employees, they don't care about the product. It is all bottom line."
ReplyDeleteYou provide no concrete proof. You offer no numbers or sources, only wild conjecture and speculation.
The way this staff was treated is just horrible! 65 employees, plus I'm sure more at the JOA who worked on just the Citizen. Why did the US Justice Dept. closed the file today? It seems like they should be looking at it even harder now?
ReplyDeleteThis does it!
ReplyDeleteHaven't they figured out that the CPM online is a little over $1 because myriads of small non-media sites get aggregated and can afford to virtually give away their ad inventory?
Haven't they figured out that with $1 CPM, bills cannot be paid?
Haven't they figured out that consumers are not going to pay for news online when they can get them (good or bad) for free?
Finally, haven't they figured out that local newspapers online cannot pay their bills with online revenues if they provide original, professionally produced content, therefore they are either going to become Yahoo! news or they are going to run out of money quickly?
People were paying over $500 million dollars for a large city daily 2/3 years ago? All crazy? Heck, uncle Rupert paid $5 Billions for the WSJ. Crazy too?
I tell you who is crazy.
Those stupid drones that have been spread like arsenic jam, who knows why, in the crystal towers, in a room full of nuclear buttons, without knowing what the buttons are for.
They are closing down dailies and non dailies like they own them personally.
The truth is, when a newspaper is dead it is not going to be easy to bring it back to live, even after the recession is going to end and advertising expenditure starts to grow again.
Too late then.
Hundreds of millions of dollars of asset value thrown to the wind, Hundreds of families put through hardship, hundreds of talented careers wasted, an important voice lost, and worst of all, a local community gone backward fifty years.
These guys need to be fired, their offices fumigated and padlocked. Period!
2:40 You insensitive ass… People are troubled when closings like this are announced, especially after working on a day to day basis. As for "I will stay with Gannett", is that supposed to be a badge of honor? I and I'm sure many others are looking for jobs and many of us worked at a Gannett paper or station. We're well aware we lost our jobs due to the economy, our salaries, lame management and such but I especially liked your "One of us will be looking for a job in a year and it won't be me." comment. There is no paper named the "Daily Idiot" but there are people like you who are idiots daily. Congratulations on being at Gannett and if you're watching this blog during work hours you must certainly be a valuable employee!
ReplyDeleteThey have devised a way of closing a newspaper and making $10 million a year anyway. That is the amount of the payments they get from the company that runs both newspapers, and they continue under this agreement. Not just pigs, but rapacious pigs. Watch now as they try to put together these sort of deals in other areas, then fold their newspapers.
ReplyDeleteI am coming around to the belief that the grand plan is to do this to the Freep, and let the Detroit News continue to publish, while the Freep no longer publishes but GCI pockets the profits from the JOA.
ReplyDelete4:25 Because that way they get out of the publishing business and yet remain a partner with Lee in the publishing concern. It is the way that GCI gets half of the profits Tucson produces, which is currently $10.2 million.
ReplyDeleteAnyone know what the buyout deal is for Citizen staffers? One week per year, any medical? Just curious. thanks.
ReplyDeleteI'm going to disagree with posters that feel print edition news is still viable. It's really not, and the verdict is coming in rather loudly & clearly. The future of media is converging completely to the digital format.
ReplyDeleteFurthermore, Gannett and other larger news corps. are missing a critical aspect of the sea change: premium city domain names. Gannett have Tallahassee.com (news portal) and Hawaii.com (travel portal). This is the proper direction.
However, all of their other papers have corresponding websites on a URL which mirrors the newspaper name. This is outdated, and will further contribute to loss of mindshare as media converges and becomes further localized.
Gannett need pure city domain names to forge into the future of digital media. In the .com or .US namespace. The local identity/brand created through a pure city domain will greatly expand their reach. No one outside of Tucson (for example) knows who the local paper are. But a global audience will automatically check the default .com or .US for obvious reasons.
The larger news corps have not properly evaluated this dynamic, and have largely missed it.
5:49 I truly did not mean to be insensitive to the masses just the individual I was replying to. I enjoy working for this company. Sorry but it is true. I like coming to the blog. When I read something that I think is just over the top I respond. But if I was offensive I apologize. I mean we are in this together. Sometimes we just don't agree.
ReplyDeleteIn effect, Tucson this weekend becomes an annuity, paying out $10.2 million a year for our lifetimes. Bethca Content One provides the copy for the token paper that continues on the Web. Note the Tucson Citizen story that it will be opinion only, so may be Uncle Al gets another outlet for his spew.
ReplyDeleteTo 5:54: You have it half right, the Freep will continue to print publish, with the News going to all web, allowing Gannett pal Dean Singleton to still pocket JOA money.
ReplyDeleteI also wouldn't be surprised if then the Freep becomes the first Gannett regional paper, replacing the Lansing, Battle Creek and Port Huron papers.
Arizona attorney general has filed suit to keep Gannett from closing the Citizen. http://tinyurl.com/peub7p
ReplyDeletehttp://www.tucsoncitizen.com/ss/final_local/116679.php
ReplyDeleteVery interesting comments to the story, including numerous comments from someone who was try to buy the paper. Other interesting words like "fraud" being thrown around to justify the AG's involvement. Much more to come....
Can anyone say Justice Dept?
ReplyDelete"I also wouldn't be surprised if then the Freep becomes the first Gannett regional paper, replacing the Lansing, Battle Creek and Port Huron papers."
ReplyDeleteThis has been discussed internally. Not far from actualization.
"I also wouldn't be surprised if then the Freep becomes the first Gannett regional paper, replacing the Lansing, Battle Creek and Port Huron papers."
ReplyDeleteThis has been discussed internally. Not far from actualization.
5/16/2009 1:12 AM
Don't bet the farm on it.
I hope Obama does to Gannett management what he did to GM's.
ReplyDeleteMenius, you are an ass. Papers still make money. The problem is if they don't make "enough", whatever that is, you want it dead. People aren't buying papers like they used to because you and your kind decided it should be that way. You cut content AND raise prices, mostly at the same time. They've decided to quit buying the papers because YOU decided to not make a sellable product at a reasonable price. Let an icon like TC die shows your heartless, mindless direction.
ReplyDelete10:52 -- If the Freep does become the first regional it will be a great thing for independent newspaper ownership.
ReplyDeleteAlready the Freep is struggling to be a Detroit paper since it doesn't offer home delivery every day of the week. Add to this an attempt to cover a broader region with few bodies than ever before and the door will be open for independently owned weeklies ... perhaps someday dailies ... to thrive.
Bring it on Gannett. The quicker you destroy your corporate papers, the faster this business will evolve into something run by people who actually care about the communities their papers and Web sites serve.
Menius -- The verdict is also coming in rather loudly & clearly that you cannot support a large news organization with the revenue made by a Web site. So, if the future of media is converging completely to the digital format it's not only newspapers that are dead, it's the news.
ReplyDeleteI know a lot of people see the world the way you do, but there are some fundamental flaws in the analysis.
1) Newspapers are still profitable. In fact, in GCI, they are propping up all the Web-only products.
2) Web revenue is largely made off of content created by the people who run the newspaper. Take the newspaper profits away, and you can no longer afford to produce most of that content. So, you would likely see a significant decline in Web revenue if you got rid of the printed products.
3) When charging into a business, competition is one of the things you have to look at very closely. Although the market for newspapers is declining, there is very little competition for that market. Print one and people will probably read it. The market for Web sites is increasing, but there is immense competition for that market, meaning you have to provide something special to get people to visit.
-- Want evidence? Just look at the many truly progressive Web only entities that aren't turning a profit. Sure, the creators may make a bundle selling their businesses to speculators hoping they can find a way to make money. But that doesn't make them a viable long-term business. Just because people want free news, doesn't mean they'll always get it.
10:38 -- I'm not hoping for the regionalization of the Free Press, I'm just thinking exactly like Suzie E and Joyce J at the Detroit Media Partnership. Detroit holds all of the power in the region and they will do all they can to protect themselves at the expense of the Hometown Newspapers in Metro Detroit (they are closing five more later this month), the Livingston County 'Daily', the Lansing State Journal, Battle Creek, Port Huron, etc. The only one they will protect is Dean Singleton. He will get plenty of money when they move the Detroit News to web only while they will have no problem letting go most of the actual Detroit News staff. I can almost guarantee each of those thoughts has been discussed behind closed doors in Detroit or off at the resort of their choice at one of their many planning "retreats."
ReplyDeleteAs for the other papers in the region, the Journal Register is an inch away from Chapter 7 (they are in Chapter 11 now and have long had a stock price of less than a cent) which would close the Macomb Daily, Oakland Press and many other Michigan papers they own. And Newhouse is closing the Ann Arbor News and moved the Flint Journal, Muskegon, Kalamazoo and Bay City to three days only.
As far as "independent" papers rising as they fall, the costs for a new group to come and start up and run a print product are too pricey and I don't see anyone doing it. Those small weeklies already in the region not owned by Gannett or Journal Register or Newhouse, are also struggling.
You can start up a niche web site with a small staff and hope to make a small profit, but there is no way you can make a new print product to replace say an Ann Arbor work. The printing and delivery costs alone without the many cost savings available to a large corporation like Gannett are just too much.
Hey: 10:38 a.m. and 12:37 p.m.: About both of your analyses: They're way off track.
ReplyDeleteI can guarantee 100 percent that Gannett really wants to get OUT of Detroit in the worst way. In fact, Gannett has practically offered Singleton the Detroit operation for nearly nothing. He didn't take Gannett up on the offer because his company is struggling, too.
Why would Gannett shut down its papers in Michigan that have rates of return significantly higher than that the Detroit operation? You'll recall that when Jim several months ago published a list of rates of return for Gannett's papers for 2007, Detroit was the ONLY paper in Michigan (and in Gannett, for that matter) that lost money.
I'm quite sure that Gannett has talked about consolidating the PRINTING of the Port Huron and Lansing papers at the Detroit Media Partnership's presses. But they certainly don't want to lose half or more of the 200,000 or so they sell combined each day in Port Huron, Battle Creek and Lansing.
The Free Press has NO history of picking up readers when a competitor leaves a market. The Free Press failed to pick up ONE subscriber when the News, as part of the idiotic JOA agreement negotiated by Neuharth and Chapman, gave up morning home delivery in 1989. In fact, despite having the morning home delivery monopoly, the Detroit Free Press sold near 100,000 FEWER papers--and that was before the 1995 strike and the rise of the Internet.
The Freep as a regional paper? Give me a break!
@Anonymous on "Menius you are an ..."You are obviously angry. You seem to be attributing many negative feelings and comments to me that I did not say or endorse. TC ending has nothing whatsoever to do with me.
ReplyDeleteFirst, it's very sad that the newspapers are hurting financially. The tragedy is in the individual lives that have been touched. On that we can agree for sure.
The things I have obvserved and written about are factual statements, and do not reflect any ill will whatsoever toward people associated with the newspaper itself.
The business reality, if you have been diligently following newspapers' decline in America, is that the medium is no longer able to sustain itself (for very specific reasons that are correctable).
@Anonymous on "The verdict is also in ..."With all due respect you are completely mistaken. A website only portal CAN and DOES operate in the financial black. The overhead is much smaller and local advertising is moving online year after year. Take that as fact.
PalmSprings.com, Atlanta.com, and the owner of Boulevards New Media (Houston.com, Detroit.com and many other city web portals) are not only operating in the black, but expanding their operations to offer local news.
These models are already successful. It's the lack of vision of the traditional news media which have allowed themselves to stagnate. The news audience (and advertisers) have been migrating to internet news for years now. Traditional papers sat idle while digital media strolled right by them.
Again, please understand that the equivalent online news portal of say, Tucson Citizen for example, will never be able to compete with a city domain name in .com or .US.
No one outside of Tucson knows about the paper's website at TucsonCitizen.com. Everyone else nationally and internationally will automatically check the default portals which are Tucson.com and Tucson.US. For the paper to not own and operate one of these means they will continue to lose mindshare and a huge global audience both within and outside Tucson's city limits. This phenomenon is duplicated for every city in America.
Local journalists and news staffers need to transition themselves to the best news/information portal available for their city. And that is the globally recognized web address for their city at city.com or city.US. Or in the case of Canada, city.ca.
Yeah, the Web is a wonderful place. But not if the story isn't copy edited before it makes it out there for the whole world to see. In the first story on the Tuscon Citizen site about going Web only, bona fide was spelled bonified. WTF?!
ReplyDeleteThat's everything that's wrong with Gannett today.
Per Tucson Weekly, hearing on Arizona AG's anti-trust suit and TRO request over Tucson Citizen closure scheduled for 9:30 a.m. Monday Arizona time, U.S. District Court: http://tinyurl.com/q4ct3u
ReplyDelete