Rybak to the Slaughter

As mentioned here a couple days ago, Deborah Rybak, most recently media reporter at the Star Tribune, has consented to join forces with me here at Slaughter Central. To be very clear, this is not Ms. Rybak joining The Rake. (The mind boggles at the bloody, bruised-knuckle negotiating it would take to make that happen.) This is simply a couple old pros, neighbors and inveterate gossip-mongers getting together for a little fun. Her presence here also adds much overdue journalistic sobriety, insight and dignity to my vacuity and adolescent raging.

Somewhere back last winter I recalled my former employers at the Pioneer Press swatting me across the back of the head and slamming the latest edition of the Strib in my face every time Rybak scooped me — usually as a result of something she dragged back from her regular round of power lunches. I still wonder, Why do the famous and fatuous want to be seen in public with her and recoil in horror at the thought of lunching with me? Did I answer my own question?

Anyway, the inference of the head-swatting was that, “THIS” –whatever Rybak had covered — “is what you are supposed to be doing. Our readers don’t care about Bill O’Reilly? Get over it!”

I never learned.

In addition to the types of coverage I’ve been doing here since January 1, together we hope to build in some dialogues and more of the media basics; hirings and whackings, with or without further comment.

Separately, our experience has been that daily newspapers see very little value in covering the media universe and none at all in analyzing and commenting on it. Media, to “right-sizing” newspapers is primarily a celebrity gossip beat, with extraordinary emphasis on the comings, goings and ratings of local TV anchors. Deborah and I believe that view is almost completely backwards. Readers, i.e. people who read to acquire knowledge, want more media information, not less, and regard empty-headed gossip “coverage” as valueless.

We both see a literate, critical audience for coverage that uh, declines, to play press agent to the stars and anchors and, like good sports columnists, sees fun to be had in throwing back the curtain on the machinations of what is, let’s face it, a weird, woolly, often silly, vast and omnipresent facet of modern American life.

We plan to devote X-number of hours and posts talking to and about those who control, create and populate Minnesota media–sometimes farther afield than that. We’ll talk about who is schtupping who, figuratively speaking, (or maybe sometimes in actuality). And we will be covering TV, cable and Internet programming, movies and whatever else flickers and interests us.

There is interesting stuff on television, and we have different tastes. She may be bored to tears by “Ice Road Truckers”, and I may not agree that “Californication” perfectly captures Hollywood’s moral malaise. But we see opportunities to gas on about, for example, what in the hell drugs David Milch was using when he wrote, “John from Cincinnati”.

Everyone of course invited to join in, commend us, vilify us and test our vast knowledge of all things media-related … which when you get Alan Greenspan on Jon Stewart’s show is damned near everything under the sun. And yes, we will both rant from time to time. I wouldn’t want to disappoint my Fox News Kool-aid drinkers.

So, by way of introduction …

LAMBERT: Deborah, I’d welcome you, but really this is more of a salvage project, a reclamation effort on your part. You are the cavalry riding to the rescue. But the news late yesterday is that, as was heavily rumored, Par Ridder will NOT be returning as publisher. How shocked were you by this news?

RYBAK: Do I need to drag out that old “Casablanca” line? Since we more or less predicted it Wednesday, I would venture to say, not breath-intake shocked, nor even eyes-slightly-widened shocked. I guess when you called me yesterday evening my shock was of the “It’s almost cocktail hour, what are you bugging me for?” variety.

Here’s the phrase that interested me most in the Strib story, “Par is ‘likely’ not to return to the paper.” That tells me that lawyers are talking and I’m sure that exit pay is a major topic.

So how much more is Par going to take home from this misadventure in addition to the “relocation” money we hear he received to move about 5 miles from Sunfish Lake to Kenwood? I wonder if his lawyers want extra because he was so successful in whacking the staff down to size and saving Avista so much money, (well,until those legal fees started piling up).

I wonder if the “national search” for a publisher that interim publisher/Avista concierge Chris Harte mentioned to his staff will also include scanning for bodies to fill the other empty management positions that have turned the formerly executive-stocked fourth floor suites into a ghost town?

Or will everything–including the website–continue to be overlorded from New York?

LAMBERT: So the paper currently has no CFO, no director of high technology. What else am I missing?

RYBAK: Don’t forget there’s no Mike LaBonia, aka “Mikey Bones,” who just bailed on his sales and strategic planning gig to go to the San Francisco Chronicle. Oh yeah, and no director of niche publications, although Jennifer Parratt is getting paid to sit at home and wait for her non-compete to run out. Wonder if she’ll ever come back, now that the guy who hired her is out. Sorry, “likely” to be out.

Plus, during his staff meeting, Harte also clarified that it would be Avista money used to pay everyone’s legal bills …not Strib dough. Does it really matter?

LAMBERT: I’m sorry, Chris Harte telling the staff it’ll be Avista, not the Strib budget paying the $10 million-plus in Par Ridder-related legal fees is not something that would quiet my concerns were I employed there. The overriding issue is that the parent company — Avista — is bleeding out its eyeballs with this Minnesota newspaper deal and the twit they hired to staunch all that has turned out to be a very expensive pain in the ass.

Just as you heard from your sources, the word I heard Thursday morning was that Ridder would not be back. My first question upon hearing the court decision putting him on the beach was, “What is the upside to this guy hanging like a dark cloud over the paper for a year? He has no credibility with his staff. Anecdotally, he’s a joke around town. Who continues to love him, and why?”

I still say, and I’ll take bets, that there is Ridder family money in Avista somewhere, somehow.

I confess of course that I’ll miss Par. I think of him as my Nixon.

RYBAK: You have the weirdest crushes. First Mick Anselmo, now Par. I confess that I’m obsessed right now with Billy Dean Singleton. When he rode into town, the Star Tribune was almost arrogant in its rejection of Singleton’s favorite pasttime–creating joint operating agreements between former newspaper rivals (see Denver Post v. Rocky Mt. News).

Now I wonder if JOA might be the settlement that will satisfy Singleton in his lawsuit. Look at his remarks to the Pioneer Press’s John Welbes: “There are many things that the two newspapers could do together without crossing legal barriers, but that would depend on who we’re working with.”

Now that Par’s gone, and Avista’s investment needs some serious shoring up, what’s standing in the way?

LAMBERT: A JOA would have to be seen as an interim step to a full merger. Until now a merger has been viewed as unlikely because of anti-trust issues. But given the precipitous collapse of newspaper revenue, what DC regulator would oppose the argument that a two-paper universe here in the Twin Cities is no longer sustainable, and that the only possibility for continuing full-scale community “service” is to merge and seriously reduce overhead.

It may be a largely bullshit argument, but I’m thinking it is one that plays better with each passing quarter.

But welcome aboard, dear.

RYBAK: Thanks doll, nice to be here…