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LOST ON THE CUTTING ROOM FLOOR (2#) -

The SF Sun-Sentinel & the Tribune Co -

I guess you could call me a Newspaper Romantic because I'm still mourning the demise of the NY Herald Tribune from the 1960's.

As I recall the events from that period: first, there was a traumatic newspaper strike; and then, the Trib went kaput. I never read a detailed autopsy on the death of the Trib; I still don't know what, if any, connection the two events had. But I know what effect those events had on me.

Before that sequence of events, I casually took American newspapers for granted; after that sequence of events, I no longer did. Instead, I began to pay more attention to the inner workings of our newspapers and media in general.

What's been going on lately with the parent company of our local newspaper seems to be causing a collective nervous breakdown in LA. I think I can relate to what they're going through, since we've been through our share of newspaper problems here on the East Coast, too. But the current "crisis" is also prompting me to wonder what led up to it.

I recall there was some fuss about the circulation figures. The newspapers had been distributing free copies, for example, to many hotel guests, which seemed to suggest that the newspapers were using these copies to inflate their circulation figures. Advertising rates, I believe, are based partly on circulation figures. Then, the agency which keeps tabs on newspaper circulation figures required the newspapers to stop this practice, as I recall. I have to wonder what, if any, connection these two issues might have. Is the current "crisis" the result to some degree of that adjustment of their figures downward?

Sam Zell explains what went wrong,
causing him to trim the personnel:

*Zell said he bought the company assuming a fairly pessimistic revenue decline of 5 percent to 7 percent. In fact, it's been about 20 percent, he said.*

From 5 percent to 20 percent is a pretty big gap. Was it only the circulation figures they were allegedly monkeying around with?

Gerould Kern is quoted as saying:

"The newspaper business is in crisis..."

No, I don't think so. First, newspapers are not a business; in the US newspapers are an institution. Second, I don't think it's the newspapers which are in crisis; it looks more like it's the Media Corporations operating the newspapers which are in crisis.

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