Year: 2007

I see a string of legitimate questions piling up in the “comments” area, about the latest Strib carnage and other topics, and I vow to generate a post dedicated entirely to answering them in the very near future.

But among recent comments was this one:
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“As one who’s felt the sting of “dynamic change,” I fully empathize with the Strib staffers now on the receiving end of the same corporate lock-step speak. I’m especially sad to hear about the treatment of colleague Neal Justin. Newspaper potentates are idiots when it comes to understanding the value of a TV critic in the marketplace.
Anyway, I’ve had my own web site, unclebarky.com, since two days after leaving The Dallas Morning News on Sept. 15. It’s a totally homegrown site that allows me to write about local and national television in the way that the gods of independent journalism intended.

I wish everybody the best at the Strib. But as one who’s been there, it won’t be the end of your worlds.”

Ed Bark
former TV critic of 26 years standing at The Dallas Morning News
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I’m not over-gilding the lily here when I say that Ed Bark was (and is) something like the dean of the nation’s TV critics. Deeply sourced, respected by the whole vertical structure of today’s television culture, from the heads of network news and entertainment divisions to anchors to fledgling sitcom divas, the self-effacing Bark is a bona fide wise man, precisely the kind of professional journalist whose word, in person or print, is well-considered, fair and often quite entertaining. The guy is a walking encyclopedia of television lore with a sly Texas lawyer’s way with a provocative question. Ed is every bit the equivalent of Pat Reusse, a trusted expert on his beat with a voice as unique and familiar as your favorite uncle.

And the owners of the Dallas Morning News squeezed HIM out. (Ed has written about it.)

Though it may not seem possible to believe at this moment here in Minnesota, but the Morning News’ owners, the Belo Corporation, are actually more thoughtless vulgarians than the Par Ridder/Avista Capital Partners crowd.

Ed’s e-mail was followed not long after by this one:.
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“The broadband revolution has brought into focus that there are indeed two types of newspaper readers, (there are actually more, but let these two stand for now).

One is a group of people who are interested in issues, national and world politics, and events, and who bemoan the parochiality of a newspaper that covers zoning boards.

The other is a group of people who pick up the paper to find out: Did they rezone that piece of property? Why are they putting all this silly stuff about Sarkozy and Putin in the paper?

The groups, alas, exist in mutual incomprehensibility.”
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The two intersected in my alleged mind at the point of trying to understand the financial value in the de-flavorized, de-voiced and dessicated journalism model now inflicted on BOTH Twin Cities newspapers, thanks in no small part to Par Ridder, (although he is clearly just the callow front man for other, far more influential forces).

There are a lot of examples at the Strib of this counter-effective process of excising beats and voices that provide the PLEASURE and ENJOYMENT of reading a newspaper and replacing/reassigning them to the cheapskate “localism” of suburban city council meetings, high school sports and re-phrasing police blotters. Architecture critic Linda Mack comes to mind. But I don’t know Linda.

As his former competitor though, I do know Justin. (I don’t think “full disclosure” requires me to go into a lot of detail about those night caps at the Liquid Kitty in West L.A.)

Our running joke was that I was the TV critic who never watched TV, and who could just barely tell Geena Davis from Wayne Knight, while he was the guy who, any day, was going to bust the searing, no-holds-barred expose of the Minnesota connection to the LA porn industry. (A few more months of research and he’d have it, by God. Then it was just a matter of getting it past the copy desk.)

More realistically, our debate was over what kind of TV coverage readers most wanted to read?

Since I took the elitist view that adding local coverage to the latest “hot” show, the “Joe Millionare” of the moment, was both redundant, given the bales of copy available on the wires as well as professionally embarrassing, (since the implicit expectation from editors was that I was to avoid my usual acerbic take on the genre in favor of reflecting the giddy excitement of the show’s lovelorn teenage fans), I would tell Justin there was fun to be had in playing with local TV and radio characters. Over-sized egos. Craven capitulation to corporate dictums. Each and every one, God’s gift to journalism. The whole package. Day after day.

The key, I always said, was whether the paper allowed you to apply the same voice to the beat as say a sports columnist has to his.

Justin, who is a very entertaining character, would slam his glass on the bar top and say, mostly facetiously, “Yeah. But nobody wants to read that shit.” This was his way of reminding me that he had a much stronger stomach than I did for prime-time programming.

And he may have been right. In telling Justin that their interest is in “straight reporting” on TV, as opposed to any kind of sports-like amalgamation of reporting/opinion and analysis, Strib management is asserting the same drab standard Ridder brought to the Pioneer Press.

But my immediate point is that Neal, like Linda Mack and others getting shuffled away from any semblance of learned analysis, personal voice and writerly prose, delivered
copy that was pleasurable to read and, since it doesn’t get much more local than a box blaring in your own living room, his TV stories had metro-wide relevance far beyond 10″ on a housefire in Inver Grove Heights.

The truest description about what’s going on here in the Twin Cities, first to the Pioneer Press and now to the Star Tribune, (with worse to come as each paper enters into negotiations for new contracts, starting this month in St. Paul and next year in Minneapolis), is that
none of this is about “saving” the newspaper, and all of it is about “selling” the newspaper.

I’ll spare you my screed on how the recently-fired “sweet old ladies” at the Star Tribune switchboard are a prime example of the berserk redistribution of wealth going on in this country, as their meager salaries are yanked away and redirected into the already plump portfolios of Avista Capital Partners. But I will tell you I don’t understand how anybody, even a bunch of hedge fund-style sharks like Ridder and Avista, (whoever they really are), would see more bottom-line value in the monotonous, rote reporting of suburban minutiae than a “product” dusted with at least an occasional glimmer of wit, analysis based on long-term exposure to a topic or industry, and style.

Who looks at the “broadband revolution” and says, “The secret to making money in this environment is to get duller and more homogenized, fast”?

Here are the most general ratings. All listeners 12 and older. Comparing the fourth quarter of ’06 with the first quarter of ’07.

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KQRS-FM – 7.2 – 8.0
WCCO-AM – 8.2 – 7.4
KEEY-FM – 6.9 – 6.2 – (K102)
KNOW-FM – 4.5 – 5.8 – (MPR News)
KDWB-FM – 4.6 – 4.6
KXXR-FM – 4.1 – 4.6 – 93X
WLTE-FM – 6.1 – 4.5
KTCZ-FM – 3.9 – 4.4 – Cities 97
KSTP-FM – 4.5 – 4.0
KSJN-FM – 3.6 – 3.7 – MPR – Classical
KSTP-AM – 3.2 – 3.7
KQQL-FM – 4.5 – 3.5 – KOOL 108
KTTB-FM – 3.1 – 3.3
KZJK-FM – 3.2 – 3.3 – JACK FM
KFAN-AM – 3.2 – 3.2
KTLK-FM – 1.9 – 3.1
KCMP-FM – 1.9 – 2.1 – MPR – 89.3 The Current
WWTC-AM – 1.0 – 1.4
KTNF-AM – 1.7 – 1.1 – Air America
WFMP-FM – 1.3 – 1.1 – FM 107
KLCI-FM – 1.0 – 1.0
WDGY-AM – 0.8 – 0.9
WGVX-FM – 0.8 – 0.8
KLBB-AM – 0.5 – 0.6

In the radio business nobody much cares about those numbers, because they are all primarily selling to specific demographic groups, men (talk radio), women (modern country, “Lite” rock, FM 107), teens (KDWB), etc.

Here are the overall ratings for adults 25-54. Comparing the first quarter of ’06 with the first quarter of ’07.

Important note: MPR is not allowed to release its ratings for any category other than 12+. Historically though their stations rank at least as high among adults as the 12+ crowd, and often significantly higher. So factor that into what follows.

KQRS – 12.3 – 10.7
Cities 97 – 5.7 – 6.0
K102 – 8.1 – 5.8
93X – 4.6 – 5.0
KS95 – 4.6 – 4.8
JACK-FM – 4.2 – 4.8
WLTE – 5.4 – 4.4
KFAN – 4.8 – 4.4
WCCO – 3.3 – 3.8
KOOL 108 – 4.5 – 3.7
AM 1500 – 3.2 – 3.1
KDWB – 3.5 – 3.0
KTLK – 1.7 – 3.0
KTTB – 2.8 – 2.7
WWTC – 1.4 – 1.2
FM 107 – 1.7 – 1.2
Air America – 1.0 – 0.7

If you’re interested in morning drive, (6-10 am), every station’s most critical “daypart”. Check this out.

KQRS – 23.7 – 21.2
93X – 3.5 – 5.8
WCCO – 4.1 – 4.8
K102 – 6.7 – 4.8
Cities97 – 3.9 – 4.4
Jack FM – 3.0 – 4.2
KS95 – 4.2 – 4.1
WLTE – 4.2 – 3.9
KFAN – 3.5 – 3.9
KDWB – 3.5 – 3.0

(Yeah, Tom Barnard STILL kills everything else in sight. Note to ‘CCO. K102 and the rest … work more fecal material into your act.)

Afternoon drive? (3-7 pm). The second most critical?

K102 – 7.6 – 6.7
KS95 – 5.8 – 6.6
KFAN – 6.5 – 6.2
Cities 97 – 6.0 – 5.6
KQRS – 6.6 – 5.5
AM 1500 – 6.6 – 5.5
Jack FM – 4.1 – 4.5
93X – 3.7 – 4.5
WLTE – 4.9 – 4.3
KTLK – 1.4* – 3.9

It was a tough quarter for “radio country” over at K102. Overall, I’d say 93X won the diary lottery this time around, and KTLK shows an up-tick in audience share, to maybe 40% of what they need to cover their nut. (So they can (*) thank God they cleared that lefty moonbat and his excessively blonde partner out of drivetime.)

My permanent Arbitron disclaimer: The Arbitron ratings are, in my opinion, the most unscientific and utterly valueless of any ratings system I know. Who among us would bother to ACCURATELY record in a written diary every 15 minutes of radio they listened to day in and day out? Almost no one. The current Arbitron “survey” is primarily a study in habituation, not actual usage. It’s ridiculous.

But now coming over the horizon … the radio industry will be stood on its head once the entire country begins “reporting” via the so-called People Meters, a small device which Arbitron volunteers wear and which automatically records a coded signal from whatever source they are REALLY listening to, every time they punch a car radio button or tap away to Kenny G at work.

My prediction? Time spent listening to music stations will fall through the floorboards.

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.