Mark Twain’s AP no more
Nov. 21, 2008: Mark Twain said, “There are only two forces that can carry light to all the corners of the globe... the sun in the heavens and the Associated Press down here.” The sun is still shining, but the AP could lose 10 percent of its staff in 2009. As ominous, major media players ha ve done the once unthinkable—they’ve cancelled their contracts with the AP.
Editor & Publisher posts that AP CEO Tom Curley told employees that the venerable wire service wants to cut jobs, but hopes that can be accomplished through attrition. The wire service may eliminate 300 of 3,000 editorial jobs next year and will continue with its hiring freeze.
The non-profit AP announced healthy finances in the summer, with $24 million in profit from $710 million in revenues. But the New York Times reports that could be endangered if news organizations follow through on intentions to leave the press association.
Included among these are the Tribune Company, owners of 14 leading newspapers such as the Chicago Tribune, the LA Times, the Baltimore Sun, Newsday and the Orlando Sentinel. The Tribune also owns numerous television and radio stations. The Trib, which has laid off hundreds, if not thousands of journalists, said it needed to continue cutting costs.
Smaller newspapers said AP’s content has changed so much it no longer meets their needs and that the AP is competing with them on the Internet by reposting their material in other venues and formats. Newspapers in Ohio and Pennsylvania are experimenting with their own press cooperatives.
AP told the NYT it is trying to save money for its members in a number of ways that will emerge during the coming year.
--Michael Blankenheim and Lisa Rowan
Yes, Virginia, there are new newspapers
Nov. 19, 2008: Launching a newspaper is risky business these days. Ask the Salt Lake Tribune—it debuted the Buzz in February for young professionals to grab on their evening commute. It was a fun, quick read, but it couldn’t attract enough advertisers to last through the summer.
Yet, among the misses, there have been some hits for local news coverage.
Just last month, the Puerto Rico Daily Sun debuted, replacing the award-winning San Juan Star. That paper closed in August due to declining revenue and union disputes. The American territory has three major Spanish-language daily newspapers, but the new English-language Sun is able to print 15,000 copies each day.
The newspaper’s startup funding comes from two non-traditional sources. Each reporter was asked to buy at least $200 in shares in the new paper’s parent company, the United Press Cooperative. They had a little help, though. The country’s Department of Labor and Human Resources provided $1 million in launch money, thanks in part to a local law that encourages job creation.
When the owners of the Southwest Daily Times in Liberal, Kansas decided in May to cut production back to three days a week, editor Earl Watt decided to start his own paper. Eighteen of his former staffers went with him, and they started the High Plains Daily Leader to serve southwestern Kansas and the Oklahoma panhandle. The newspaper tweaked its front page a few times during the first few weeks, and the ads on the top of page 1 received mixed reviews. But success shows in circulation: the Daily Leader prints 7,000 copies—about two thousand more than the Daily Times.
You might call someone crazy to start a newspaper in this economy and non-friendly print environs, but entrepreneurs like Jim Pavelich are emulating the fiercely competitive newspaper publishers of yesteryear.
In the 1980s, Jim Pavelich made millions launching small- to medium- sized dailies in Colorado and Northern California, only to sell them later. Now that the non-compete agreements he signed during the sales have expired, he’s gone back to the same markets to start new daily newspapers.
Pavelich founded Colorado’s Vail Daily in 1981 and sold it in 1993. He then launched the Denver Daily News and the San Francisco Daily News. This year, he came back to Colorado in May to launch the Vail Mountaineer against the Vail Daily.
Around the same time this year, Pavelich co-founded the Palo Alto Daily Post in California to battle the Palo Alto Daily Times—another newspaper from his last generation of launches.
Oddly, Pavelich’s new papers don’t have Web sites.
--Lisa Rowan
Magazine business not just bad, dismal
Nov 17, 2008: While Ad Age reported the magazine business lost 3,200 jobs during the third quarter of 2008, the New York Times closed  Play, its respected sports magazine.
Mediabistro’s FishbowlNY posted an e-mail from Play editor Mark Bryant confirming that the quarterly magazine with a circulation of 1.1 million won’t be published in 2009. In October, Bryant said the future of Play was solid.
But since that time, it’s been decided that, "the company needs to make some pretty considerable cuts going forward," said Bryant in his e-mail. Bryant added that Play was not losing money.
Meanwhile, Ad Age notes that back in June, there were 147,000 people working in magazines. The 3,200 positions cut June-September do not include the slew of job losses that have occurred since September.
The list of publishers eliminating jobs is constantly growing, and by Ad Age’s tally now includes Time Inc., Hearst, Conde Nast, American Express Publishing, M. Shanklen Communications, The Economist Group, Rodale and National Geographic.
Ed Koller, managing partner at recruiter Howard-Sloan-Koller Group, told Ad Age that, "I've been through four, maybe five of these. It hasn't ever been like this."
--Michael Blankenheim
Time Inc. begins massive layoffs by asking for volunteers
 Nov. 12, 2008: A picture is emerging of how Time Inc. will layoff 600 employees.
The managing editors of Fortune, Time, Sports Illustrated and People magazines have e-mailed staff asking for editorial volunteers to accept buyouts. Blogger Peter Kafka posts the memos here. If enough employees don’t step forward by Dec. 1, the memos state involuntary layoffs will occur. To start:
-- At Fortune, Andy Sewer seeks to eliminate 12 positions, including writer-editors, writer-reporters, designers, editorial assistants and copy coordinators.
-- At Sports Illustrated, Terry McDonnell wants to cut 40 copy editors, photographers, reporter-researchers, research assistants, writer-editors and writer-reporters.
-- Time is seeking to cut 20 writer-editors, staff correspondents, writer-reporters, reporter-researchers, designers, research catalogers and research librarians.
-- At People, Larry Hackett wants to jettison at least 18 positions in New York and Los Angeles, including reporter-researchers, staff correspondents, writer-editors, writer reporters and copy editors.
--Michael Blankenheim
A portal to understanding The Post's federal coverage
Nov. 10, 2008: If you want to analyze who at the Washington Post and its sister publications cover the federal government, read The Post's online Fed Page for a few days. It's a portal connecting to all federal content produced by the uber-Post brand.
About 27 percent of all jobs in the Washington, D.C. metro region are federal, so there’s great focus on the needs of viewsers who are federal employees. The Fed Page features blogs, interactive features and discussions about federal happenings, worker issues and federal contracting.
But The Fed Page’s overall approach is wider. You can glean how The Post views and conducts coverage of most, if not all, things federal, national and political.
Headlined are federal items from throughout the online and print entities of The Post, including news and features. Examples: Widespread Complaints About a Rudderless Government, Immigration to Go Paperless and "It's All Come Down to This. Yes, a Quiz." The last item is a political quiz including brain twisters such as what’s the first and last name of “Joe the Plumber.”
Down at the niche level, The Fed Page typically links to specialty publications including Government Executive, Federal Computer Week and Government Computer News.
--Michael Blankenheim
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