More Buyouts at the Republic

Gannett Blog is reporting a second round of buyouts at the Republic.

Top Editor Randy Lovely has scheduled a staff meeting tomorrow to talk about a second round of buyouts. His memo: "Today, we began to roll out a second round of voluntary early retirement opportunities. Please join me tomorrow for a staff meeting so that I can provide an update and answer any questions you may have. We will gather at 4 p.m. in Sigma-Delta-Chi. We are arranging for the suburban newsrooms to participate through videoconferencing."

Update:  Someone wrote a comment on this entry and then asked me not to post it.  I don't post the comments.  When you write a comment, it goes directly to the site.  If I see that it's private, I can delete it, but it may take me hours to find it.   If you need to contact me privately, send me an email. 

I have deleted the comment that was supposed to be private and I have deleted the two comments that chastised me for "posting" it.

Post Script.

One of the deleted comments also chastised me for posting the rumor that the Republic had a layoff last week and then deleting the post when I couldn't confirm it.  In my defense, I will say that I made it clear that I had a good source, but no confirmation.  When other comments said that I was wrong, I removed the post. 

However, I have since had confirmation that there were indeed layoffs in the circulation department.  So I stand by the original post. 

Other's have commented about my glee.  First, I will say that my posts about the recent rapid decline of the newspaper industry have been made without editorial comment.  The original version of this post included no additional comment from me. 

I cover the newspaper industry because it doesn't cover itself.   

As for the occasional glee I display at the fall of the mainstream media, I would point you to this post. 

Comments

[ron]

That must feel really comforting to hear about the end of your job sitting, watching a screen in Peoria or Chandler. Somehow it is hard to grasp the humanity of that opportunity...

[Geoff]

I think if you post, like I am here, it immediately appears. So if Greg doesn't happen to be online at the moment, he can't stop the post.

[Matt]

Hey, it's corporate journalism. Newspapers were never meant to sustain WS-type profit margins, but Gannett had to test that theory. Now the stock is in the tank (70 percent decrase in one year!). Good journalists will leave and the Republic won't replace them, and (again) it's the readers who suffer with even less coverage.

[sloan]

I assume its the same package as the buyouts offered last month at the Republic. One week of pay for every year of service. Three years of extra pension added to current pension, and three years of medical coverage. Not great, but better than being shown the door with zip! I dropped the newspaper last year when photography and the writing went down the crapper. Why spend my hard earned dollars on crap! I already have cable!

[Hawk]

If you stand by the original post, why remove/conceal it?

What's worse: not providing a forum for disagreement, or providing a forum where you pick and choose whose voice is heard, replacing their words with your own sanitized version? You pick and choose, as you deleted my comment and replaced it with your own version. How does that make you different than the editorial pages of any newspaper anywhere?

"I cover the newspaper industry because it doesn't cover itself." What arrogance, sir.

Watch your backs, people - because Greg is certainly watching you.

[Sam]

Here's to hoping Linda Valdez is part of Round 2 of the glue factory shipments!

[Kat]

Here's to hoping that Keira, Nicole, D'Anna, Tracy, Doz, Ebonic's Venita, and Tulumello will all be part of the Round 3 of the glue factory shipments! They destroyed the Republic why should they get to stay!

[Poobear]

Don't forget Michael Roberts.... He's an idiot!

[Bill]

Greg's post "Why the Glee" is still the best post ever by an Arizona blogger. If anyone hasn't read it, they should. Here it is:

http://coaching.typepad.com/espresso_pundit/2008/02/why-the-glee.html

[Matt S.]

Hey, "Flat is the new up"...

http://www.slate.com/id/2195470/

[muckraker]

A question that should be asked of Republic management is why only one week of pay for each year worked. Nearly every newspaper that has done layoffs in recent years has offered two weeks of pay per each year served. Even some Gannett newspapers. Just shows you what a scumball publisher Zidich is.

[SonoranSam]

I get why Greg's seems to enjoy the pain and suffering of the newspaper industry. As a former newspaper journalist I sure as hell ain't shedding many tears.

But it does bother me that the experienced veterans with the institutional wisdom are being driven off.

As I've heard it - and this is third-hand - two experienced editorial writers, two of the small number of people with whom I can swap Burton Barr stories, are on the buyout list.

The newspaper industry has always driven off the best and the brightest, leaving the hacks to climb the greasy pole to reach the front offices (in most cases).

With the collapse of their economic model, it's getting worse, and we're all paying the price. Bloggers like Greg do a good job of filling some of the void, but they don't have the resources or time to do the digging that journalists used to do.

I'm going to think sadly today of my friends who are still in the business. I'm glad my kid has no interest in journalism school.

[ron]

On line friend works for a small Canadian weekly. The paper offers a hard copy and an on-line copy. You pay for the on-line copy which is much more reasonably priced than the hard copy. I think this little paper is providing the future model of what the 'news' industry will look like.

[ron]

What happened to reasoned discourse? ' "Glue factory shipments"? I am embarrassed.

[ron]

I notice that there a number of US papers who are following the example of the Canadian weekly. The model is well on its way to implementation. I guess Gannett will have to figure out how they will do it - I just hope they find better website managers than the current ones who take care of azcentral.

[Brian D.]

I used to be disappointed that I didn't get a "real" job after journalism school. Now, I am glad that I did get a "real" job after journalism school.

[muckraker]

I don't think the payment for online content will work. Online users don't want to pay for anything. That ship has sailed. The trick is to have high traffic numbers, and then to convince advertisers to advertise there. Unfortunately for the greedy newspaper companies that are so beholden to Wall Street, online revenue will probably never match what they had become accustomed to. In the meantime, too many publishers still underestimate the value of strong content, so as they send experienced (read, expensive) reporters packing, they are onlymaking things worse as they have a product that isn't worth buying.

[ron]

muckraker,

I notice WJS sells an online edition - I wonder how that works for their bottomline.

ron

[Ty]

After being in newsrooms for the past decade, I am very interested in what this "downfall" of the newspaper industry really is all about. No doubt these recent buyouts are more related to the economics of the time, not the ability of The Republic editors and reporters.

But still, I think it is important to understand that this is not a downfall, but rather another evolutionary step in the industry. This happened when radio, television, and the Internet came on board (these buyouts are not because of the Internet, but rather a changing business model).

Greg is right that people like himself will fill a void, but I think that bloggers will evolve as well. I think you will see journalism students and former dead-tree reporters starting their own online publications. They'll be fast, efficient and focused on the expertise and passion that the writer or writers have.

Take Espresso Pundit. The focus and passion is Arizona politics (among others). Strip away the obvious (and acknowledged) bias, incorporate some Associated Press style, and what do you have?

The next step in the news industry. These will be the mammals of the world, while the dinosaurs like Gannett will try to find a way to incorporate them into its reporting.

The Information Center is an idea that is still evolving, but it really is the way of the future. Once The Republic realizes that local people can be reporters, they will start incorporating their reporting into Az Central -- and they won't have to pay them either!

[jdleslie1]

You have to wonder about the heart of person who uses "ship to the glue factory" and labels an African American manager with the nickname "Ebonics." Good thing it's anonymous, eh?

[Good thing]

I can only agree with the "Keira, Doze and D'Anna" portion of this statement. All three are useless. Especially Keira who has never edited a story in her life and has made a 20+ year career out of backstabbing, lies, whining and bragging, "I'm the newsroom's daughter!" No, you're the newsroom joke.

Here's to hoping that Keira, Nicole, D'Anna, Tracy, Doz, Ebonic's Venita, and Tulumello will all be part of the Round 3 of the glue factory shipments! They destroyed the Republic why should they get to stay!

[ron]

jd, makes you wonder what they do when they really are ticked off by someone?

[todd]

Greg is right that most of the much industry is going down the tubes but I believe the reasons are perhaps different from a lot of what I have seen discussed on this blog.

The Republic is not sinking because of some supposed liberal bias because the fact is that it is now, and always has been a conservative newspaper. It has also always been a terrible newspaper, and when I compare it to papers in any other big city I would say it ranks the lowest, which is not saying much. I think this last point is key because the ability to now compare different local papers so easily has put the poor quality of the Republic in stark relief, not to mention the US news industry as compared to the rest of the world (I don't think the NY Times stacks up very well against leading papers in other countries).

Just to be clear, I am not suggesting that it is a bad paper because it is conservative, there are some conservatives papers which do a good job. Also, there have been people of high quality who have worked there, but they seem to all wind up leaving.

The Republic is bad because it rarely does the type of valuable local reporting that can make a paper a must read for those who wish to stay informed. It does not do high quality investigations of powerful interests nor does it do a good (or almost any) job at covering state, county or local government. It often appears to be more concerned with painting a positive image of the Valley as opposed to actually ferreting out news.

Many of the other papers that are struggling are having problems for the very same reason. What has exacerbated the problem has been taking the wrong lesson from the statistics that show the majority of people get there news from local TV news. I think some in the newspaper industry have taken this as a cue to emulate the news free, sensationalist, "news you can use", local boosterism of TV local news. It is no wonder that the Republic has teamed up with Channel 12, probably the most inane of all local news, to bring us azcentral. They are clearly trying to capture a segment of the the same audience that local TV news does but this is a doomed strategy because the types of people who are attracted to local TV news for their main source of news are never going to be interested in reading a newspaper or stories on a local newspaper website. Those of us who care about about in depth coverage of topics certainly are not going to get it from the regurgitated AP stories the Republic prints. And since the local content is so thin and the editorial writing is just simply horrific there is zero attraction to even bother.

In the end I wonder if what will develop is a situations where the few big city newspapers which are not failing will move into a regional role as many of the bad local ones go under. Then they will subcontract the local reporting to freelance reporters and develop some type of hybrid online, email, printed format.