Newspapers are popular targets these days, and others have truer aim than I. Nonetheless, events at my hometown paper, the Philadelphia Inquirer, make commenting on them difficult to resist.The Inquirer announced this week that it laid off 68 newsroom employees or a little less than 2.5% of Philadelphia Newspapers’ total workforce (7.5% of the unionized workforce). A local investor group, Philadelphia Media Holdings (PMH), bought the company, which publishes the Inquirer, the Daily News, and Philly.com, from McClatchy last spring. At the time, there was much ado about the benefits (and potential conflicts of interest) of local ownership and the ownership group’s leader and new Inquirer publisher, Brian Tierney, talked about “the next great era of Philadelphia journalism” and an end to “us vs. them” thinking about unions.
Given the difficult state of the newspaper industry and the heavy debt load taken on by PMH it came as no surprise when recent union negotiations were contentious and layoffs were announced. What is surprising, however, is the way PMH has squandered its honeymoon period. Squandered not because of contentious negotiations and layoffs, but because of why they happened. PMH used the union negotiations to do what newspaper companies have done for years – cut costs – when they should have used them to begin creating a new business model. The immediate result would have been similar, but at least it would have been for a worthwhile purpose.
When I worked for Philadelphia Newspapers several years ago, the management-union tension was palpable. That tension caused the union to be particularly inflexible which acted as a drag on the prospects of the online business – the future of the company. That was a long time ago and I’d like to believe things have changed since then, but recent reports give little cause for hope. It’s telling, however, that a review of each side’s negotiating points revealed a desire of the union for “more training for employees producing online content,” while management made no mention of the company’s digital operations.
Until PMH understands that real-time, community based (in both the geographical and Web 2.0 sense) digital content is what will drive their business, more pain is ahead. Well, actually, more pain is ahead either way, but a changing business model at least gives that pain a purpose and doesn’t end in the closing of a once proud company. Brian Tierney has said that PMH will “spend $5 million marketing the papers and $16 to $20 million on new printing-press technology.” New press technology should be a good thing because I can’t remember the last time I saw an issue of the Inquirer in which the color registration was correct (of course, I can’t remember the last time I saw an issue of the Inquirer). Marketing? Well, you need a relevant, competitive product first, and newsprint becomes a little less relevant every day. Sure, the promise to increase local news will help, but the problems go much deeper, to the distribution channels, the product itself, and an inability to take advantage of changing technology and consumer tastes. When will PMH address those issues?
Nonetheless, the real story here is the opportunity PMH missed during the just concluded union negotiations. The union appeared willing to look to the future, but management, despite some earlier statements, could only see the past. Inquirer media critic Will Bunch makes the point when he told Philadelphia Weekly, “There should’ve been somebody else announced with [new Inquirer editor Marimow]. Let’s call him ‘Joe Google,’ or ‘Joe Yahoo.’ Somebody who’d have real power, who’d work with both newspapers to say, ‘Let’s really use the Internet and adapt everything we’re doing to this new medium because that’s our future.’ Marimow could’ve been the guy to make sure we adapt to the new technology in the right way, to keep our values and our mission as journalists intact.”
