Not What I'd Call a Good Week
By Brian Lambert
Let me recap, just so we're all clear.
On Monday, WCCO radio and its two sister stations show fourteen employees the door.
Monday was also the day anyone who wanted a buyout from KARE, formerly the Twin Cities' money-printing colossus, had to have raised their hand or wait for layoffs.
On Tuesday, the Star Tribune tells its employees they need to "save" their investment wizards $20 million, most likely by working for less and paying more for health insurance.
On Wednesday, the Star Tribune refines its message and announces it'll be laying off another two dozen newsroom employees.
On Thursday, KSTP-TV--the house of "breaking news"--leaks word that it is whacking eighteen out of its news department.
Oh, but wait . . . I missed the biggest event of all. Back on Wednesday night, uber car dealer/advertiser Denny Hecker piled his "SUV type vehicle" into a telephone pole and ended up in the hospital.
With trailers of what looks like a god-awful remake of The Day the Earth Stood Still running on TV, I couldn't help but think we were in the early moments of some kind of attack, with electro-magnetic chaos rays bombarding our once simple, passive homeland.
Frankly, I don't know if I have the energy left this week for yet another run through the Valley of Misery that is writing about the health of established media in 2008. But I have to drop in a couple points for consideration.
Like, for instance . . . while Barack Obama and John McCain may not have spent fortunes with Twin Cities TV stations during the campaign, Al Franken and Norm Coleman, Michele Bachmann and El Tinklenberg sure as hell did. Truckloads of it. (Maybe Hecker gave them a deal on the trucks.) And despite this windfall--(And never listen to any of these stations whine about that "lowest rate" BS. If a candidate wants on primetime or the 10 o'clock news, they pay premium prices.)--all these cash cow "news leaders" are dumping staff less than a month later.
WCCO-TV is waiting for the "getting costs in line with revenue" shoe to drop any minute, and FOX 9 slashed staff and expenses so long ago, it qualifies as the market trendsetter.
Anyone watching this mayhem has, of course, followed the blogs out of Gannett, Inc.'s empire. Particularly the stuff cackling over Gannett's unabashed references to its TV stations and newspapers as "profit centers," which they mostly certainly were, and I suspect still are, by any real-world standard.
So, at this point, do I spiral off into another stem-winder about what happens when you treat journalism like truck manufacturing? (And believe me, GM execs would still be flying their G5s if they had profits like Gannett.) Assuming that this week's carnage will be repeated several more times over the life of this recession, I'll pass on that screed for today.
Instead, I'll re-float a notion that keeps gaining currency in my mind: namely, that as we witness the devolution of every mainstream "news" organization in town (I feel obligated to put quotes around "news" when referring to TV stations because reporting has never been more than a fraction of their business mission.), the one entity best positioned to both survive and prosper in the wake of the collapse of all of its rivals is . . . MPR.
The world of news is clearly moving toward some sort of subscription-based, copywright-protected model, serving a small but demanding client base. MPR has had this model nailed down for decades. Moreover, where everyone else has diluted their integrity by cheapening their product to appeal to occasional and unlikely readers (and viewers most interested in stabbings, weather, and the Vikings), MPR has grasped the Internet-age fact that the smart (subscription-paying) crowd wants depth of analysis at least as fast as it wants "breaking news" reports on car crashes.
Think of it. MPR could pick up dozens of bona fide newspaper and TV pros for fifty cents on the dollar tomorrow if it wanted. (Twenty-five cents on the dollar a year from now.) With the full convergence of the web and TV no more than a year or two away, Bill Kling's empire could have a fully functioning television operation up in about a week--if it wanted--and, I dare say, deliver far more credible news than the "Smiley Face Killers" kind of crap commercial TV has been peddling to goose its "profit centers."
Moreover, MPR, though regularly whoring for corporate dollars, doesn't need a cozy relationship with Denny Hecker to stay in business.
On Monday, WCCO radio and its two sister stations show fourteen employees the door.
Monday was also the day anyone who wanted a buyout from KARE, formerly the Twin Cities' money-printing colossus, had to have raised their hand or wait for layoffs.
On Tuesday, the Star Tribune tells its employees they need to "save" their investment wizards $20 million, most likely by working for less and paying more for health insurance.
On Wednesday, the Star Tribune refines its message and announces it'll be laying off another two dozen newsroom employees.
On Thursday, KSTP-TV--the house of "breaking news"--leaks word that it is whacking eighteen out of its news department.
Oh, but wait . . . I missed the biggest event of all. Back on Wednesday night, uber car dealer/advertiser Denny Hecker piled his "SUV type vehicle" into a telephone pole and ended up in the hospital.
With trailers of what looks like a god-awful remake of The Day the Earth Stood Still running on TV, I couldn't help but think we were in the early moments of some kind of attack, with electro-magnetic chaos rays bombarding our once simple, passive homeland.
Frankly, I don't know if I have the energy left this week for yet another run through the Valley of Misery that is writing about the health of established media in 2008. But I have to drop in a couple points for consideration.
Like, for instance . . . while Barack Obama and John McCain may not have spent fortunes with Twin Cities TV stations during the campaign, Al Franken and Norm Coleman, Michele Bachmann and El Tinklenberg sure as hell did. Truckloads of it. (Maybe Hecker gave them a deal on the trucks.) And despite this windfall--(And never listen to any of these stations whine about that "lowest rate" BS. If a candidate wants on primetime or the 10 o'clock news, they pay premium prices.)--all these cash cow "news leaders" are dumping staff less than a month later.
WCCO-TV is waiting for the "getting costs in line with revenue" shoe to drop any minute, and FOX 9 slashed staff and expenses so long ago, it qualifies as the market trendsetter.
Anyone watching this mayhem has, of course, followed the blogs out of Gannett, Inc.'s empire. Particularly the stuff cackling over Gannett's unabashed references to its TV stations and newspapers as "profit centers," which they mostly certainly were, and I suspect still are, by any real-world standard.
So, at this point, do I spiral off into another stem-winder about what happens when you treat journalism like truck manufacturing? (And believe me, GM execs would still be flying their G5s if they had profits like Gannett.) Assuming that this week's carnage will be repeated several more times over the life of this recession, I'll pass on that screed for today.
Instead, I'll re-float a notion that keeps gaining currency in my mind: namely, that as we witness the devolution of every mainstream "news" organization in town (I feel obligated to put quotes around "news" when referring to TV stations because reporting has never been more than a fraction of their business mission.), the one entity best positioned to both survive and prosper in the wake of the collapse of all of its rivals is . . . MPR.
The world of news is clearly moving toward some sort of subscription-based, copywright-protected model, serving a small but demanding client base. MPR has had this model nailed down for decades. Moreover, where everyone else has diluted their integrity by cheapening their product to appeal to occasional and unlikely readers (and viewers most interested in stabbings, weather, and the Vikings), MPR has grasped the Internet-age fact that the smart (subscription-paying) crowd wants depth of analysis at least as fast as it wants "breaking news" reports on car crashes.
Think of it. MPR could pick up dozens of bona fide newspaper and TV pros for fifty cents on the dollar tomorrow if it wanted. (Twenty-five cents on the dollar a year from now.) With the full convergence of the web and TV no more than a year or two away, Bill Kling's empire could have a fully functioning television operation up in about a week--if it wanted--and, I dare say, deliver far more credible news than the "Smiley Face Killers" kind of crap commercial TV has been peddling to goose its "profit centers."
Moreover, MPR, though regularly whoring for corporate dollars, doesn't need a cozy relationship with Denny Hecker to stay in business.
© 2008 MSP Communications, Inc. All rights reserved
MPR as the Minnesota's journalism Platform of the Future?
Hmm. Well, there's no doubt that Bill Kling has done a masterful job of steering his ship. Ruthlessly at times. And for the head of a so-called nonprofit organization, he's done pretty well for himself, too, according to news reports.
But do we want to put all of our journalistic eggs in his basket? I think not. If for no other reason than that we need multiple voices, not just one.
The truth is, KNOW 91.1 is pretty heavy on the cheap talk/interview format, no matter how skilled those presenters are. When you look at how much original reporting they do, it's a pittance compared to the Strib or PP, or even the local TV news operations.
So...Kling has a successful platform for what they do. And, he's certainly run rings around the newspaper honchos in envisioning the media future.
But does he know how to run a robust news operation? Does he even want to? He's never done it. And I'm not sure even if he attempted it that he would be more committed to comprehensive, robust news coverage than a good TV news operation.
We don't need MPR with 20 more reporters. We need a major daily newspaper-level reporting operation who learns Bill's tricks of marketing. The guy who comes to mind is Joel Kramer.
And, I still think a Sunday newspaper is a viable, profitable thing. That's something MPR has no clue about.
LAMBERT: This isn't necessarily what I WANT, it's just what I see as the likely outcome if current patterns prevail. I admire Kramer's effort, but the 501 (c)3 thing is hobbled by prohibitions against partisan opinion, even if provided from both sides simultaneously. That sort of thing is a vital part of modern news, like it or not. Kling doesn't play that a lot better, (e.g. their fondness for collegial questioning of
candidates and public officials), but they do devote hours of time to point-counterpoint, and -- more importantly -- the depth and eclecticism of coverage of other issues (much via NATIONAL Public Radio) makes for a stew that is much more satisfying than what Kramer is -- currently -- able to provide. Point being, MPR is closer to the nut of demand than anyone else.
Posted by: Paul Gustafson on December 5, 2008 at 10:08 AM
I should have been more clear.
I'm not talking about Kramer's MinnPost. I'm talking about Kramer as head of a group that buys the local daily papers and creates a limited, print non-profit newspaper operation that has a paid-subscription daily website.
LAMBERT: OK. But other than the infrastructure for (limited) paper distribution (with obvious advertising potential) what do Kramer and his investors get for the $50-$60 million (at minimum) they'd pay for the Strib brand? I mean, in comparison to what they're building now?
Posted by: Paul Gustafson on December 5, 2008 at 10:45 AM
BL - but the 501 (c)3 thing is hobbled by prohibitions against partisan opinion…
They’re not that hobbled. I imagine you’ve been following the goings on at the local Minnesota Sorospendant.
Truth be told, there shouldn’t be any ‘hobbling’ of non-profs (churches included), just as there should be no fairness doctrine. Further, there should be no non-profs, as far as tax treatment. What is required is a low corporate rate. But I’m getting far a field…
LAMBERT: Riiiiiiight. Let's give the .01% investor class a break. After all they're clearly the most competent to lead us out of this mess. I've got a better idea. What if we simply tax every church that wants to play political partisan? There are laws against it, you know. Equal treatment for all. If the uber lefties at St. Joan of Arc want to preach progressive from the pulpit, they pay taxes like any other business. Ditto of course to every James Dobson, Jimmy Swaggart and Ted Haggard mega-church in the country. I mean, it's a business, right?
Posted by: 108 on December 5, 2008 at 11:30 AM
Your most recent blog entry brought to mind what I remember of the "Deborah Norville incident" back in the early 90's. After she was asked to leave the Today Show, I think she bounced around a little bit and eventually ended up on Inside Edition. Many people, including myself, were shocked that a "true" reporter from a "real" news channel would denigrate herself by taking such a position on what was/is fluff. She was asked about this very thing back then and said something to the effect "what do you mean, what's the difference between what NBC news is doing and what we are doing on Inside Edition?"
At the time the comment was made I thought it was ridiculous, but when you look at the comparison today (and I think she is still on that show) there really is very little difference between the Five O'clock news (pick any channel) and Inside Edition.
LAMBERT: Friday night both NBC's "Dateline" and ABC's "20/20" had their "investigative units" in high gear. Each was doing a story on a (different) attractive young woman killed by some lone psychopath. Cynics are free to assess the "entertainment" quotient vs. broad cultural relevancy involved there. Meanwhile, Saturday night -- a lost night for programming -- CNN's Christiane Amanpour has a documentary, "Scream Bloody Murder", up recounting the hows of genocide in places like Bosnia and Rwanda. When the "serious news" types devote 60-90 minutes in precious primetime putting a fine point on how thugs like Milosevic and the radio-inspired Hutus slaughtered hundreds of thousands, I'll have higher regard for them.
Posted by: Chris on December 5, 2008 at 12:44 PM
MPR is doing a good job serving a serious audience, Brian, but I'm surprised that you didn't mention MinnPost.com's success with that kind of audience until Paul brought it into the mix in his comment. We had 180,000 unique monthly visitors in October, up more than 75% in six months, and we have attracted more than 1,100 paying members in just over one year of publishing.
And we're no more "hobbled" by the 501c3 status than MPR, which has the same status. In fact, 501c3 forbids partisan activity but not ideological discussion -- witness all the conservative and liberal think tanks that have that status.
It gives me no pleasure that so many more journalists will soon be looking for work, but if more Minnesotans step up to support what we do, we would be able to hire some of them.
LAMBERT: I admire MinnPost for its diligence and serious-minded approach to breadth and accuracy. There isn't enough of that in today's media. And I wish it only more success. (I have quite a few friends who are going to need pay checks from somewhere very soon.) But my point is that MPR's membership structure is far -- far -- more established than Minn Post's as the pillars of commercial journalism are either imploding completely or are being reduced to Potemkin villages of ... breadth and depth. Moreover, MPR, thanks to Kling's problematic revenue-generating strategies, already is self-sustaining AND comes with an broadcast system without rival in this area. I'll cheer you on, Joel, if you can pluck the cream of the Strib's staff away -- at salaries that allow them to treat their work like full-time jobs -- but I think even you know that they are going to have to adapt to regular -- not occasional - electronic journalism ASAP. That world has significant costs attached, and Kling already has the resources to make it happen. But as as I say, good luck.
Posted by: Joel Kramer on December 5, 2008 at 4:02 PM
We'd better do something pretty quick. Obama seems serious about a national discussion on matters like health care, but to discuss fruitfully, people need to know something, and that's not going to happen with the current main stream media. TV is pretty much hopeless, except for PBS; commercial radio doesn't even try.
Take health care as an example of what surveys show people believe is important and which is in fact important. A month or so ago nations were rated on infant mortality: Singapore was first at 2.3 deaths per 1,000; the U.S.A was 37th at 6.37. In February an on-going study of mortality amenable to treatment, i.e. the rate at which your health system is likely to kill you either through unavailability or incompetence, and the U.S. finished 17th. The last time WHO ranked national health care systems in 2000, the U.S. finished 37th while France and Italy were numbers 1 and 2. Health expenditures as a percentage of GDP, the Marshall Islands were first, the U.S. second, the next six were like the Marshall Islands tiny third world nations with no GDP to speak of, and Switzerland was ninth and France tenth. In 2003 the U.S. spent $5,711 per capita on health care; Canada spent $2,998 while France, the nation with the best health care system, spent $3,048.
All this is information relevant to thinking about how to deal with our health care system, but how much of it turned up in the news? The networks had time to do a story on an alleged fidelity gene in the vole, but, so far as I know, none bothered to mention the fact that 36 nations in the world do a far better job keeping infants alive than we do. Nor, for that matter, did the right-to-lifers, who will picket and parade to protect a blastocyst from being used for research rather than being flushed down a toilet, seem to much care. If our Olympic teams had finished 37th, there would have been endless yakking on the media. The only thing worth a damn done on t.v. about health care was a Frontline piece last April.
Strengthening NPR and PBS would help. Another model I find quite hopeful is the blog tpm, but one of the things it is is a news aggregator, sort of like a specialized AP, not run by a conservative asshole. However, for a news aggregator to work, there has to be news to aggregate, and that means in the U.S. decent local newspapers. There are going to be decent papers in Europe, Australia, Israel and other places in the world, but we need good fine grained reporting from America's cities. How that's going to happen is not clear as metropolitan dailies seek to become daily versions of weekly shoppers.
LAMBERT: I'm with you 100% on the health care question. Drive that per capita number down to France-like levels and see how bad off the U.s. auto manufacturers are then -- or my friend Charlie's toner cartridge business. But the papers are essentially shoppers. They have been for a long time. They just look tackier now because the stuff surrounding the ads is either stale or "de-flavorized" to avoid irritating some advertiser's perceived customer base.
But ask yourself, do we really need PAPERS? I think of people like Brad DeLong, the U of Cal. economist whose blog I read every day. Aren't we really searching for expertise? Does expertise have to come via reporters working for some over-extended corporation? Well-sourced journalists will find ample opportunity to deliver their message -- based on the same conversations they've always had with experts they trust -- and may, I hope, find a way to deliver that "news" as independent contractors. The vision again, is that, if you go to where the money is, you develop a pennies-per-hit royalties system that requires the Googles and Yahoos of the world to compensate those originating the content off which they are currently making billions.
Posted by: john sherman on December 6, 2008 at 4:53 PM
Does Anselmo get his big break this week now that Mischke was let go? Or, would his hiring at 'CCO cause too many pearls to be clutched?
LAMBERT: Tommy is a unique talent -- with emphasis on the word, "talent". As in ... he's got something very few people have. Personally, I always thought of him as a Night Owl, a voice in the midnight ether. But Night Owls get night owl wages and moving into daylight was an opportunity for Tommy to make some money for a change. Again, I'm not sure that programming -- talk programming in particular -- is Anselmo's finest skill. What the rise of KFAN proves to me is that Anselmo will leave his programmers alone as long as they make defensible numbers, and will not resist the unorthodox out of some misplaced reverence for tradition. But that means he has to have creative programmers ...
Posted by: AndyMN on December 7, 2008 at 12:24 PM
What has always confused me about the demise of the newspaper is why they continue to give the content away for free and refuse to develop a solid business model for other ways to deliver their content.
The Strib threw their content on the web and gave it away. That content has been linked all over the internet at no charge. In theory, advertisers will pay for web advertising, but that model doesn't reap the rewards that print did.
In the meantime, folks like me are using Blackberry devices, the Kindle, and other things to replace printed material. The Wall Street Journal is playing in all of those delivery mechanisms and has a better change of survival -- I'm happy to pay them for their content (but not the same price as the printed paper).
I don't see the MPR or MinnPost 501(c)3 model as ever reaching the masses - they will have their niches, but not the reach the traditional newspapers had.
Sadly if someone cannot find a model that works, there will not be decent paying jobs for journalists and we'll lose a critical part of how we get information. Bloggers are fine, but trained and professional journalists are key for our checks and balances.
LAMBERT: One little-discussed aspect of the waning of big local media is that public figures have less to lose by ignoring an on-line "paper" or blogger. There's a riskier downside to seeing, "Gov. Putz declined to comment for this story" in the Strib than on The Minnesota Independent. The upside (for news consumers) is that bloggers can persist in drawing attention to an official's willful dodging of questions longer than mainstream editors -- with their publishers taking back channel calls -- might be comfortable with.
Posted by: Dave on December 7, 2008 at 1:10 PM
I'm a Strib retiree after 37 years. Back in the mid-90s the Star Tribune did try to sell content via a couple new avenues of publication in print and online. For about a year, from fall 1994 to late summer 1995, the paper experimented with rotating weekly tabloids on several themes: Home & Garden, World & Nation, Minnesota Life and Books & Games. I was the editor in charge of Books & Games, which featured expanded coverage of books, authors and related events and of board and electronic games, plus puzzles for readers to work and a column by (blush) me. The goal was to see if readers would add one or more supplemental sections to their newspaper subscriptions, a la premium cable TV channels. We were an artistic but not a commercial success. Focus groups said they loved the sections, but no thanks on additional charges for content. The Strib pulled the plug after 10 months; Home & Garden, the only section with sufficient traditional advertising support, survived. At about the same time, the newspaper started its website. Under the leadership of founding editor Steve Yelvington, a gifted journalist as well as a very savvy computer nerd, Startribune.com was a high-quality site from the beginning but struggled at the start because it wasn't free. Subscribers had to use proprietary software, as I recall, as well as paying a subscription fee. But the Internet already was a no-charge environment, and pretty soon the Strib had to join the rest of the world in giving away its content and try to support itself online through advertising. (Get well soon, Denny Hecker!)
LAMBERT: I hope I'm not pretending to have easy answers here. But obviously the printing costs of those extra sections was a major reason why the Strib pulled the plug after 10 short months. What, I wonder, would the web-only version of that cost? 30%? Or, to borrow another commenter's model, each of those packaged into the Thursday or Sunday print extravaganza? Even then though, each of those categories has a dozen top notch bloggers -- in their pajamas -- gleefully offering consumer tips and answering questions. Point being you've got be something special, editorially, to break through. Which is not to say that you weren't. (Denny has been released.)
Posted by: Dick Parker on December 8, 2008 at 12:45 AM
The smiley face killers are behind all of this!
LAMBERT: More likely this than the kids who drowned.
Posted by: tmoney on December 8, 2008 at 10:28 AM
Re: Hecker's mishap
Top of the line Range Rover....a nice tidbit that the paper missed.
Another example of the "journalism" offered.
LAMBERT: I can hear a by-the-books copy editor saying, "What's the relevance of the kind of car he was driving?"
Posted by: bertram jr on December 8, 2008 at 11:02 AM
Not what I'd call a good weekend. The Tribune Co., which means not just the Chicago paper, but also the LA Times, is in trouble along with the Miami Herald and NY Times; even the wretched Rocky Mountain News is on the block. Except for the WAPO and the WSJ (news, not editorial) every paper worth a damn in the country is suddenly in deep financial trouble. That's an awful lot of journalistic talent suddenly in peril. I have no idea what is to be done.
Something I've been curious about, in the Manchester Union Leader (which should have been called the Union Baiter), Joseph Loeb created the farthest right paper in the U.S., at least one not published by an outfit like the American Nazi Party. Yet, when Loeb died, he left the paper to his employees; who would have thought he was a closet syndicalist? So, how's the Union Leader doing? Maybe that's the answer, get the Zels of the world out of publishing and turn the papers over to the staff.
Another alternative would be for the t.v. and cable news networks to fire everybody making more than a $1 million a year both managerial and on air talent, and use the money saved to hire almost at random news people from the papers. It would save a ton of money, get a lot of empty headed dopes off the air and provide employment for people who actually know something.
LAMBERT: You have to hope that the Zell/Avista quick flip business model is destroyed so thoroughly no one tries it again. Zell put up, what? $500 million of an $8 billion purchase? How long before we appoint a "news czar" to oversee the restructuring of American reporting?
Posted by: john sherman on December 8, 2008 at 7:44 PM
How shall I say this? I'm not as cruel as my unfeeling words here might seem. I can claim my own history with shrinking job markets and unseeing management / unfeeling corporations, but also from experience I know this is small to no consolation.
Your journalistic friends will need to follow your example...or change jobs. They should assemble not just their resume, but their column business proposal and present it to Kling's MPR and Kramer's MinnPost. They should start their own blog like Eric Black did or hop onto someone else's like you and David Brauer did.
Or, like millions of other people who work for the job, they will have to find any employment they can and write for mere hobby or sport.
Either way--if they are skilled, they might cut a blog following as rich as Tanta--
http://calculatedrisk.blogspot.com/2008/11/sad-news-tanta-passes-away.html
Money will come to the web someday, it must; and it will be enough for more websites to pay more people, but the quality of news and information will still be comprised of people like Tanta, Black, Brauer, and you...regardless of where the paychecks come from.
It is in these times that true character is given room to rise. I wish them well in whatever their futures hold.
LAMBERT: At some point you have to enjoy doing it enough that you slog on even after the storm blows through. For the most part the writers at MinnPost aren't making a living wage, but they contribute because ... it is what they know and do. (Brauer of course is making a fortune.*)
* joke.
Posted by: The Other Mike on December 8, 2008 at 11:25 PM
I hear Brauer is selling wall-size prints, t-shirts and key fobs of his MinnPost caricature.
A signed version of the print is on eBay for $3.49.
LAMBERT: Its the photoshopped poster of Nancy Barnes and him locked in unholy bliss that has the bidders in a tizzy.
Posted by: bertram jr on December 9, 2008 at 12:05 PM
From what I saw, Zell had $315 million, of which 200 was a promissory note, skin in the game. How he managed to turn the stock the employees owned into his own piggy bank is beyond me.
God forbid we regulate this kind of stuff as it might hurt the economy, even cause businesses to go bankrupt.
LAMBERT: To go full financial neanderthal here, why allow any form of derivatives? No dollar-for-dollar collateral, no loan. Maybe we'd actually produced stuff instead of kiting 40-to-1 debt back and forth.
Posted by: john sherman on December 9, 2008 at 2:22 PM
Over the last eight years there have been institutions that acted like banks yet were not regulated like banks and outfits that acted like insurance companies though without any underwriting standards. These, of course, are the businesses that jumped into the toilet and then flushed it.
I have a simple idea: anything that acts like a bank is a bank and therefore should be regulated like one; anything that acts like an insurance company is an insurance company is one and should be regulated like one.
LAMBERT: Are you suggesting the Justice Departrment and the SEC actually enforce laws on the books? Are you mad?
Posted by: john sherman on December 9, 2008 at 8:12 PM