More Bad News At The Los Angeles Times

ANOTHER BAD LOCAL MEDIA NEWS DAY
Another day, another chunk of bad news for the local news media. Today, in his column on the LAObserved blog, author Kevin Roderick gave us this entry, telling us about more cuts coming at the Los Angeles Times. It seems like every day there is more bad news about that once-proud newspaper. This time it's another 300 souls being tossed overboard from that sinking ship.

ZELL - RHYMES WITH...
Ever since the Elf From Hell, Sam Zell, bought The Tribune Company just about a year ago not a week passes when some kind of catastrophic news doesn't emerge from that withering empire.

DRUM BEAT OF DEATH
Week after week we read about reporters being axed, inexplicable format changes and hear the steady drum beat of failure that is marking the death knell of not only The Times, but most print news outlets around the country.

OPERATING WITH HALF STAFF
Of course, the cuts at the Times are felt closer to home at the Daily Pilot. The Times is now operating with 525 staff members in the news room - down from 1,200 just over a year ago. Knowing that, the decline in the quality of their product and subsequent abandonment by subscribers comes as no surprise. Similarly, the Daily Pilot has seen their staffing slashed over the past year - much of it at the top of the organization.

GOOD GUYS, TRYING HARD
I know Brady Rhoades and Paul Anderson, the men left in charge after first publisher Tom Johnson, then Director of News and Online Tony Dodero departed. Both are fine, competent newsmen who care about providing the best, most accurate and timely news product they can. Despite the potshots taken at them by one local blogger with a personal agenda, they and their relatively young staff do a good job of gathering and reporting the news. But, as is always the case in under-staffed organizations, mistakes happen, stories are missed and reader confidence is shaken.

I don't want the Daily Pilot to fail. It, in one form or another, has been our newspaper of record for a century. We need it.

HOW MANY DAILY PILOT JOBS ARE IN JEOPARDY?
I found myself wondering, as I read Kevin Roderick's essay, just how many of those 300 jobs soon to be slashed from the Los Angeles Times will, in fact, be plucked from the ranks of the Daily Pilot and her sister newspapers in the Times Community News group. None, I hope.

WHAT ARE THEY THINKING?!
In the meantime, like guys riding backward on a horse, the boneheads in charge of The Times announced that the venerable California section will be discontinued as a separate section and will be folded into their "A" section. Someone needs to remind those guys that the news we want to read is LOCAL news, and don't particularly want to wade through their faltering attempts at national and international news to find it.

LIKE A DYING FRIEND
Lately, when I pick up any of our local newspapers, I get the feeling that I'm holding the hand of a dying friend - something I know just a little bit about. I want them to find a miraculous cure to bring them back. I do not want to attend their funerals...

Is Tribune Company Sinking?

WSJ REPORTS POSSIBLE TRIBUNE COMPANY BANKRUPTCY
The Wall Street Journal reports Monday that the Tribune Company - parent of the Los Angeles Times, who is, in turn, the parent of the Times Community Newspapers, including our own Daily Pilot - has hired investment bank Lazard Ltd and the law firm Sidley Austin to advise the company on the possibility of Chapter 11 bankruptcy. This is just one more truly sad bit of news from the Tribune Company since Sam Zell acquired it a year ago.

OPERATING WITH HALF STAFF
Those of us who have been following this disaster with much trepidation have seen Zell and his minions methodically dismantle a once-proud news organization, chomping away at the staff like a Great White Shark - taking big chunks out every couple months or so. It is rumored that the Los Angeles Times, for example, is attempting to operate with a newsroom at half the strength it had last Christmas.

ZELL FAILING
Zell has been attempting to unload the Chicago Cubs and Wrigley Field - both of which are part of the Tribune Company - but that deal has stalled. In the meantime, the mountain of debt Zell incurred when he purchased the organization continues to mount up. The Wall Street Journal article states that "the company's cash flow may not be enough to cover nearly $1 billion in interest payments due this year, and Tribune owes a $512 million debt payment in June."

WHITHER THE DAILY PILOT?
This most recent revelation cannot bode well for the Daily Pilot, our newspaper of record for the past century. How this news of the probable bankruptcy of it's parent will affect the Daily Pilot and it's sibling newspapers is unclear, but it's unlikely that the impact will be positive. The Daily Pilot is attempting to continue to provide it's readers with the important news of our area with what mounts to a skeleton crew. Among those who have departed or have been forced out are the Publisher, Tom Johnson and his second-in-command, Director of News and Online, Tony Dodero. With them went two decades of institutional memory and a huge chunk of the leadership so essential to keep things on an even keel. Managing Editor Brady Rhoades and City Editor Paul Anderson have been trying to keep things going since Dodero departed a month ago.

LOBDELL, THE PROPHET
In an ironic bit of timing, former Daily Pilot Editor Bill Lobdell, wrote an interesting piece in OC Metro on December 1st basically predicting the demise of the Los Angeles Times. His view as a former insider is fascinating. You can read that article HERE. Lobdell, who has a very special story of his own to tell, which he has done in a book being released within a couple weeks, was among those to depart the Los Angeles Times this year. His book, "Losing My Religion: How I Lost My Faith Reporting on Religion in America - and Found Unexpected Peace", goes on sale in February.

THE LUNATIC FRINGE
Over at the CM Press, the egotistical author - who fancies himself an ace reporter just because he played one badly for 19 seconds in a terrible movie 35 years ago - has pontificated that his "publication" can pick up the slack if the Daily Pilot succumbs during these difficult times at the Los Angeles Times. Good grief! The guy consistently fabricates issues, makes up "facts" to suit his own personal bias and misrepresents issues and individuals. Anyone who considers him a reliable source of real, honest news reporting needs a wake-up call in the worst way.

WHITE KNIGHT NOWHERE IN SIGHT
I sure do not want to see our Daily Pilot cease to exist. I keep hoping some wealthy local resident will team up with Johnson, for example, and pluck the Daily Pilot from the deep end of the pool. I keep listening for the hoof-beats of a white knight off in the distance. So far, I only hear silence.

SAVE THE DAILY PILOT
So, if you've got a few bucks in the bank and are looking for a way to invest in the community and want to become a media mogul at the same time, drop me a note. I suspect we could round up a team to keep the Daily Pilot going, even though many people predict the complete demise of the print media. I, for one, think we need a viable free press - to keep our local leaders on the straight and narrow. If we rely on blogs like the CM Press - where "news" is made up - for accurate and timely information we are in big trouble.

Demise of Print Journalism

DISINTEGRATION OF PRINT MEDIA
Those of us living here in sunny, shaky Southern California have been living with a fairly new phenomena - watching the print media around which many of our lives revolve disintegrate before our very eyes.

ELECTRONIC IS THE CHOICE OF YOUTH
The entire industry is undergoing a cataclysmic shift, and not for the better. Electronic media, including blogs, have replaced the inky print media as the choice of many - especially younger - readers when they are actually looking for real news.

REGISTER SHRINKING
Here in Orange County we find the Orange County Register undergoing significant cutbacks as that fine, old newspaper struggles like most others to make a profit these days. It's a serious issue.

ZELL DESTROYING TRIBUNE COMPANIES
Of even greater concern to me is what's happening to the Los Angeles Times and it's subsidiary local newspapers in the Times Community Newspapers group, including our very own Daily Pilot. The Times is part of the Tribune Companies, which was purchased by Sam Zell last year. True to form, Zell and his minions are systematically going about some cosmetic trimming of the component assets before trying to unload the pieces for more than the sum of the total. It's a business model that has worked elsewhere in the past, but it's going to fail this time around.

ZELL - RHYMES WITH...
Zell, whose name rhymes with a place he's very likely to end up if you believe current and former Times staffers, tried to sweet-talk staff members in the early stages of his purge. It didn't take long, however, for his ham-handed cutting to take off. The Times newsroom - editors and reporters - is attempting to operate with half the staff it had a year ago!

JOHNSON GONE
I wrote in a recent entry about the departure last week of Daily Pilot publisher and General Manager, Tom Johnson. He walked away from a job he'd held for 15 years, 17 if you count a couple years as Associate Publisher. He was the heart and soul of the Daily Pilot and the six other newspapers he managed. His absence has left the remaining staff reeling.

LOBDELL'S VIEW
I was recently directed to a brand new blog by former Los Angeles Times newsman Bill Lobdell, who also was the editor of the Daily Pilot for many years. In his initial entry on the blog - "Lobdell's OC", HERE, he provides insight into the Los Angeles Times situation with the perspective only an insider can bring. I've also linked to Lobdell's blog over on the right side of this page, because I suspect his body of work is going to be "interesting", to say the least.

I FEEL THEIR PAIN
I agonize for my friends at the Daily Pilot and hope the slashing of staff will stop soon. Through all the turmoil that has been swirling around for many months they have continued to soldier on, trying to provide the best news coverage possible. In most cases, they have succeeded.

VIBRANT PRINT MEDIA ESSENTIAL
In my opinion, we need a strong, vibrant print news media, supplemented by innovative electronic siblings. If the print media just fades away we will be left with blogs like this as your source of news - a truly bad idea! Let's hope someone reads Lobdell's blog and decides that his ideas have merit - and moves forward to salvage what's left of the Times and others before they are gone for good.

What The Zell Is Going On Here?!

ANTICIPATING FRAGMENTATION
Those of us watching the soap opera that has become The Tribune Companies since it was acquired by Sam Zell probably knew something like this was coming. We collectively held our breath as Zell punched and squeezed his media empire like a hand full of Nutty Putty. We suspect he will eventually begin breaking it up, selling off the pieces to pare down some of the mountain of debt he incurred for the purchase.

TOM JOHNSON'S BOMBSHELL
I'm referring, of course, to Daily Pilot Publisher Tom Johnson's column today, HERE, in which he announced dramatic changes at the Daily Pilot. I have to tell you that reading Johnson's announcement was like being punched in the gut.

STAFF REDUCED
First, he told us that 14 staff members of the seven newspapers that make up the Times Community Newspapers, including the Daily Pilot, were laid off last week. That explains the absence of some familiar bylines recently.

DARK MONDAYS AHEAD
That was bad enough, but he followed that up by announcing that the Daily Pilot - the newspaper of record for the Newport-Mesa area for the best part of a century - will no longer be a daily newspaper! Nope, henceforth the Daily Pilot will be published Tuesday through Sunday, with Monday being a "dark" day.

OMEN OF THINGS TO COME?
It's not so much that we'll be losing "our" news on Mondays, but it's a statement about the condition of newspapers in general - they are living on the brink.

DAILY PILOT IS IMPORTANT
I'm disappointed with this turn of events. The Daily Pilot has been a big part of my life since we moved here thirty-five years ago. It's been even more so for me since I began writing letters and commentaries that appeared on its pages in 2001.

A FORUM LIKE NO OTHER
The Daily Pilot has provided a forum for discussion of important issues in our community, almost always covering issues accurately and without bias. It's given those of us with opinions a place to present them to our neighbors for their consideration. The editors have tolerated and presented views from their readers that others felt were repugnant. They have published opinions by writers who, with their next breath, offered scathing criticism of the editors and the Daily Pilot itself. The editors have accepted submissions from those of us with only the most marginal writing skills and made them better.

KEEPING OUR FINGERS CROSSED
I hope these moves announced by Johnson are the last we will hear as Sam Zell goes about maximizing his investment. The Daily Pilot and it's sister publications have been the information anchor in their communities. For us to lose them would be to extinguish the bright light of public awareness on important issues being considered by our elected leaders.

WISHING THE PILOT WELL
I wish all the good folks at the Daily Pilot the very best of luck and hope these changes are enough to keep the wolf from the door.