Tag Archives: Hearst Corp.

local news, media news

Perilous times get even more so for newspapers

You’ve known for a time about the state of print journalism around the United States and the world. It’s in peril, man.

The news this week about a mega-merger between two gigantic newspaper chains (they prefer to refer to themselves as “groups,” by the way) tells a grim tale about the state of print journalism.

Gatehouse Media has purchased Gannett Corp. They are merging into a the largest print media company in the country, owning roughly 250 daily newspapers from coast to coast. That’s about one-fifth of all the daily newspapers still functioning in the United States of America.

Gatehouse already has purchased the newspaper where I worked at my last stop, the Amarillo Globe-News way up yonder in the Texas Panhandle. Gatehouse also purchased the rest of Morris Communications’ newspapers as well, including the Lubbock Avalanche-Journal. The result of that purchase seems to bode poorly for West Texas readers of both papers, as they appear to be morphing into a sort of regional publication.

If I understand this correctly, the combined media conglomerate will retain the Gannett name, even though the Gatehouse hierarchy will run it. That means the Globe-News and other Gatehouse properties will be known as Gannett papers … I suppose.

Just as in a democratic society, more voters at election time usually bodes well for the state of representative government. With more people casting ballots means elected officials can govern with a stronger mandate. The more the merrier in journalism, too.

There once was a time in this country when the landscape was populated by mom/pop newspaper shops, independent voices that were tied directly to the communities they served. The family-owned organizations were the heart and soul of journalism.

Sure, we had the titans of print journalism industry. The Hearst Corporation (for whom I also worked) was one of them; the New York Times had a group of newspapers, as did the Washington Post, Tribune Media, McClatchy, Cox, Knight-Ridder and Newhouse.

I always put my strongest faith in the community-based newspapers. They told the truth, even when the newspapers’ owners had to attend church, PTA meetings and athletic events with the same folks they might anger with their newspaper coverage. They stood their ground, for the most part, and reported the news truthfully, fairly and without outward bias.

Those organizations are vanishing before our eyes. They are being replaced by even bigger newspaper chains, such as Gannett and Gatehouse. Sure, the big chains purport to be dedicated to their communities … but are they really?

Gatehouse has decimated the staffs at both the Globe-News and the Avalanche-Journal. I understand the same thing has happened in other communities. They are centralizing many of their newsroom functions, such as copy editing and page design.

Does all of that serve each community well? Are they getting the TLC they believe they deserve? Nope!

The new day keeps dawning all over again in print media. The Gatehouse-Gannett merger is likely to take a once-proud industry down yet another road toward an uncertain destination.

I wish my former colleagues well.

media news

More pain gets inflicted in the media

Oh, the hits just keep coming.

The San Antonio Express-News — the newspaper of record for Texas’s second-largest city — has announced another round of layoffs. It doesn’t stop. The reductions are costing communities the services of valuable craftsmen and women with decades of experience reporting on the issues of the day.

When will it end? Ever? Well, it has to end, likely when the last reporter checks out for the final time. Will he or she please be sure to turn out the lights?

The Internet is the culprit. The villain. The bogeyman.

It has spawned a whole new array of “news and information” outlets. Cable news has joined the fray. Righties have their own view of the “truth,” as do the lefties. They hunker down and consume only the “information” that comports with their world view.

It sickens and saddens me at the same time.

I once was a victim of the changing climate. I was told during a company “reorganization” that I no longer would do what I had done at the Amarillo Globe-News for nearly 18 years. I wrote editorials and columns for the paper. The publisher at the time decided to reshuffle the deck. After interviewing for my own job, I got the news: We’ve offered it to someone else and he has accepted.

I quit on the spot.

Not long after I left the G-N in the summer of 2012, I scored an interview with the Express-News. The editorial page editor flew me to San Antonio, where I spent the day talking to him, the paper’s publisher and the EPE’s editorial page staff members.

The fellow with whom I interviewed made quite a point of telling me how the Hearst Corp. was reinvesting in the Express-News, restoring positions that had been cut. Times were good in the Alamo City, he said.

I didn’t get the gig. The paper was “going in another direction,” the e-mail message told me.

It’s all good now.

I want to re-share with you a quick story. I was at my post at the Amarillo newspaper. A gentleman called about a letter he had submitted. I chose not to publish it. Why? It was full of falsehoods.

His response was classic. “I know it’s true,” he said. I asked, “How do you know that?” He said, “Because I saw it on the Internet.”

I laughed out loud into the phone.

It’s a brand new, and damn scary, world out there.

local news, media news, national news, political news, State news

Political conventions: raucousness with serious purpose

tumblr_m9876t6jRi1qeoxw2o1_1280

I won’t be attending either of this year’s political conventions.

Part of me wishes I could because — having been to three of them over the years — I’ve discovered how much fun they are for those who attend them and for those who report and comment on them.

This year’s Republican convention in Cleveland could be especially fun especially for the reporters lucky enough to get the assignment to cover it.

My first political convention was in 1988, when Republicans gathered in New Orleans.  I was part of the media team representing the Hearst Corp., which owned the Beaumont Enterprise, where I worked for nearly 11 years.

Any convention in The Big Easy was a serious blast, given that it’s, well, New Orleans.

Four years later, the Republicans gathered in Houston, about 85 miles in the other direction from Beaumont. That one produced its own share of memories. Chief among them was watching former President Reagan deliver his last major political speech in which he poked fun at the Democrats for nominating a young Arkansas governor who compared himself to Thomas Jefferson. “Well, I knew Thomas Jefferson,” the president said. “Thomas Jefferson was a friend of mine …” He brought down the house.

Four years ago, I had secured press credentials for the 2012 Democratic National Convention in Charlotte. I didn’t have the support of the Amarillo Globe-News or its parent company, Morris Communication. I applied for the credentials on my own and then received them. Then my world was turned upside-down when I got “reorganized” out of my job at the paper just as the convention was about to begin the following week.

I went to Charlotte anyway — with my wife; we enjoyed ourselves immensely. I attended the convention as a spectator and got to cheer as President Obama and Vice President Biden received their party’s nominations for re-election.

One of the major takeaways from all three events, though, is a visual one.

In New Orleans, Houston and Charlotte, I was struck by the sight of serious-minded men and women parading through the convention hall wearing goofy hats, festooned with campaign buttons, loud clothes, carrying signs — all while they shout slogans from the convention floor.

I had to remind myself of this fact: These people from all across the nation are gathered in one place to nominate a candidate for president of the United States of America. They are choosing the individual who will represent their political party in an election to determine who will be commander in chief of the world’s foremost military establishment; they will pick the head of state and government of the world’s greatest nation.

I’m telling you that when you are among these folks, it’s easy to forget the seriousness of the task they are seeking to complete.

This year — in Cleveland and in Philadelphia — it’ll be no different.

Except that in Cleveland, where Republicans are going to gather, the serious nature of their mission might be compromised by the individual who is poised to accept his party’s nomination as president.