Month: May 2007

One by one Strib reporters have been summoned in to a private meeting today with top Strib editors and told what their fate will be — reassignment, opportunity to reapply for current position, opportunity to apply for reassignment, etc. By reports describing post-interview expressions from “glum” to “despondent” to out-right tears, few Strib writers apparently saw “fresh and exciting opportunities in the challenging, fast-paced journalism world of tomorrow”, or whatever corporate-speak nonsense Team Par is selling today.

Among the more startling “reassignments”. TV critic Neal Justin will be given the opportunity to “compete” with Deborah Rybak for a job reporting on TV. Not a column. Straight reporting. Who got hired. Who got fired and the ratings.

Rybak has been on part-time status for several months, dealing with the death of her father and her mother’s Alzheimers. As of Monday evening no one from Strib management had contacted her about these changes.

Linda Mack will be reassigned away from covering architecture.

Recent hire Sara Glassman has been told her fashion beat is probably gone, but that may be re-thought when/if the paper hires a new assistant managing editor for features.

The Strib will continue with both of its present music critics, theater critics and movie critics.

But one atrocity has galvanized the glum and despondent more than most of the others. That would be the announcement that Ridder and Avista have summarily fired the half dozen people manning the company’s telephone switchboards. Most of this crowd are “sweet old ladies”, (one has been with the Strib for 40 years), who, in addition to being way too nice for pissed-off readers to stay surly with, stocked a jar of Tootsie Rolls and gum for the staff to grab as they passed back and forth.

The new plan is apparently for a computer-operated system, although there are a lot of black jokes about Avista out-sourcing the switchboard to Bangalore.

Looking at it another way though, as Nick Coleman put it, “When people call in to cancel their subscription over something that asshole Coleman wrote, there won’t be anyone there to take the call.”

Par Ridder’s barnstorming slide show, “Business Literacy”, (given first to the Pioneer Press staff before “right-sizing” them to virtual irrelevancy, and now yesterday to his new staff at the Star Tribune), is essentially a plea to the troops to have pity on the paper’s executive and investor class, which is facing the same severe economic duress as every other paper in the country.

But, as the local Guild confirms, there is reasonably clear language in the existing contract allowing the Guild to examine ownership’s books if ownership demands lay-offs as a result of … economic duress.

“Yes,” says Star Tribune Guild officer, Pat Doyle, “there is such language if they choose to seek lay-offs. And I fully expect the Guild to ask to see the books if they move that way.”

Getting a public company to open the books to a union is rough enough. But a private company like Avista Capital Partners, (the Strib’s new owner)? Good luck.

This after all is a collection of well-cloaked characters about whom, as Doyle puts it, “We don’t know who they are. We don’t know how many of them there are. We don’t know how much money they’ve put in. We don’t know who has how much much invested,” and, as a kicker, “We have never heard them say anything about the kind of journalism they intend to practice.”

On the other hand, the threat of a protracted battle over Guild access to Avista’s no doubt fascinating and highly revelatory books, might be leverage enough to make Avista sweeten the current buy-out pot — (the Guild is unimpressed with the offer Ridder trotted out yesterday, and a highly-unscientific survey doubts he would get more than 15 to 20 takers, far short of the 50 “needed” from the newsroom) — and/or abort lay-off talk altogether.

As you might expect, staff reaction to Ridder’s slide show was pretty dismissive. “The problem he has,” says Doyle, “is that there is no reason to take his word on any of this lacking any kind of corroborative information.” Ridder’s presentation was apparently quite light on the other shoe of the current newspaper business climate, namely investor demands for fat profit-taking … NOW.

“No one doubts that down the road a ways it could get pretty bad,” Doyle continues, “but the last time anyone looked this paper was still making around a 20% profit.”

The current Avista buy-out offer, which is technically a “proposal” that Avista wants the Guild to examine and respond to, does not apply to the most recently hired, (i.e. younger, cheaper) suburban “bureau” reporters. They can not apply for this buy-out. BUT, if the company moves to lay-offs, those recent hires would be the first cut under the rule of reverse seniority.

Doyle re-emphasized that the Guild, “Is not willing to accept yesterday’s buy-out terms.” But the Guild must accept the terms before the buy-out process can begin. What that means is the clock on the two-week buy-out window will not begin ticking anytime soon. “I can’t see it opening anytime in May,” said Doyle.

If they gave awards for networking and self-promotion, Star Tribune columnist James Lileks would long ago have been handed a gold-plated trophy for Lifetime Achievement. It has not passed without notice that amid the wholesale turmoil of the latest round of staff cuts at the Star Tribune that Lileks somehow made himself a centerpiece of the purge, the Sydney Carton if you will of the current terror.

Remarkably well connected … hell, “enviably” well connected to prominent national columnists, bloggers and right-wing radio jockeys, Lileks’ reassignment/demotion from columnist to whatever comes next brought out waves of protest. (No one expects him to stay on.)

Bemoaning Lileks’ fate on his show yesterday, Hugh Hewitt, a kind of clueless, insulated, fat cat banker version of Sean Hannity, declared Lileks, “the most beloved columnist in the Twin Cities.”

Huh? (And who do you think fed him that line?)

I confess to never being a big fan of Lileks’ work. The relevance of what appeared in the Star Tribune utterly escaped me. I just didn’t care. That also pretty much describes my attitude toward his far better-attended blog. What was of occasional interest were his florid musings on politics and the war in Iraq. While I always thought Lileks jumped on the wing-nut bandwagon in the early ’90s because it looked like a sure ticket to a radio career, and then stayed after cultivating a following, when writing on politics he at least was dealing in topics that mattered to someone other than himself, his wife, his daughter and any pets they had around the house.

But “most beloved”? Please.

As I have said before, the purpose of “The Daily Quirk” escaped me, (especially for the rumored $92k the Strib was paying him for it). It read like someone applying the Word of the Day to the retelling of the previous night’s not-too interesting dream. But subjective tastes withstanding, the guy has obvious talent. So my question for Strib managers (long before the current crowd) was … why not make him apply his talent to topics of actual relevance?

One of his defenders makes the point that a fundamental mistake being made by newspapers is insisting that the highest calling of any newspaper writer is the ability to cover a housefire or a suburban public utilities commission. As though that sort of copy is what inspires eagerness in life long readers as they grab the paper off their lawn every morning.

That kind of thinking is manifestly dull-witted. It’s what you get from casts of career managers, as opposed to career journalists. But it is the sort of homogenized thinking you get in a panicked environment, which pretty well describes most newspapers these days.

One of the many ironies of the current newspaper business climate is that investor pressure for guaranteed short-term profit-taking is working with a management ethos that devalues precisely the sort of unique voices and points of view that are at the heart of big city newspapers and are what affix unique value to their product.

Whether Lileks refused to give the Strib the kind of topical, relevant copy he wrote for himself and others, (he has recently dropped his Newhouse syndication gig), or whether the Strib never asked for it, I can’t say. But as pointlessly indulgent as “The Daily Quirk” was, pressuring the guy out the door is even more counter-effective.

But “most beloved”?

Jesus.

Word from the still on-going meeting Star Tribune publisher Par Ridder is holding in the paper’s jam-packed assembly room-cafeteria is that Avista Capital Partners will cut approximately 50 more newsroom jobs within the next two weeks through an enhanced buy-out plan. The plan will compensate employees two weeks for every year of service up to a new maximum of 52 weeks, plus an additional six months health insurance coverage.

The paper announced on its intranet service that it will seek 145 job cuts from the company as a whole.

Gallows humor was abundant as Ridder trotted out essentially the same “Business Literacy” computerized slide show he gave last year at the St. Paul Pioneer Press. This is the one where all indicators point down, except of course executive compensation and shareholder value.

Another story making the rounds this afternoon is a sighting of Ridder out for his morning jog this AM … wearing a St. Paul Pioneer Press t-shirt.

Ridder’s note to the Strib staff:

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>Employee Meeting Recap
>by Par Ridder, Publisher and CEO
>May 7, 2007 – At an all employee meeting today we announced that as part of our ongoing efforts to reduce costs, the Star Tribune will be reducing the workforce by about 145 employees, primarily through a voluntary buyout program. I want to summarize some of the key points from the meeting that give context to this decision. The Star Tribune is in the same situation as most other metropolitan newspapers across the country. Our revenue has been declining for two years now, while expenses have been increasing. Our performance for the first quarter of 2007 was much worse than we anticipated, and there are signs that this trend will not reverse soon. Our revenue decline is primarily due to a steep drop in Classified advertising. We are facing both weak markets in real estate, automotive and employment and a migration of advertising in these categories from print to online. Declining revenue and increasing expenses mean that our profit has dropped substantially these past two years. For us to be a healthy, viable business, we must stabilize this situation-first by getting our costs in line with our revenue. Our costs fall into three main areas: compensation, newsprint and all other. Compensation is by far our largest expense category. In addition to other efforts being made to reduce costs, we have determined that we will need to go down about 145 jobs this year in order to achieve the necessary expense reductions. While we will be looking to reduce newsprint and all other costs as well, we are now faced with the necessity of having to reduce our workforce. Most other major metropolitan newspapers around the country have already taken this step. The senior vice presidents and I have put together a plan that seeks to get the majority of these reductions through voluntary buyouts. Those who are eligible for this voluntary program will be notified. However, if we do not get enough volunteers, we will have to move to layoffs to get the necessary reductions. There also are some job eliminations in this plan. It’s important to understand that our business model has fundamentally changed. This is not a temporary situation but a major shift in the media environment that we will be wrestling with for years to come. As I mentioned in the meeting, dismantling a newspaper is not a strategy. However, cutting costs will allow us to stabilize our business as we work to reallocate resources so we can get the Star Tribune growing again. This summer we will be having all company meetings to create our strategy going forward. Everyone will be invited and I encourage you to attend. From the ownership change to the change in leadership and finally this announcement, this clearly has been a tough few months for everyone. Thank you for your professionalism and hard work as we navigate this difficult time.
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