Meanwhile, over at the Denver alt-weekly Westword Dweezil Zappa discusses his father’s music and the difficulty of playing it live with only six musicians, which to me feels like trying to write “War and Peace” by beating a Linotype with a feather duster.
Category: Journalism
All the news that fits, we print (part five)
While we were amusing ourselves with rich people who trade our newspapers, websites and magazines like po’ folks do tips for making a tasty stew from a handful of weeds, a sheaf of unpaid bills and the family pet, a friend who works for The New York Times wrote to note that another round of buyouts is in progress, the fourth in five years, to be followed by layoffs if enough employees don’t take them.
In other words, jump or be pushed.
“Merry Christmas,” notes my friend, sourly. Indeed.
Things appear even grimmer in Cleveland, where the staff of The Plain Dealer is fighting back against cuts planned by Advance Publications by taking their case to the paper’s dwindling readership. They’ve produced a TV ad, created a Facebook page and plan a “Save The Plain Dealer” party on Thursday at the Market Garden Brewery and Distillery, co-owned by ex-paperboy Sam McNulty. The New York Times reports that the brewery is releasing a new beer, 7-Day Lager, which it says is “best when enjoyed daily, because one a day keeps ignorance at bay.”
Advance has already cut back several papers to three days per week, among them the storied Times-Picayune in New Orleans. With that in mind, McNulty invited Steve Newhouse, chairman of Advance’s pixel pirates, to join the party. Newhouse would not say whether he would attend, though McNulty offered to underwrite the trip.
However, Newhouse did say that the company was “working to develop a localized approach that will allow us to continue to fulfill our commitment to quality journalism in an increasingly digital world,” adding, “I support the work of our team in Cleveland and have passed on your input to them.”
This, of course, is chairman-speak for “Fuck you.” Eschew obfuscation, Stevie old scout. In other words, speak (and deal) Plain-ly.
• Late update: Also going tits-up: The Daily, Rupe Murdoch’s iPad-only daily “newspaper.” Nieman Journalism Lab takes some lessons from its surprisingly successful failure.
All that news that fits, we print (part two)
Our “local” daily newspaper just got sold for the second time this year. The lucky suitor this time around was Denver billionaire Philip Anschutz, who has a variety of interests, from Industrial Christianity to oil-and-gas exploration to bicycle racing.
His Anschutz Entertainment Group owns, among other things, the Tour of California, which last year concluded in spectacularly uninteresting fashion at L.A. Live, AEG’s HQ in Los Angeles, on the same day as the NHL Western Conference finals between the Phoenix Coyotes and the L.A. Kings at the Staples Center (the latter two being AEG properties) and game four of the NBA Western Conference semis between the Clippers and San Antonio Spurs (also at the Staples Center).
AEG, a wholly owned subsidiary of The Anschutz Company — which has its corporate fingers in everything from agriculture and real estate to the gathering, blending, transportation and storage of crude oil — has been for sale since mid-September.
Forbes estimates its annual operating income to be “in excess of $300 million,” so whoever wants to spring for AEG will need to write a bigger check than Anschutz did for the Gazette (the terms of the deal were not disclosed). The Wall Street Journal expects the price to be “several billion dollars,” according to the Denver Business Journal. Forbes guesses it to be in the range of $8 billion to $10 billion. Among the players said to be interested are Oracle’s Larry Ellison and that fabled private-equity powerhouse Bain Capital, according to Forbes.
And mind you, AEG is just one of Anschutz’s cookie jars. The 72-year-old has a net worth of $7.6 billion and sits 44th on the 2012 Forbes 400. He’s No. 133 on the magazine’s billionaires list.
So why does a player like this want to add a struggling newspaper in a smallish metro area to his Clarity Media Group? To have something to read while he’s hanging around the Broadmoor, which he bought last year? Beats the shit out of me. All the stories I’ve read are overflowing with the usual marketing gibberish — expanding product and market reach, creating a new level of excellence, having a passion for the paper and its community — but the “why” of the deal remains unanswered.
Speaking with the Denver Business Journal, former Gazette vice president and editor Jeff Thomas — who was laid off a year ago — said Anschutz “is making a bet that’s largely been decided to no longer pay off.”
“There’s no question readers will like a paper that’s fatter, and better and has more coverage,” he continued. “But that’s not the question to ask. Will they pay … and will advertisers pay to advertise in a paper that’s fatter, better and has more coverage?”
Indeed. And how much of that coverage will be devoted to the issue of oil-and-gas exploration via hydraulic fracturing — a.k.a., “fracking” — in a town whose city council just voted to approve a set of rules that would allow energy companies to drill for oil and gas within the city limits — a dubious practice wholeheartedly endorsed by the Gazette‘s editorial board?
I think I’ll stick with our locally owned paper for now. The Gazette is still in the hands of out-of-town right-wingers, and the only significant difference I see at the moment is that we don’t know what this new lot is up to yet.
All the news that fits, we print
The inimitable Charles P. Pierce gave us a heads-up yesterday about the Federal Communications Commission’s plan to “streamline and modernize” rules governing media ownership, which Charlie rightly calls the prelude to “sheer unadulterated brigandage.”
For starters, the streamlining and modernization would give his old boss, Rupert Murdoch — yes, that Rupert Murdoch — a chance to get his paws on what remains of the Chicago Tribune and Los Angeles Times.
Beyond that, it would give media conglomerates the opportunity to get your local media by the plums with a downhill pull. How would you like to have ol’ Rupe or someone like him running your “local” newspaper/website, radio station and TV channel all at once?
Credo Action followed up with an online petition drive, and there’s something similar going on over at Free Press. Adding your name to the chorus against the FCC’s holiday giveaway can’t hurt and might even help.
Meanwhile, take a quick look around your own media landscape and figure out who the player(s) are. It can be eye-opening to see just who controls your local flow of information.
Here in Bibleburg there is only one locally owned newspaper, the weekly Colorado Springs Independent, which also owns (and shares some staff with) the Colorado Springs Business Journal. I didn’t bother to look up all the radio stations, because I only listen to one — NPR affiliate KRCC-FM, a.k.a. Radio Colorado College — but I did check out the TV stations I can get via rabbit ears. Following is a breakdown of who owns our “local” media.
Newspapers
Gazette — Freedom Communications, Irvine, Calif.
Colorado Springs Independent — locally owned
TV
KKTV (CBS) — Gray Television Inc., Albany, Ga.
KRDO (ABC) — News-Press & Gazette Co., St. Joseph, Mo.
KOAA (NBC) — Evening Post Publishing Co., Charleston, S.C.
FOX21 (FOX) — Barrington Broadcasting Group, Schaumburg, Ill.
KTSC (Rocky Mountain PBS) — Pueblo, Colo.
Radio
KRCC-FM (NPR) — Colorado College, Colorado Springs, CO
Not a job creator
Jesus, but I can be an asshole to no particular purpose.
A youngish newspaper carrier pops round this evening as Herself and I are enjoying some adult beverages while watching Bill Maher fence with Chris Matthews, and he offers a free copy of the local cage-liner.
I say politely, “No, thanks, we don’t like the Gazette.”
Then he asks why. Bad idea.
“Because I used to work there,” I snap. “It’s a right-wing rag and the sooner it’s gone, the better off we’ll all be.”
Except for the poor sods who write it, shoot it, edit it, lay it out, print it, sell it or deliver it, that is. Ass-hole.
Kid looked like I just shot his German-shepherd pup with a 9mm KGB-issue Makarov. I wanted to confess that I used to deliver that neo-libertarian piece of Randite shit when I was his age, but it was too late. You can’t wish the round back in the pistol.
I should order up a subscription to be delivered to Namaste Alzheimer Center, where my mom snuffed it. The editorial page might make some fleeting sense there, and if nothing else, it would serve as a handy fluid-absorption tool.
Mad Blog Media 