Do You Want To Be Like Jason?

Tom,

At my last stop we had one of those all-hands meetings about the need for restructuring and cost cutting because of lost revenue. A reporter sitting next to me had a printout of the corporation's numbers for the previous quarter, since it's a public company, and they reported a significant gain, which obviously refuted the publisher's claim. When he was asked just how much of a loss we had, he couldn't answer.

I also knew an advertising rep who had left a meeting a few days before where the ad director was applauding her efforts and that of her team for exceeding goal. Again, an example of the message suiting the cause.

We were being told in one breath how rough times were industry-wide and that we weren't immune to it so we needed to make changes and we couldn't afford to add any staff or compensate anyone, then in another breath, we were told how much revenue we made online and how our page views were growing. Everyone left that meeting feeling like we had just gotten off a wild carnival ride and our heads were spinning.

 

Sounds familiar. Paul Beeston earned himself a lot of press for this comment, back in the very early days of the Toronto Blue Jays (late 1970s):

"Anyone who quotes profits of a baseball club is missing the point. Under generally accepted accounting principles, I can turn a $4 million profit into a $2 million loss, and I can get every national accounting firm to agree with me."

 

Gee, has Beeston come out of retirement and taken over "Name Your Newspaper Here?"

 

One of the problems facing the industry today is that kids--and I count myself as a kid--generally don't want to pay dues.

Today, kids in college see f'n studs at ESPN or covering a major beat and think, "I can do that" or "I should be covering Team X."
And that's great. It's always good to have confidence in yourself and your abilities. But...

Kids today come out of school and once they realize that they're not getting the New York Times' Yankees beat, it's like they give up. Why should they lower themselves to cover high schools? There's no glory in writing about Johnny Jumpshot, Freddy Fullback and (hockey) Left-Wing Lenny. You ain't gonna make $75 grand a year and get on ESPN writing high schools.

Frankly, it's bullshit. So you're not getting your dream job at 23. So what. Earn your way up in the business. Don't think just because you wrote a halfway decent story for your college paper that makes you qualified to cover a pro team. The reporters on those beats are good. Damn good. Some might not be great writers, but they're connected motherfuckers. They know what's going on with their team. I'd rather read those guys than a 23-year-old idiot who is spouting off what he or she thinks they know after playing fantasy sports and listening to talk radio.

In full disclosure, I was one of those idiots. When I was in college, I put myself on a ridiculous timetable. By 27, I was going to be the Jets beat writer for a NYC tab. By 35, I was going to be a major columnist. I was an idiot. If my SE had given me the Jets beat at 27, I would have fallen on my face; I would have failed miserably. Is it because I can't write? No, I think I can write a decent story. It's because I didn't know what went into covering a team day-by-day. It's a cliche, but it's such a fucking grind to be a beat writer.

The money or lack thereof plays a huge role in why kids run away from the industry. This ain't the business to get into if you want to make a ton of money. Budgets are tight and getting tighter. Unless you're a seasoned writer coming out of college, you're not making much coin. After a year or two of scraping by, kids say, "It's not worth it. I don't want to go to Des Moines to get started; I want to make real money here."

 

Those of us in the communications business need to communicate better in order to do better.

 

Absolutely. That is an industry wide problem and it needs to be solved soon.

 

andy - while the roi is still much larger in newspapers than many other businesses, the bottom line is we're losing advertising and circulation. ABC doesn't lie.

 

Tom,

I'm not disputing that some papers have indeed lost advertising and circulation, but not all. However, it has become a convenient excuse for every publisher to use when deciding to cut staff and deny compensation while at the same time spend irresponsibly elsewhere. The quote/crutch they are leaning on is "Look at the rest of the industry. It's a trend and we're just the latest to experience it."

Again, the real bottom line, especially for the publicly traded chains, is their shareholders want to see Wal-Mart-type profits. A 15-20 percent profit margin isn't enough anymore, and that's ridiculous. As has been discussed on here many times, you can't treat the newspaper business like a typical retail operation or something similar. It's a completely different animal and a public service vehicle, which means there are different ways to determine success and profitability. ROI is just one of them, and again, that's still very good for newspapers.

 

andy - you are preaching to the choir about roi and this business. but, you have to admit, circulation and advertising numbers are falling and that is the norm. papers that are growing both, are the small minority.

 

Tom,

Point taken as far as circulation. But again, advertising revenue gains and losses many times are determined by the budget/goals set forth by the people in charge, and if they set the bar too high, or didn't consider market factors like the struggling real estate market, then of course they are going to show losses.

 

if i had the balls to post about my place and its roi, you'd cry. sickenly high, sickenly, and they're still sqeezing.

 

Yep. That seems to be the trend. I keep wrestling with the question of whether or not calling these people on the carpet will force them to come clean and reevaluate what they are doing in terms of job cuts or will only exacerbate the problem. :