Sodden question: Will our our already short-staffed home town newspaper survive, now that it's been reduced to its current "skeleton crew"?
Imagine if you will... a world without newspapers:
Imagine a Standard-Examiner without Cal Grondahl...
Update 1/13/14 5:25 p.m.: Via Bob Becker in the comments section down below, we learn that the "Trib is now reporting the story the SE isn't":
The Standard will attempt to lure Grondahl back under a new "no cut" contract, if they have a lick of sense; no doubt about it.
Update 1/15/14 7:44 a.m.: Cal Grondahl informs us that he'll be returning to the Standard for a limited "freelance" gig. "I met with my editors at lunch today and told them I would do a Sat. Caption Cal Contest cartoon and a Sunday editorial cartoon on a local subject of their choosing," our intrepid genius local cartoonist reported in yesterday's Facebook status message. Smart move on the part of S-E management, wethink.
43 comments:
My heart sinks.
Journalism is publishing what someone else does not want printed. Everything else is public relations. ~George Orwell (attributed)
Reporters can be replaced. Editors can certainly be replaced. Even columnists can, in principle, be replaced. But Cal Grondahl can never be replaced. This is a tragedy for Ogden, and the end of an era.
Why? Is the "More w/less mentality" at play here?
On the political cartoons of Thomas Nast in Harper's Weekly, as quoted in "Article IV: An Episode in Municipal Government" by Charles F. Wingate in The North American Review (July 1875), p. 150:
Boss William M. Tweed: "I don't care a straw for your newspaper articles; my constituents don't know how to read, but they can't help seeing them damned pictures."
The number I was told was 19 employees let go, including a number who had well over 20 years of employment with the paper. As I understand it, all of the employees in question were full-time, benefit eligible employees.
I should add that in addition to the layoffs, all of the Standard's newspaper carriers were required to sign new contracts effective January 1st that cut their per paper delivery rate, in some cases by as much as 48%.
Things are a changin' at the Standard-Examiner.
If the "SuitS in Sandusky" were willing to let their :fanchise" Political cartoonist go, ya gotta know they're in DEEP FINANCIAL DOO.
I agree.
About 2 1/2 years ago, the drivers who deliver the papers to the individual carriers were told that "the paper is solidly in the black", while their pay/hours were cut, in many cases by more than a third.
I have to wonder how "solidly in the black" things are now.
Oh great. I'll suppose that the Standard will be eliminating home deliveries soon.
Certainly possible. I've heard (and to no surprise) that the newspaper is having difficulty finding new carriers to replace those vacating their routes...primarily due to the rate cut.
As the density of subscribers decreases, the home delivery business becomes inefficient, taking more time per subscriber. One more aspect of the death spiral.
It's sad to see our 126-year old hometown newspaper vanishing before our very eyes, innit?
Particularly sad since the managers of the paper have been saying for some years that what they have to offer is local content that cannot be found faster or cheaper or elsewhere at all on the net. Hard to think of much content in the SE that is more unique to it than CG's political cartoons.
I don't know what the promised many bells and whistles super fancy rootin' tootin' webplatform promised for March is going to provide, but seems to me however glitzy the packaging, what makes a paper worth the price of subscription, and the time to read, is content. And content I can't find elsewhere faster or cheaper. Again, that seems to describe what Mr. Grondahl provided the SE.
I am sorry to say that, if they're cutting unique content, and it seems they are, the death spiral has started.
Crap.
As I look at the bylines in the most recent two or three papers, I'm getting the impression that the S-E has not cut back on the number of news reporters on staff. Does anyone know what sorts of positions were cut, besides editorial cartoonist and sports editor?
And once again, a breaking hyper-local story of some importance appears first in WCF not the SE.
Irony Alert: was just on the SE website to see if it reported the layoffs yet, and what did that annoying little "Recommended For You" box that pops up bottom right on screen recommend for me? Going to "You Caption Cal." Uh huh. Right.
The inept "free" SE website always has the "You Caption"....but never the cartoon. Blind guessing?
That site's been bad enough for years, but pared down recently to a sports-focused list.
We pay to read online....but for how much longer?
I am continually disgusted by the increasingly rightward political spin of the SE. Sandusky papers must believe the "majority" hype.
As long as the investor class is "in the black", I'm sure they don't care.
I pay to have a paper delivered every morinng. A real get-ink-on-my-fingers newspaper. I don't pay to read it online. And won't. No paper no subscriber here.
Trib now reporting the story the SE isn't
http://www.sltrib.com/sltrib/money/57390865-79/grondahl-newspaper-bagley-cal.html.csp
it's not my place to name names, but no reporter positions were cut, although the sports editor is iffy on that one. Majority of cuts were downstairs, in ads and pressroom, there were 4 slots in the newsroom cut.
I smell a shift to more reporters doing video, pictures, etc. I have no feel for what circulation is or any moves that may fortell -- ask the publisher about that.
I suspect you're right about the shift, but that creates a problem for mossbacks like me who want a newspaper to read, not Youtube West online instead. And who want stories not filmclips.
Digital platforms are useless unless they have something great on them... Cal was the last person I would have expected them to let go of.
I'm sure you're 100% correct.
Based on what I heard over the weekend, Mr. Trentleman is correct. Cuts in circulation, production, and the pressroom.
4-5 years back I had 3 subscriptions to the SE. My own and two I bought as a gift for customers of a friend who purchased a business. I made the comment on WCF a while back (2 to 2.5 yrs. maybe) that I was going to let them lapse and I did because the SE was just lousy in my opinion on follow-up and at the time seemed to be the incumbent mayors mouthpiece. I missed Cal though. Always thought that he was good enough to be nationally syndicated. WCF filled the gap for me. Still think this is an exceedingly well run site that always provided the details on local O-town politics that somehow failed to get on the SE's radar. Combined with the civil and insightful discourse of many that post on here to include this thread I don't feel I'm missing much.
I respectfully disagree. The SE covers much more local news than WCF (though over the years WCF has broken stories and followed them up that the SE didn't... or wouldn't). Though I agree you'll be missing less tomorrow thsn you were yesterday.
In part I agree with you Bob. Never good when a local paper folds ( I used to deliver as a kid for the Rocky Mt News in Denver. 219 papers on my route. Folded a few years back). Space here in this reply doesn't allow for the finer points of the impact this will have on the local news scene. For me, the difference was the SE didn't have enough BITE on the really important stories. Or it failed to attempt to chew them altogether.
there's a joke in newspapers that the obit pages are full of subscribers, Bob. How many folks under 30 take the paper?
Trib reports audited circulation of the S-E in 2012 was 44K, 52K on Sunday. That is way, way, way below what we were told at work, although the figures at work usually included on-line subscriptions which, through some mathematical magic, showed the s-e was one of the few papers in the country increasing circulation. Problem is, on-line ad revenue covers perhaps 10 percent of lost paper revenue.
The reports of cuts in pay to distributers really dismays me. One gets the feeling a major shift away from print is in the works.
It amazes me that I got into the business when hot led and linotype machines were all the rage.
This evening I discussed the papers drawdown with my 70+ year old mother in law (who has home delivery). I asked her if she would use the SE website if the hardcopy went away. She was adamant she prefers the paper and would look for another printed source. As noted by others above, the generation that feels like that is a dying breed and those replacing them have been raised on lap tops, IPhones/Pads and the internet. The writing is on the digital wall for print media. Maybe not all of it, but the bulk.
This raises the question, though, of whether a digital-only SE can successfully compete for (a) readers and (b) revenues as a blogsite among thousands available on screen. Print edition is the only game in town.
I like to tell people my column in the paper hit a mere 65K doorsteps (which I discover I was wrong) a day, while my blog is accessed by literally dozens of people a day. I mean, dozens!
Still trying to figure out how to make money at it. So, I am sure, is the Standard-Examiner.
http://charlestrentelman.blogspot.com
You're trying to make money???
According to the Trib, another of those laid off was graphics director Michael Goodwin, who was responsible for many (perhaps all) of the custom maps and charts that appeared on original S-E articles. So I'm wondering if this means there will be no more such maps and charts.
"Reached Monday, Howell declined to comment on the extent of the layoffs, referring inquiries to Standard-Examiner Publisher Charles Horton III, who did not immediately return calls seeking comment."
In other words, the bosses at the Standard-Examiner are cowards. Nothing new there.
For all the management's burbbling about a new emphasis on "visual content" it seems the layoffs will significantly diminish it. Maybe if the maps could animated....
Re: Mr. Trentelman's guess that the SE is moving away from print toward more (or exclusive?) digital platforms. What might that mean for the quality of the paper's reporting/ coverage? Last year, the New Orleans Times Picayune dropped to printing only three times a week, and to delivering daily content via NOLA.com. The Columbia Journalism Review has up a long long article on how the content of the Times Pic has changed as it moved to digital first option. Short version: coverage, articles have become significantly "softer" --- more celebrity news, etc. --- than was true in the print paper. Link below for anyone who wants to read the entire piece, with lots of pie- charts. Also includes long response by Times Pic/ NOLA.com editor.
http://www.cjr.org/the_audit/tracking_news-quality_declines.php?page=all
Good news: Grondahl reports on Facebook that he has reached an agreement with the editors to keep doing Saturday ( "You Caption Cal") and Sunday cartoons on a freelance basis.
If the arrangement pleases Mr. Grondahl, then I'm happy it's been worked out. But good news? One Grondahl editorial cartoon a week is hardly good news in light of what subscribers used to have but a week ago. The SE remains a diminished product with less value for the price. Nor am I willing to look on a paper canning a newsroom full timer and then bring him back as a part time indeoendent contractor as good news. I agree the bad news is a smidge less bad than we thought, but only that.
The Standard is also advertising on journalismjobs.com to hire a video studio engineer. The paper wants to be a TV station?
Obviously my baseline for the term "good news" was where readers stood an hour before, with no hope of ever seeing another Grondahl cartoon in the S-E.
A few years ago the S-E posted video interviews with all the Ogden candidates for mayor and city council, and I appreciated that. But for me, that was the exception. 99 times out of 100 I'd rather read about something than watch a video report on it.
no, but wouldn't it be nice?
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