Today’s Lunchtime “Observations on the News” are literally an observation on the news.
Growing up, I used to love the television drama “Lou Grant“. Starring Ed Asner, it told the story of the fictional Los Angeles Tribune, its trials and tribulations, and the interactions between the crusty editor-in-chief and the patrician publisher.1 In real life, Los Angeles has always had paper wars and paper dynasties. For the longest time, the war was between the Chandler-owned Los Angeles Times and the Hearst-owned Los Angeles Herald-Examiner. The Herald-Examiner died many years ago (although I still have a copy of the final issue). The current wars are between the Los Angeles Times, the Orange County Register, and the Los Angeles Daily News.
Those of you who follow business know that the Times is no longer family-owned, but is now part of the Tribune conglomerate (publishers of the Chicago Tribune, as well as owners of the Tribune TV stations, such as KTLA-5 (The CW)). Those who follow business also know there have been some nasty fights of late between the Chandlers (who owned the Times) and Tribune regarding trusts and stuff.
The daily_news_blog is reporting on the latest problem at the Times: A request from Tribune to make a 14% staff cut at the Times to bring the paper to 30% profitability… this would be a total 33% staff cut since Tribune took over. Kevin Roderick elaborates on this at la_observed, where he notes that editor Dean Baquet and publisher Jeff Johnson have been under Tribune pressure to raise profits at the paper 7% a year, and were hit with new demands recently from Chicago to slash $10 million from the budget before the end of this year and to whack the news staff to about 800 from 930…. after the editor received assurances when he was hired that he would be allowed to preside over an ambitious, quality paper and not be the editor who dismantles the Times. The editor has publically refused to make the cuts. The battle has even made it to NPR.
To me, the issue is the same as the issue that Ford faces: it’s not cuts that will create profitability: it’s the cars, stupid. Or, in newspaper terms: it’s the content. We stopped subscribing to the Times years ago (although I do read their online edition daily, which doesn’t give them a nickle), because they were attempting to become a clone of the New York Times. They were getting harder to read, and not covering the local scene as well. I switched over to the Daily News, and have been very happy.2 Roderick pointed out these problems in his entry: The LA Times makes a ton of money — about 20% return a year — but is hemorrhaging print readers and advertisers who see the value of the Times readership eroding. The Tribunes approach to turning it around would be to create a less appealing aproduct, with fewer good stories, ugly ads on section fronts instead of bold reader-friendly design, and scaled-back offerings throughout. The Time has certainly been abandoning their efforts to better cover outlying areas: I know they have cut back their Orange County operations, and in 2005 they closed their Chatsworth plant and office (which has just been bought by MGA, maker of Bratz, as noted by la_biz_observed). The Times editorial shop has also gotten sloppy, putting copy related to an advertiser opposite ads from that advertiser, a publishing no-no.
If the Times is to be successful, it must serve its local constituency first and formost. People buy papers (if they still buy papers) for two things: local news, and local ads. The Daily News does a good job on Valley news and Valley advertisers, but isn’t successful for the full LA Metro area. The Times could be, if they returned to their strengths. Cutting the news staff even further is not the way to do this: returning the paper to the quality LA Times of yore is.
1 Does anyone know if this is on DVD?
2 For those unfamiliar with the Daily News, it was once the Valley Green Sheet. It was owned at one time by Tribune, then by Jack Kent Cooke, and is currently owned by MediaNews, the same folks that just bought the San Jose Mercury News.
