Denver Post to cut possibly two-thirds of copy editors

When I think of what this city used to be like for journalism and newspapers, it makes me want to cry.

MileHigh, were there ever any great articles or books written about the newspaper war in Denver and if so, can you link or recommend them?

I may have told this story before a while back, but I remember being at a Carls Jr. in Denver back on Memorial Day weekend in 2000. Picked up a copy of the Rocky out of the box for a quarter. Opened the box, grabbed for a paper and remember thinking "damn, this is thick".

It was thick -- close to 200 pages. And this was a SATURDAY. I miss those days.

 

The "daily magazine" approach is exactly what we're switching to this week.

The logic behind the move is sound -- I just have no faith in the ability of those in charge to pull it off.

 

Norm Clarke wrote a book about Denver getting the Rockies that has a lot of behind-the-scenes newspaper war stuff.

The John Elway nipple ring story may be the best prank ever executed on another writer.

 

Thanks, Mizzou. Might have to see if I can't find that.

 

The problem with this approach is that it already was tried by the big-city afternoon papers that died in the early to mid-1980s, and they did it for similar reasons. A good book on this topic was published in 1984, "Death in the Afternoon: America's Newspaper Giants Struggle for Survival." The ability to execute a daily mag was not the problem -- some of those dead newspapers did it quite well. The problem was that newspaper readers want to read news.

The first thing we always need to ask ourselves when we have a new idea is whether it really is new. If it isn't, then we have to ask ourselves why it failed when we tried it last time. Did it fail because we did a crappy job? Or was the concept bad and failed despite the efforts of talented people?

 

For what it's worth, I don't think the daily magazine approach will work, either. Not in the long run, anyway.

It might appeal to those who are classic "readers" -- people who enjoy the very act of reading, who like to take time to delve into longer pieces and digest the content, who prefer analysis over news of record -- for a while, but, let's face it, that audience is getting smaller and smaller. It might keep the print product alive for a while. And, I admit, it sounds a little like the death rattle of PM papers in the late 1980s-early '90s.

That said, I cannot imagine any other way to continue producing a print product -- which is still a necessary thing to do for now, because it's still the primary cash generator for most publishing companies -- with fewer people to get it out the door. The math doesn't work out any other way, really. Can a skeletal crew continue to produce a daily newspaper of approximately the same quality with entirely the same content? Of course not.

Something's gotta take the hit. It's the famous "tradeoff triangle" in action: time, scope and resources. Remove one from the equation (in this case, resources) and what's left?

I don't like the answer I keep coming back to. But it's the answer I keep coming back to.

 

Mile High

I believe newsroom staffing at the Post was around 200 at the time the Rocky closed. Any idea what it is now?

 

I don't think PM papers died because of the featurey/magazine approach. I think consumers just preferred getting the paper in the morning and distribution was easier.

I'm not sure anyone can produce a "daily magazine" anyway. Maybe a Sunday paper like that. We don't have the right content, either from the wire or from staff, to be a magazine every day. Plus, we (most of us) print on newsprint. That in itself affects design issues that deal with magazine style.

 

Didn't exactly say that. Did say that was a last-ditch approach that many PM papers took right before they went belly-up, in an effort to stay relevant and/or alive.

You'd be surprised by the resources you do have. You're writing centerpiece features. You're doing investigative pieces. You're writing columns. You're writing advances. You're picking up wire stories. A magazine approach uses the same material, minus the news of record stuff and news that happens after hours. Anything that happens "live" goes to the website ... which you're already doing.

Also didn't mean to imply that you'd be printing on anything other than newsprint. Of course, you might opt to use a tabloid format, but that's not really a radical redesign for most big papers (which probably already have at least a weekend tab), and it's certainly not essential.

The scenario I'm throwing out there is less a matter of formatting and more a matter of philosophy, based entirely on the Post's self-induced shortage of the resources necessary to edit, design and produce a daily traditional newspaper. Hung up on the word "magazine"? OK, let's call it a "daily weekly" instead.

 

How would you staff that? Seems like to make those stories good enough to be worth the trouble you'd have to give a staffer 2-3 days (minimum) on a story, longer for the elaborate stuff, and you'd have to have multiple stories per day per section. As just one small example, for an MLB team you'd essentially need two beat writers -- one for the "daily" and one for the news/gamers on the website.

 

As far as generating content? Same way you're staffing things now. Features, columns, advances, investigative reports, etc., go into print, probably with earlier deadlines, so that you can get as many copy-editing and page-designing eyes as possible.

Keep in mind, I'm not *advocating* this. I'm simply trying to think of a way you could possibly keep publishing a newspaper -- as the Post apparently intends to do -- with two-thirds fewer copy editors, page designers and others who get the paper out the door seven days a week. If those are the cards being dealt, what do you do with them?

Anyone got any better ideas? Throw 'em out there.