As the media world turns...

Sept. 7, 2008

There’s been a quiet shake-up in the region’s media world and here’s the bottom line: you’ll be seeing more news about bake sales and Pop Warner football, and less local hard news on the environment, crime, and political corruption.
The reason for the shift, according to insiders at both papers: the Traverse City Record-Eagle is locked in an advertising war with the Grand Traverse Insider, a newbie paper that specializes in pillowy soft news.
Some of the Record-Eagle’s loss is due to the bad economy. Real estate and auto ad sales are tumbling across the country. The myriad of specialty publications has also cut into sales — the Northern Express, the Business News, GT Woman, Bay Area Times, Traverse Magazine, and Grand Traverse Edibles, to name a few. Radio and TV also compete for ad dollars.
If that weren’t enough, it now appears that Meijer — the object of intensely unflattering Record-Eagle coverage of Meijer’s illegal attempts to sway a local election — pulled the bulk of its advertising from the Record-Eagle. You’ll now find the Meijer four-color insert with the Grand Traverse Insider. Called the GT Insider for short, the paper’s website said it’s delivered to 40,917 homes for free each Sunday in the Leelanau, Benzie, and Grand Traverse counties, with another 4,670 given away at newsstands.

NO NEWS IS GOOD NEWS
If you haven’t seen the GT Insider, it’s packed full of happy community news. Nothing political. Nothing controversial. And definitely nothing about Meijer or politics.
It’s been no secret that since the paper was sold in late 2006, the Record-Eagle has lost some excellent reporters and hired less experienced, lower paid staffers. Most recently reporter Victor Skinner (who was on thin ice anyway, due to a drunk driving arrest) was let go.
Last month, the Record-Eagle also fired six other staffers in various departments, including human resources, circulation, and advertising.
And then there’s Ann Reed, the publisher, who (according to several staffers) did not actually willingly resign, but was forced to resign. The scuttlebutt was that she was trying to block the bloodletting of the other staffers.
In hindsight, the front page, Record-Eagle article announcing her resignation seems over–the-top disingenuous …
“I will personally miss Ann as she is a marvelous individual. She has been an extremely important part of this newspaper and this community for the past several years.” So said Henry Bird, vice president of the Midwest Division of Community Newspaper Holdings, Inc.
Bird took over temporarily as publisher and was sitting in Reed’s office since her firing in July. He was reportedly sent in as the axe-man for Community Newspaper Holdings. The new publisher is Mike Casuscelli, the publisher of the Herald Bulletin in Anderson, Indiana. From an online interview, he’s got a big interest in sports and positive thinking. He’ll definitely need the latter.
Reed, fortunately, landed on her feet, having snagged a job as a publisher in New Mexico for a chain of five or six newspapers. She did not return calls asking for an interview. She likely signed an agreement not to talk to the media, as I was told the other fired staffers did as well.

THE BACKSTORY
What does all this mean?
People are asking if Ross Childs is behind this. He is not, at least financially.
Childs, if you remember, is a former county administrator who led a petition drive against the paper in the spring of 2006, for what he viewed as the Record-Eagle’s mean-spirited editorial viewpoint. He cited several examples — the controversy over state Senator Jason Allen, and a proposed Traverse City parking deck.
Childs submitted signed petitions and samples of bias to the board members of Dow Jones, which owned the Traverse City Record-Eagle at that time. An environmental group responded by sending petitions of support with even more signatures.
Nothing happened. Dow Jones retained chief editor Bill Thomas and news editor Mike Tyree at the helm. Then the entire controversy became a moot point when Dow Jones sold the paper in December of 2006 to Community Newspaper Holdings Inc., which is based in Alabama. (The six-pack of papers went for $282.5 million. The Record-Eagle reportedly was tagged at $55 million, a figure some say was way too high.)
Childs and his supporters considered starting their own newspaper, but the price tag was too high. So they did the next best thing, and got another publication interested. They reportedly met with Morning Star Publications, the folks that published the Preview and the Adviser, free shoppers — all ads and very little content.

SHOPPING NEWS
The shoppers were combined to make the GT Insider, which made its debut in June. (Ross Childs said he still believes there is room in this town for another “real” newspaper to compete, and he’s still considering such a venture.)
Over the summer, Meijer reportedly ran its ads in both the Record-Eagle and the GT Insider, and compared sales results. The decision apparently was made to go with the GT Insider alone.
All of this information was given to me by a good source, not for attribution.
Speaking of “not for attribution,” an Acme activist told me that she had a habit of giving information to a Record-Eagle reporter off the record (which he then verified from court records). She recently received a curt email from him that said, from now on, everything had to be on the record, or don’t even bother. Could it be the threat of lawsuits?
Anyway, there’s a bigger issue than a profit-hungry parent company. You’ve likely read that newspapers are going the way of dinosaurs. With fewer people reading daily papers, newspapers are struggling to find a way to stay profitable, especially while competing with the Internet. A report by April McKinsey & Company reported that online classified ads bled $1.9 billion from newspaper revenue between 1996 and 2004.
The Record-Eagle is celebrating its 150th birthday in November. You gotta’ wonder if it will last another 150 years.

FEELING THE PAIN
Newspapers are responding by putting their content online, but that’s not working all that well because they aren’t charging any fees to look at it.
Meanwhile, the Record-Eagle staffers are doggedly pursuing their mission to deliver hard news stories that matter. And that’s good -- our democracy is based on a free press that keeps its officials accountable.
But the stress of the firings (and future firings), as well as the workload is making the place less than cheery. Some in the newsroom are eager to leave. Some have already left, like the talented photographer Tyler Sipe, who’s heading to grad school (he’s not getting replaced).
Wrote one staffer in an email: “Man, I’m feeling suicidal right now. Is Northern Express hiring? :)”
For the sake of Northern Michigan readers, let’s hope that the honchos at Community News Holding show some imagination and realize there are other ways to stay profitable besides cutting staff. There is a ton of talent on that staff. Give them some room to stretch and have fun. And take a look at daily papers that aren’t losing money.

In the spirit of full disclosure, Anne Stanton is a former Record-Eagle
reporter.