Moody’s Investors Service has joined the Greek chorus of financial watchdogs predicting more bad news for the newspaper industry. Analysts expect newspaper advertising revenue to drop 7% to 9% in 2008 and maybe slightly less in 2009, but only if the economy recovers next year. If it doesn’t, look out.

Most troubling is the decline in cash flow, defined as earnings before interest, taxes, depreciation and amortization (EBITDA). Over the past 10 years, EBITDA has fallen from 28% to 19% as a percentage of revenue, Moody’s said. Cost cuts aren’t keeping up with revenue declines, which is eroding EBITDA by more than 10% a year. That erosion comes at a terrible time because so many publishers are heavily leveraged with debt. Less cash means less money to pay creditors. Moody’s thinks deeper cuts will be needed in editorial operations, but “It will prove challenging to continually reduce editorial costs without impairing the core news product or employee morale.”

As if to accent the Moody’s forecast, E.W. Scripps Co. said newspaper revenues will fall 8% to 10% in the second half of 2008. The company is in the process of splitting itself in two.

Optimists See Growth, But Much of it is Free

The head of the World Association of Newspapers says reports of the industry’s demise are greatly exaggerated. Speaking to the World Editors Forum meeting in Göteborg, Sweden, CEO Timothy Balding cites statistics showing growth in Asia and South America that is outstripping declines in the US and Europe. Overall newspaper circulation is up over 3% internationally. A lot of that growth is coming from the expanding free-daily industry, however. Free papers now make up 23% of circulation in the EU and 8% in the US.

Wired magazine editor Chris Anderson comments on this trend, noting that it is another indication that information is becoming free. While any growth is good, the loss of paid subscribers presents big challenges to the economics of the newspaper industry, which are predicated on circulation lists.

Free isn’t necessarily good business in the US, though. The CEO of Metro International SA tells Bloomberg that it’s examining its options in the North American and European markets while looking to expand into 30 new markets. The world’s leading publisher of free dailies has struggled to reach profitability, although its market penetration has grown rapidly. Per Mikael Jensen says emerging economies look to have more promise at the moment.

---

A study conducted by advocacy group Newspaper Works shows that Australian readers hold newspapers in high esteem. The survey of 1,010 people found that 90% of readers do nothing else when reading a newspaper as compared to the half who busy themselves with other things while the TV is on. Most perceive newspapers as “absorbing, dynamic and reputable,” and the online extensions only add to that credibility. (Via Editors Weblog).

---

Finally, the editor-in-chief of the Los Angeles Times tells Media Bistro that print isn’t going away in his lifetime. That said, Russ Stanton is honest about the challenges, noting that the substantial infrastructure cost of print is a liability. “Someone, somewhere is going to grow the revenue from online enough that it can support a newsroom of our size and talent. And when that happens, that’s when you can start, if you so choose, to pull the plug on the paper,” he says. He adds that citizen journalism is pretty intriguing.

Turnover Continues At the Top

Rupert Murdoch continues to put his own team into place at The Wall Street Journal. Deputy Managing Editor Bill Grueskin is the latest to go, leaving the paper for a post in the ivy-covered halls of academia. Grueskin’s departure comes just two months after Managing Editor Marcus Brauchli was unceremoniously shown the door.

Los Angeles Times Editorial Pages Editor James Newton will leave the paper to finish writing a book about Dwight Eisenhower. He had been in the job only 14 months. Newton’s memo to staffers made it clear that he wasn’t motivated by some pressing inner urge to tell the Eisenhower story. “[T]he paper still has challenges ahead. The publisher and I have discussed those difficulties, and he is entitled to an editorial page editor who shares his vision on how best to confront them,” he wrote. LA Observed has Newton’s farewell memo, as well as the obligatory bouquets of gratitude from Publisher David Hiller.

Thoughts on the New Journalism

Jeff Jarvis eloquently expresses an important point about the future of journalism in this essay on the ethics and culture of linking. The link is the currency of the blogosphere, of course, and the emerging culture of journalism is embedding links into news reporting process. In the old days, Jarvis notes, reporters would rather repeat all the legwork done by a competitor than acknowledge being beaten on a story. This led to tremendous duplication of effort. In the new model, though, journalists are learning to link to useful information and build upon it, creating a new and richer style of journalism.

Jarvis cites the experiment being conducted by a group of Ohio papers that are sharing stories between each other rather than processing them through the Associated Press. This means less rewriting, faster delivery and more genuine content. Says Jarvis: “[T]hey’re doing what they do best and linking to the rest and they are linking to original journalism: the new architecture at work.”

Meanwhile, the CEO of acquisitive MediaNews Group urges newspaper executives to “discard our arrogance.” Speaking to the World Newspaper Congress in Sweden William Dean Singleton says, “We’re going to have to quit writing and editing for each other and write and edit for that consumer out there.” He says half the chain’s profits will come from online sources by 2012. Singleton continues recent criticism by industry CEOs of the way newspaper journalism is done. News Corp. CEO Rupert Murdoch recently said The Wall Street Journal has too much management overhead and Tribune Co. CEO Sam Zell has also insulted his editors.

Layoff Log

 

• The Portland Press-Herald and MaineToday.com will cut up to 35 positions on top of the 27 jobs that were eliminated in March.
• Newsday has reportedly laid off 32 employees — half in operations management and half from Star Community Publishing. This follows a 120-person reduction in March. Publisher Timothy Knight said the move would “reduce management layers in operations, clarify roles and responsibilities, and speed decision-making.” The paper is awaiting transfer of ownership from Tribune Co. to Cablevision Systems Corp.

And Finally…

Simon Owns interviews journalist and Editor & Publisher columnist Steve Outing about a new venture he’s working on called Reinventing Classifieds. It’s a blog in which prominent publishing professionals contribute their insights on classified advertising and how the newspaper industry can recapture that business. At first glance, the content looks a little like Newspaper Death Watch – lots of bad news. But there hasn’t been much good news to report in the classified industry of late. There’s lots of up-to-date news and even a piece by design guru Roger Black. The site is tied to a project led by Future of News developer Christopher Ryan that’s attempting to build a distribute ad placement platform that newspapers could use to get a leg up on Craigslist.

The 15th World Editors Forum is going on in Göteborg, Sweden, and Editors Weblog is providing exhaustive coverage. A lot of the talk has been about the new, integrated newsroom and the reinvention of journalism. Here are some highlights.

• Two researchers discuss a study analyzing the five stages of news production and how journalism organizations are involving readers in each. Not surprisingly, most news outlets still don’t ask readers for much input until after the story is published, although a few are experimenting with early intervention. News editors still see their gatekeeper role as vital, the researchers say.
• Sweden’s Östersund Posten has launched a hyperlocal experiment involving 101 unpaid bloggers to write about community issues. Traffic is up 60% and so is advertiser interest, although no financial figures are cited.
• The CEO of Denmark’s Det Berlingske Officin, and editor-in-chief of Berlingske Tidende says journalists must give up their gatekeeper role and adapt to a new style of reporting that stresses reader participation and links. “The reader has broken the old circle of power,” says Lisbeth Knudsen.
• The managing editor of The Wall Street Journal’s wsj.com tells how an integrated approach to news reporting has helped double online traffic in the last year. Almar Latour says journalists are now encouraged to incorporate video, photos and informational graphics into their work. It hasn’t been easy to convince writers to put down the pen and pick up the camera, though. One tactic that’s helped has been the Most Popular List, a constantly updated report on the stories that are getting the most traffic. The list has generated healthy competition between reporters.
• The assistant managing editor of the UK’s Daily Telegraph tells how one-week training programs intended to help the newsroom adapt to multimedia have improved camaraderie and morale
• The editor-in-chief of Germany’s Tide sings the praises of citizen journalism as a cost-effective way to develop content, but warns that citizen “reporters” need to be trained that quality is as raw content. The paper has trained almost 200 ordinary folks, who now contribute an hour-and-a-half of video a day to the site, says Werner Eggert.
• The editor-in-chief of the national Danish newspaper Kristeligt Dagblad tells how adding weekend editions and offering defecting readers the chance to switch to a smaller weekend-only package has doubled circulation. Erik Bjerager says the new editions are less newsy and more focused on Christian values.
• The Innovations International Media Consulting Group presents its annual survey and calls upon newspapers to be more innovative. It singles out several papers for praise, including The Spokesman Review of Spokane, WA, which has invited anyone in the community to attend its daily news meeting.
• The managing editor of India’s Mint business newspaper tells how his publication survived in a highly competitive market by making journalistic ethics a differentiator.
• The founder and editor-in-chief of Rue89.com tells of journalism without print and says that life is good. The French website combines professional journalism with blogger and reader input to create rich content at low cost. Many of the best stories have come from reader comments, says Pierre Haski.
• Svetlana Khoroshev, whose role at Russian business newspaper Delovoy Peterburg isn’t identified, says the print publication has managed to connect with the famously print-averse youth audience by incorporating content from a popular MySpace-like community and spreading word-of-mouth through entrepreneurs.
• The head of development at Norway’s VG Multimedia tells how the popular vg.no news website for adults was able to extend its appeal to the youth audience by launching a social network. Jo Christian Oterhals says Nettby.no now has 61% of the teen market, although the model hasn’t necessarily transplanted well to other countries.

The biggest reason the newspaper industry is going off a cliff these days is that the rules of its business have changed. For the last 200 years, the value of newspapers has been based upon information scarcity. Ordinary citizens couldn’t easily learn about what was going on in the world around them, so they needed newspapers to fill that gap. Information is now cheap and plentiful, a fact that severely undermines the value proposition of many media.

The quicker media executives accept this new reality, the quicker they can put their organizations on the path to a better future. This is what was going through our mind as we read a couple of blog posts this morning.

---

Mark Hamilton writes about the futility of challenging Google. He cites a $70 million suit by Belgium’s media agency, Copiepresse, against Google for linking to its content (this is apparently illegal in Belgium and Google had to stop the practice there). Matthew Ingram’s commentary on the affair compares Copiepresse to “someone who is determined to saw through the tree branch that they happen to be sitting on.”

Hamilton also points to last week’s decidedly tongue-in-cheek anti-Google tirade in BusinessWeek and concludes, simply, “The debate is rather pointless, given that Google isn’t going away. Nor, given its heft, is it likely to radically change the way it does business.” Sound advice.

Just as King Canute famously failed to hold back the tide, the anti-Google agitators are engaging in a futile rant against the inevitable. The legality of deep linking was established more than a decade ago, at least in the US, and link culture has become far more embedded since then. The Internet is a public utility and anything that anyone publishes on it is public information. While copyright protection still applies (though less and less successfully), secrecy laws don’t. You post it, it’s public and others can link to it. End of story. If you don’t like that, then don’t post it or figure out a way to make a living in the context of this new reality.

---

Jeff Jarvis is gleeful over the Justice Department’s antitrust settlement with the National Association of Realtors that forces realtors to open the Multiple Listing Service to discount competitors. This means that realty databases like Zillow will have the chance to compete on a level playing field.

“The only reason…that Realtors could hold onto their high commission for such little value and work is that they kept information away from the marketplace, making it inefficient,” he writes. He quotes Umair Haque: “Competitive advantage is fundamentally about making markets work less efficiently.”

A dozen commenters pile on Jarvis in defense of the realty industry, but they miss the point of his tirade. The villains are not realtors but an industry that withholds information as a source of competitive advantage. Once low-cost competitors have access to the same information as the people earning 6% commissions, the market becomes more efficient and more competitive. The high-margin brokers can still maintain their premium prices, but they have to come up with a new way to justify the expense.

The Internet levels the information playing field. Trying to legislate who can and can’t see public records is wasteful and ultimately futile. If you’re going to play the game, then be ready for the consequences and be innovative about changing the rules. Some media executives have already figured that out, and they will prosper.

Hoax Dramatizes Media’s Value

Alan Mutter scolds the perpetrators of a recent online hoax about a 13-year-old boy who stole his dad’s credit card and used it to hire hookers to play video games with him. The stunt was apparently an exercise in linkbaiting, with the goal being to drive the story’s Google ranking as high as possible.

While it’s regrettable that the story spread as widely as it did – even landing in some legitimate new sources – it’s also an example of the value that branded media can bring to the Internet. “The steady pollution of the web with phony and malicious info-junk could turn an awesome resource for humanity into little more than useless, time-wasting digital flotsam,” Mutter writes. But we think that irresponsible behavior is a necessary byproduct of openness. The media have an important role in setting the story straight, and examples like these only highlight the value of trusted sources.

Misinformed Views of Media Bias

Writing in American Journalism Review, Paul Farhi makes a persuasive case that the public’s distrust of the media isn’t justified. Among his assertions:

• “Media” is too broad a term. Asking people to evaluate the trustworthiness of media is like asking them to rate the honesty of politicians.
• A lot of visible people make it their business to trash media credibility, regardless of the facts. These people have a strong influence on popular opinion.
• People don’t understand news reporting and so interpret reports they don’t like as evidence of bias.
• Most people don’t consume enough news to make an informed judgment.
• If you look at the facts, the reality is that most media is pretty fair.
• What’s perceived as bias is often just intense focus on an issue that’s important to the public.

Nevertheless, Farhi concludes, people will believe what they want to believe. The trend in media is toward more opinion and less objectivity. That’s unlikely to change. (via Romenesko)

The New York Times has added an automated news feed to its technology page called Technology Headlines From Around the Web. Saul Hansell writes with no small amount of pride about how this robo-feed actually includes content that the Times doesn’t control. Thus the Times moves confidently, even arrogantly, into the 21^st century.

---

McClatchy’s April revenue fell 14.6%. That’s revenue, not profit. The newspaper chain’s exposure to the weak Florida and California markets has hit it harder than most publishers. Revenue from its California newspapers was off 22.8%. Real estate and recruitment advertising sales were both off more than 35%.

---

The Sumter, S.C. Item will stop publishing on Monday. More newspapers are likely to follow this model as business continues to decline. Monday is the least profitable day of the week for most newspapers, while Sunday is the cash cow, of course.

---

Strange bedfellows: The Record of Hackensack, N.J., and the Herald News of West Paterson, N.J. will combine their copy desks and photo departments. The consolidation of six separate operations into two is expected to save $800,000 annually and cut staff by 23%. The papers are longtime rivals, but with different audiences. They say this is the least disruptive cost-saving idea they could come up with.

---

European thirtysomethings like news sites, says Jupiter Research. Its survey finds that 42% of online Europeans regularly visit online news sites, which is nearly three times the number who hang out in social networks. Keep in mind that Jupiter is the research firm that predicted that 35% of large companies would have blogs by the end of 2006. Two years later, that number is hovering around 12%.

---

The Associated Press is refining a new model for reporting breaking news it calls “1-2-3 filing.” Editors Weblog describes the process in an interview with AP Executive Editor Kathleen Carroll. Step one is a 50-character headline. Step two is 130-word summary and step three is something more that she didn’t specify. It sounds a lot like the way the AP has worked for a century. “”It doesn’t sound radical when you say it out loud, but it is if you inject it into your daily news decisions,” Carroll says. We’ll have to take her word for that.

---

YouTube has launched a citizen journalism channel called Citizen News. It’ll aggregate videos from self-described video journalists. The vid service has hired a person with the title of News Manager, and she asks the community for ideas and suggestions in this post on the YouTube blog. David Chartier at Ars Technica is skeptical. He notes that credibility has been hard to come by in fledgling citizen efforts like CNN’s iReport. YouTube’s choice of a young person in her 20s to head the effort does raise questions about its commitment. While Olivia no doubt reflects YouTube’s core demographic profile, she doesn’t exactly exude journalism experience. (via Romenesko)

---

Here’s a good podcast on the future of news. The topic is “Navigating Media Upheaval” and the panelists are an assortment of long-time journalists who are now navigating change with new companies. Best line is from former Wall Street Journal Publisher Gordon Crovitz. Asked what mainstream news organizations need to do to remain relevant in the new world, he suggests, “The role of the media is to mediate.” He then goes into the possible mediation opportunities between different groups, including advertisers. Bottom line: newspapers’ opportunities are to tap into very specific geographically defined groups, but most aren’t doing a very good job. Other panelists are Neil Chase, VP of author services at Federated Media, Ken Doctor, affiliate analyst at Outsell; and Jeanette Gibson, editor-in-chief of News@Cisco. The session is ably moderated by Sam Whitmore of Sam Whitmore’s Media Survey.

---

And finally, more morbid but priceless humor from The Onion.

Your obedient editor is on cloud nine this morning, having been on hand in Fenway Park last night to witness a no-hitter by Red Sox lefty Jon Lester. It took 39 years of attendance at hundreds of games in New York, Boston and several other cities in North America, but the thrill was worth the wait. The achievement is particularly notable because 18 months ago Lester was undergoing chemotherapy. His remarkable recovery is a fairy tale of spirit and endurance and this couldn’t happen to a nicer guy.

But on to the future of journalism.

Few journalists are better qualified to speak about that topic than Joshua Micah Marshall, founder of TalkingPointsMemo and recent winner of a prestigious George Polk Award for investigative journalism.

In a speech to a recent conference on the future of the Web, Marshall mourned the atmosphere of fear and denial that pervades mainstream media newsrooms and said journalists must prepare themselves to do their jobs very differently. He’s optimistic, though. Professional journalists have become too dependent on professional insiders who manufacture sound bites and offer convenient but predictable analysis. In contrast, the new journalism involves the community directly in the reporting, bringing journalists into close contact with their readers. TalkingPointsMemo actively invited readers into its award-winning work on the Alberto Gonzalez scandal and continues to solicit reader investigation and input for such tasks as building, “a better virtual list of politicians’ stances than anything tabulated by the traditional media or the White House.”

---

Reading the perspective from overseas, it’s becoming clear that the UK is leading the US in understanding, adapting to and delivering upon the promise of a new kind of journalism. While many American newspaper editors wallow in self-pity, British editors are welcoming readers into the fold, rethinking the role of the investigative journalist and envisioning a brighter future. Editors Weblog interviews Emily Bell, editor-in-chief of guardian.co.uk. She sees bloggers as valuable overseers of journalist practice and believes that journalists must engage more actively with their readers. “The closer you are, the more authentic you are, and the more knowledgeable you can be, then the more purchase you have with the community that will come to you, tell you things and point to your work in certain areas. I think if you don’t have that, in the future as a journalist, you probably don’t have much of a future.”Bell believes newspapers will exist for the foreseeable future but may not be around in 15 years. She accepts this matter-of-factly. She’s optimistic about journalism’s future, even though she sees the profession entering an uneasy period where resources that were once available for investigative projects will be cut while a new model of reporting is still taking shape.Unfortunately, the guardian.co.uk still has to wrestle with the same business challenges as all other newspapers. Press Gazette cites recent comments by the Guardian’s head of editorial development that the site would need “’many millions’” more visitors to sustain the level of investment in journalism it currently makes.”

---

Sean Dodson of The Guardian looks at community publishing and the risks of newspapers lending their brands to extremist bloggers. He cites the example of The Telegraph’s MyTelegraph portal, which plays host to many thoughtful blogs, but “is also inhabited by some very unsavoury characters, including a minority of active members of the far right, anti-abortionists, europhobes and members of an anti-feminist ‘men’s movement’. ” Dodson goes on to compare the community-policing model employed by The Telegraph to the gatekeeper role of papers like the Daily Mail, which pre-approves blog entries before posting. In contrast, The Telegraph lets readers flag unsavory material for editors to review manually. It’s clear that all newspapers (at least in the UK) are moving to open up their brands to reader commentary, but there are still no clear standards for policing these new communities (via Editors Weblog).

CEOs Not Suffering as Badly as Shareholders

Alan Mutter looks at CEO pay, which is always a favorite whipping post for disgruntled shareholders. Not surprisingly, a few sinners stand out. Most notable is Robert E. Jelenic, the former CEO of Journal Register Co. (JRC), whose compensation grew 333.2% to $6.3 million despite the company’s near-bankrupt condition this year in the wake of his leadership. Mutter notes that Jelenic’s golden parachute last year amounted to more than half the market value of JRC itself.

Other CEOs who got raises while their companies stumbled include Robert Dercherd of Belo and Mary E. Junck of Lee Enterprises. On the whole, Mutter says, CEO compensation declined 11.7% while shareholders collectively lost more than 35% of their investments in newspaper stocks in 2007.

Business Shorts

• Looking to gain efficiencies from last month’s giant merger of Thomson Corp. and Reuters Group PLC, the newly combined Thomson Reuters will cut 1,500 jobs, or about three percent of its workforce, an unnamed source told the AP. The source estimated that 140 journalist jobs could go. Like any good news company, Thomson has no plans to announce or comment upon the cutbacks, leaving it to speculation and rumor to discern its actions.
• Gannett reported operating revenue down 7.7% in April on a 10.4% drop in advertising revenue . Classified advertising was off 20% compared to last year.
• April revenue at The New York Times Co. slid 2.2%, although circulation revenue was up 3.3%. Classified advertising was cited as the main culprit.
• Minneapolis Star Tribune Editor Nancy Barnes has been told she will have to cut $2.5 million, or about 10%, from the annual newsroom budget, a Newspaper Guild local official told Editor & Publisher. The paper has recently been reported to be on the brink of bankruptcy, an allegation that management disputes.

And finally…

Mark Hamilton alerts us to this gem of a cover image from The Onion.

The devastating earthquake in China this week was the latest in a string of incidents that cast the spotlight on the Twitter microblogging service and its value to news organizations. Jeff Jarvis has called Twitter “an important evolutionary step in the rise of blogging,” but it’s really more than that. Twitter redefines the time value of news and is a critical tool in the development of citizen journalism. Individuals with cell phones can now be the eyes and ears of the world if they happen to be on the spot for a news event. Editors Weblog outlines the value of Twitter’s simplicity and open interface, which encourages people to experiment with new applications.

Writing on Global Voices, Mong Palatino notes that Twitter became a primary source of information about the recent cyclone disaster in Myanmar. We noted earlier a UK paper’s use Twitter to beat the BBC in local election coverage.

News organizations should see Twitter as an opportunity. Which paper will be the first to create a hyperlocal portal around a network of Twitter feeds provided by readers? If the mission of newspapers is to report the news quickly, shouldn’t they be outfitting reporters with Twitter accounts and streaming those feeds on their websites? Why haven’t any U.S. newspapers embraced this valuable tool yet?

CBS’s Daring CNET Play

Is CBS’s purchase of CNET a stroke of genius or a desperate play for relevance in the digital age? It does appear that CBS is serious about the Internet. In addition to laying off 160 employees recently, the network reportedly initiated talks with CNN about outsourcing some of its reporting work. Collectively, this could indicate that CBS is giving up the ghost on TV news and turning it attention to being an important player online. Alan Mutter questions the high price CBS paid for an online network that no one else appeared to want, but sees strategic value to CBS. The company certainly deserves credit for making some bold recent moves to reshuffle its cost structure and focus on the future instead of chasing a dying TV news model into the ground.

Hyperlocal Innovation Emerges Offshore

If the future of newspapers is hyperlocal, as many people think, then organizations outside the U.S. may lead the charge. Editors Weblog reports on lessons from a Finnish newspaper that is evolving an activist model that taps into issues that matter to the community. The editor-in-chief says the secret is to focus on soft stories that strike an emotional chord in readers and to pay attention to community issues that matter, such as the cleanup of a local park.

The Liverpool Daily Post is opening up its newsroom to observation and comment from its readers. People can see how decisions are made and contribute their ideas and comments to the process. What a concept. Newspapers demand transparency from the organizations they cover, yet the decision-making process in most newsrooms is as opaque as smoked glass.

Editor & Publisher reports on experiments in Latin America in which citizens do most or all of the reporting. The concept of citizen involvement is central to the Latin American newsgathering process, says Mark Fitzgerald. Many of the standard rules of journalism are suspended. “Irreverence is valued.”

Bloomberg Expands Editorial Footprint

Can a maker of computer terminals become an online media giant? We may be about to find out. Bloomberg LP has hired the former top editor of Time Inc. and The Wall Street Journal, to the new position of chief content officer. Bloomberg makes most of its money selling data terminals used by stockbrokers and other financial professionals, but there have been rumblings that the company, which was founded by New York City Mayor Michael Bloomberg, wants to burnish its newsgathering capabilities.

Pearlstine has spent the last year and a half in the private equity world, but it sounds like news is in his blood. Bloomberg has been growing its footprint in that area. It now has 2,300 employees , nearly double its 2001 size, and it has been growing its financial news service, television and radio operations. With Michael Bloomberg’s term in office set to end next year, there’s been considerable speculation about what would happen when he returns to business. It looks like we’re about to find out.

And Finally…

• Newspapers may soon face another threat, according to Alan Mutter: the huge ecological burden of print publishing. “A prototypical publisher selling 250,000 newspapers on each of the 365 days of the year adds nearly 28,000 tons of carbon dioxide to the atmosphere,” the Newsosaur says. “That’s roughly equivalent to the CO2 spewed by almost 3,700 Ford Explorers being driven 10,000 miles apiece per year.”
• Journal Register Co., which is on life support pending payment of a $625 million debt this summer, has been offered a $25 million cash infusion from a current investor, who is demanding “a number of concessions” in return. Those concessions weren’t specified.
• Two Washington Post icons are accepting the newspaper’s buyout offer: David Broder and Tony Kornheiser. Broder will continue as a contract columnist. Kornheiser’s future with the Post is less certain.
• McClatchy Co. Chairman, President, and CEO Gary Pruitt said the company is open to selling the 49.5% share of the Seattle Times Co. it acquired as part of the purchase of Knight Ridder Inc. in 2006.

Nick Denton says the New York Times should abandon the news-opinion divide and let its reporters and editors insert commentary into their stories. They already do it by quoting sources sympathetic to their point of view, so why not stop pretending and inject a little color into a paper whose impartiality has become a liability? The arrival of blogs at the Times has effectively undermined any pretense of objectivity already and management’s efforts to clarify the wall between opinion and news look increasingly flimsy.

Denton is echoing points that Eric Alterman made a bit less pugnaciously in his New Yorker piece of two months ago. Newspapers started as vehicles for publishers to express their opinions. The concept of an impartial press is a recent phenomenon. Readers are smart enough to make up their own minds about what to believe. What’s wrong with opinion?

Jeff Jarvis agrees with Denton, noting that Times blogs have given him the opportunity to get the perspective of reporters whose work he’s read for years. These people know a lot about the subjects they cover. Why bottle up that perspective behind an artificial veil of neutrality.

Business Blues

Rupert Murdoch took an early victory lap, declaring that he’ll be the chosen owner of Newsday by next week, despite the existence of a richer bid from Cablevision and the likelihood that Mortimer Zuckerman will raise his offer. Murdoch pledged to continue Newsday’s commitment to strong local coverage and underlined his confidence by announcing a surprise doubling of the price of the New York Post to 50 cents. The E&P account also refers to Murdoch’s plans to build a single printing facility to publish Newsday, the Post and The Wall Street Journal. Zuckerman’s Daily News will have its hands full competing with those economies of scale.

---

With the newspaper industry suffering from the flu, Sun Times Media Group (STMG) has lapsed into pneumonia. The publisher reported a $35.8 million loss in the first quarter, compared to a loss of $4.8 million a year ago. Advertising revenue fell 12.6%, which is considerably more than declines at most papers. We wrote earlier about speculation that the Chicago Sun-Times may be the next big metro daily to fold, in part because of factors that transcend the industry’s crisis. STMG said it’s on track to cut expenses by $50 million by June 30 and is exploring strategic alternatives.

---

Tribune Co. posted an 8% drop in revenue, but the results were helped by growth in the broadcast sector. Newspaper revenue was off 11%. More worrisome is that cash flow shrank to $200 million from $239 million a year ago. That’s not good for a company that has a big debt payment looming at the end of the year.

And Finally…

• The Newark Star Ledger and hyperlocal website Baristanet.com are teaming up to launch a print product, a guide to Montclair, N.J. The magazine goes out to 70,000 readers next week. This is one example of how print/online partnerships can be win-win propositions.
• The San Diego Union-Tribune fired three top people who directed the company’s online products, but apparently didn’t do it very well. San Diego Weekly Reader says the trio positioned the online unit internally as competitive with the print news team, which didn’t do wonders for morale. There was also a disastrous radio venture.
• When all else fails, pray. That’s the mission of PrayingForPapers.com, a site that “is just asking that anyone who cares about their fellow journalists devote part of their prayer time to ‘Pray for Papers.’” The site’s tag line is an excerpt from Exodus that betrays the enormity of the industry’s task. (Via E&P)

LAmag.com rounds up a group of former LA Times editors for one-on-ones about the past and future of the newspaper. The conversation is pleasant until you hit the jump page, when former EICs Dean Baquet and James O’Shea unload on owner Sam Zell.

Quoting from Baquet:

“Tribune was not a good steward, but Zell seems to be worse. Tribune didn’t like the L.A. Times, but Zell seems to be flailing and making it up as he goes along. At least with Tribune, you could have a rational fight—they never shouted obscenities at me. I wish somebody could tell this guy that he’s presiding over important newspapers and that sounding like a knucklehead won’t work in the newspaper business. Doesn’t he understand that the best people at the Times are floating résumés across the country because of his bullying?”

And from O’Shea:

“I think Mr. Zell looks at newspapers as he looks at any business, but a newspaper isn’t any other business. It’s a public service. If you do a good job serving the public, then business will be good. Public service is not a dividend you decrease or increase when profits fall or grow. What the L.A. Times becomes will depend on Mr. Zell’s understanding of that.”

Survey says Newspaper Websites Attract Smart, Rich People

A Nielsen survey commissioned by the Newspaper Association of America reports that newspaper websites attracted more than 66.4 million unique visitors in the first quarter, up 12.3% from last year. Page views were up a more modest five percent. In addition, the survey found that regular online newspaper readers are richer, better educated, more likely to travel and more likely to use iTunes. They have all kinds of other desirable characteristics, which you can read about in the press release.

Murdoch Still Favored to Win Newsday

Newsday continues to provide the best coverage of its own impending sale. You’d think that with Cablevision outbidding two other suitors by $70 million, the deal would be a no-brainer.  Not so, says this report. For one thing, Sam Zell may be reluctant to snub his new buddy, Rupert Murdoch. Cablevision may also face the same kind of cross-ownership regulatory hurdles as News Corp. And the whole deal needs to be rubber-stamped by a watchdog group of Tribune Co. employees, who may or may not agree with their boss. The whole thing could drag on for months. (via Romenesko)

Envisioning the Future of News

Susan Edgerley, assistant managing editor of The New York Times, is answering questions from readers. She’s focused on reinventing the newsroom. Some notable quotes:

“Two years ago, we might have been hesitant to break a scoop on the Web — we would have worried about the competition catching up to us before our print deadline. No more. Now we put the story out there and figure out how to advance it for the next day’s paper.”

 ”The Web staff used to be in a different building a couple of blocks from our old Times Square office. When we moved into our new building about a year ago, we had the space to sit together for the first time.”

 ”I don’t think you’re wasting your time getting a print journalism degree. Telling stories fairly and compellingly will always be at the center of what we do.”

 ”We’re hiring people, some of them straight out of school, for their Web skills.”

 ”Finally, NYTimes.com is more than the stories, pictures and graphics you see everyday in The New York Times. It is more than a newspaper on the Web. We want to use its blogs and reader comments and Topics pages and interactivity to talk more directly to our readers and find ways for them to share information with us.”

---

ReinventingClassifieds.com has a prescription for resuscitating the dying business. Newspapers should put all their classifieds into one distributed, constantly updated database and then distribute them freely to bloggers, who can sell display ads against them. Bloggers can offer free classifieds to their readers, which become part of the master database. It’s an interesting idea, although we question how much interest bloggers – or display advertisers – will have in running ads next to ads. (via Romenesko)

---

For the true TV news junkie, check out LiveNewsCameras.com. The site aggregates video feeds from more than 100 stations around the U.S. The project is the brainchild of a former Bay Area TV producer, says the San Francisco Peninsula Press Club.

---

Editors Weblog reports on Sunlight Foundation’s new tools for online journalists. They include a Google Maps mash-up of earmarks from last year’s Labor, Health and Human Services appropriations bill.

There’s also an item on the innovative uses of Twitter by the Evening Leader in the UK. The group text-messaging service recently enabled the paper to cover local election results, scooping its competition and setting up the print edition for more thoughtful next-day coverage. Will Twitter become an essential tool for journalists in the future? Let’s hear your comments.

Layoff Log

• The Lexington Herald-Leader is offering a voluntary buyout program, looking to reduce its staff of 385 employees by about four percent. Layoffs are possible if the offer doesn’t generate enough interest.
• The Camera of Boulder, Colo. laid off nine employees — 6 percent of its staff — in response to declining advertising revenues. The president of the company described the newspaper’s business as “healthy.” You figure it out.

Earnings Drumbeat Continues, but With Fewer Surprises

Gannett’s quarterly earnings continued the pattern established by the New York Times Co. and Media General last week, but at least they weren’t surprising. Earnings were down 9% on an 8% drop in revenue. The industry-wide slump in classified ad revenue pulled down the numbers, with real estate and recruitment ad sales both down more than 24%. Gannett continues to benefit from having USA Today, which saw actual growth in the entertainment, financial and advocacy (whatever that is) categories. However, total ad pages at the national newspaper were still off 14%.

There was nothing from Lee Enterprises or JH Belo to lift investors’ spirits. Lee hit a 52-week low after reporting a quarterly loss while Belo’s new pure-play newspaper company said its results would disappoint. Both got slammed on Wall Street. However, investors rewarded NYT Co. and Media General for making progress in their shareholder battles.

---

Tacoda founder Dave Morgan writes in Media Post that a lot of big media companies are going to collapse, victims of declining revenues and high fixed costs. We agree, and we said as much nearly two years ago. Morgan sees opportunity in decline. The collapse of many metro newspapers will create a vacuum for distribution channels that can deliver sponsorship messages to local communities. He speculates on those opportunities.

---

The Associated Press is doing its part to throw them a lifeline, however. It’s cutting its fees in response to protests from newspapers. The move will save members about $14 million in total, or more than double the savings of the original AP proposal. Attendees at the recent American Society of Newspaper Editors convention were reportedly still grousing about the charges, though.

Would Founding Fathers Have Defended Behavioral Targeting?

The Newspaper Association of America has weighed in on the Federal Trade Commission’s debate about privacy standards over behavioral targeting, taking the unusual stance that this is a First Amendment issue. According to the group, publishers should not be infringer in any way from delivering ads, even if that means collecting information about people’s onliine activities that could potentially reveal their identities. Apparently the NAA feels that since the Constitution doesn’t guarantee a right to privacy but does guarantee a right to free speech, behavioral tracking is legally protected.

The Changing Ad World

Louis Hau writes in Forbes about the increasing chuminess between editors and ad sales people. This is a new fact of life, he suggests. Newspaper ad sales people haven’t historically been oriented toward developing new lines of business, so they need all the help they can get. Editors need to cooperate on business opportunities in order to keep their jobs. This new reality challenges the traditional church-state separation of mainstream journalism, but we’d better get used to it because this is the way media is evolving.

Ohio Papers Try Sharing

A group of Ohio newspapers has gotten together to share stories and even reporting assignments in a novel response to the cost-cutting pressure that all newspapers are feeling. The Cleveland Plain Dealer, Columbus Dispatch, Toledo Blade, Cincinnati Enquirer and Akron Beacon Journal now post all their daily stories on a private website where editors can pick whatever they want and publish it in their own pages. The idea goes against reporters’ natural competitive spirit, but it’s probably delivering better news to the readers. The outlets are even teaming on some joint reporting projects. So instead of having five different papers covering the same state house story, they’re actually spreading around their resources and minimizing duplication of effort.

Debating Old vs. New Media

The New York Times’s Sunday blockbuster story about the Pentagon’s secret media manipulation campaign is generating some understandable chest-thumping by newspaper editors. Crosscut Seattle comments that a story like that took shoe leather, not laptops, and praises its local journals for being willing to go to court to get access to secret documents. No blogger is going to go that extra step, says editor Chuck Taylor.

---

CBS has launched a citizen journalism website where people can upload news by cell phone, Editors Weblog reports. What will be really cool is when news organizations don’t relegate citizen journalism to an online ghetto and actually start integrating readers’ comments with staff reports on their main sites. This short article points to a couple of examples of that.

---

Glenn Frankel, Hearst Professional in Residence at Stanford University and former Washington Post reporter, writes Romenesko a tongue-in-cheek commentary on Slate columnist Jack Shafer’s recent counter-intuitive sermon in praise of buyouts. Frankel comments on a recent visit to the SJ Merc: “The spaciousness and the blessed silence reminded me of the peace and tranquility I found in abandoned villages in Kurdistan in 1991 after the Iraqi army had passed through during its own special buy-out program.”

Meet Ben Popken. Attention, newspaper executives: this guy is going to mess you up.

Ben is 26 years old and sits atop the editorial pyramid at the blog Consumerist.com. In conventional media terms, that pyramid isn’t very big – only seven people – but Consumerist’s reach far outweighs its small staff. The site gets 15 million unique visitors per month. Maybe more importantly, it’s closely watched by mainstream media outlets, which frequently pick up on its best stuff and broadcast it to a global audience.