Pulling Teeth From The Public's Watchdog
(Media • Verbatim)
The long-expected Houston Chronicle editorial layoffs struck yesterday, and Richard Connelly’s coverage of it, including a leaked memo from Editor Jeff Cohen (reproduced in part below), indicates that owner Hearst Corp. either really believes that, when it comes to news reporters, parts is parts, or it hopes readers can’t tell the difference:
TO: Staff
FROM: Jeff Cohen
RE: Newsroom Reduction
…With the job eliminations, we are making a number of alterations to the way we cover the city and produce the newspaper and Web site:
— Beginning Monday, the News, Business, Sports, Features and Opinion copy desks are merging into one production desk that will handle all of our daily, weekly, niche and special sections.
— The Business and News assigning desks are merging into six reporting teams.
— We’ll combine many beats, reduce our daily photos and graphics assignments and we will make adjustments to the way we produce chron.com.
…One thing will not change: our mission as journalists to inform, educate and entertain the readers of our newspaper and Web site and to hold government and other powerful institutions accountable. We will continue our long-term strategy of focusing on:
— Aggressive watchdog reporting;
— Daily enterprise that readers cannot get anywhere else;
— Being first to market with breaking news coverage online;
— Explaining Houston’s diverse communities;
— Dominating coverage of the Houston’s master narratives;
— Community Web site development and the harvesting of as many components of Web 2.0 as possible.
We’ll continue to do that with a remaining staff of talented journalists that numbers well more than all of our major local competitors combined. …
Jeff
First, I would like to say that working on what remains of the Chronicle copy desk promises to be News Factory Hell.
But mostly, I would like to focus on Cohen’s contention that the Chronicle still retains “a remaining staff of talented journalists that numbers well more than all of our major local competitors combined.” That statement, to me, speaks volumes.
For starters, it suggests that all of this is just a numbers game. If you eliminate 200 news jobs but still have more “journalists” than anyone else in town, then you are by default a better news organization. Except that indications are many of those laid off (or who took recent buyouts) are older, higher-paid staffers. Reporters who’ve been covering their beats and specialties for 10 years or more amass an incredible amount of knowledge and experience that gives them several legs up on the younger and greener reporters left behind. In other words, 350 minus 200 really equals something a good bit less than 150.
And then you have to wonder what Cohen means by “major local competitors.” Because in truth, the Chron’s eventual future lies on the web (like Hearst’s Seattle Post-Intelligencer), and any Houston-area organization comprised of real reporters and a robust web site (such as Connelly’s Houston Press) has suddenly become a major competitor. Which means, no, the Chron probably no longer does really have more journalists than its major competitors combined.
Especially not if you redefine “journalists” as “reporters.” Look, I’m not knocking newspaper editors; I was one, for years. But a newsroom full of editors without any reporters is a newsroom full of no news. A newsroom full of reporters without any editors probably is the coming model for web journalism. Reporters are the reason people read the news, online or on paper, or hear and see it in broadcast form, because (duh) reporters are the ones who ask questions, find out what’s going on and create the results.
So to me, eliminating more reporting than editing jobs while moving to the web does not make a lot of sense. But then, Hearst already indicated its disdain of reporters when it struck a deal to buy local news stories from an online “writing community” that sometimes pays its best writers $2.50 per article.
I don’t fault Cohen for the memo. Hell, he had to tell the remains of the newsroom something. That’s why they pay him the big bucks. And just because he said it doesn’t mean he really believes it.
Surely not, because you can’t cut out another 200 Houston journalists (or 165 in San Antonio) and still pretend the Show will Go On as detailed in Cohen’s first three bullet points.
→ Watchdog reporting requires many dogs in a city of 3.5 million in order to be considered anywhere near aggressive.
→ The Chron and most other major newspapers unloaded many of their investigative (enterprise) reporters years ago because it saved money and embarrassment when big shots and advertisers’ names wound up in the headlines. I sincerely doubt fewer reporters are going to produce more enterprise work but would love to be proved wrong.
→ The Chron already, before the last round of layoffs, was often not first to market with breaking news. The fewer veteran reporters, the fewer tips called in from veteran reporters’ solid secret sources.
As for Cohen’s other three bullet points, I’m not sure I even understand what they mean. Do “diverse communities” require “explaining?” If you provide complete, aggressive news coverage of Houston, aren’t you by default “dominating” the city’s “master narratives?”
As for “Community Web site development and the harvesting of as many components of Web 2.0 as possible,” that sounds like CorporateSpeak for filling the web site with free content from bloggers who maybe need to wake up and realize that their work might be worth more than what they’re getting for it.
As for the folks who just felt the ax, I hope as many as possible are able to continue reporting and writing or editing in some fashion, perhaps turning to the ultra low-cost printing press that is the World Wide Web. You’re the ones who made the Chronicle what it was and, even if you have to take a day job on the side, it’s possible to create something new and, eventually, better than what we’ve had – and to eliminate several of the middlemen while you’re at it.
And even if the public doesn’t realize it yet, they are soon going to need you, more than ever.
→ B.Dunn, Mar 25, 2009, 09 14 am
I wasn’t aware of the Hearst-Helium arrangement.
Good post, sir.
— Banjo Jones Mar 25, 07:20 pm #
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