Final Days? A Newsroom Diary
by Ian Lind, Star-Bulletin reporter
Final Days? A Newsroom Diaryby Ian Lind, Star-Bulletin reporter
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Is the Newhouse newspaper chain going to be one of the bidders for the Star-Bulletin? They've said previously that they were not interested, but it might make sense because they already have such a heavy, but largely unnoticed, presence here in Honolulu.Both Pacific Business News, a weekly business paper, and MidWeek, a weekly shopper, are owned by divisions of Advance Publications, Inc., parent company of Newhouse Newspapers. Advance also has an active "new media" division with an expanding web presence, and owns a string of major publications, such as The New Yorker, Wired, Vogue, and others.
MidWeek is reported to have the capacity to print a daily newspaper, and has been willing to compete directly against Gannett, such as taking away the state contract for printing and distributing public notices. They already have the advertising staff, which could be expanded to cover the Star-Bulletin, and would then offer advertising packages including a set of complementary vehicles, from daily through weekly.
And Newhouse knows how to run newspapers. A recent Columbia Journalism Review article makes Newhouse sound like newspaper nirvana. It's probably overstated, and there may be lots of hidden downsides, but it's certainly a stark contrast to the Gannett news model.
The Star-Bulletin would fit largely within their existing infrastructure. The cost of transitioning to independent publication would be reduced by drawing on the existing base of MidWeek and PBN. And our web presence would add to the new media directions of Advance Publications.
It makes sense. But that doesn't make it so, does it?
According to Reuters, the investment firm of billionaire investor Warren Buffett disclosed in SEC reports that it picked up 3,636,800 shares of Gannett stock in the past quarter valued at $217.5 million. Just in case Gannett's bottom line fixation isn't pronounced enough, now they'll have this investment shark rattling the executive cages for more earnings. Just what we all need.There are just two weeks until Star-Bulletin bids are due, and we're all just trying to survive the wait.
The voyeurs among you can now see how Ian & Meda celebrated their anniversary.
And it's my birthday, which began with a brief but heavy rain during our early morning walk. When the rain blows horizontally, the umbrella can barely shield the camera, and protects little else, so I was wet and a bit worse for wear by the time this picture was taken.
I can't say I never get anything for my birthday. This year, I got a cold. I'm partially functioning today under the influence of various cold drugs, which delayed this update. But my ship's not on the ocean floor, so I can't complain.I had to contact Star-Bulletin webmeister, Blaine Fergerstrom as soon as I dragged out of bed this morning. It was silly, but I had to do it anyway. As Blaine says in his response, it says something about the state of things in the newsroom.
I wrote to Blaine:
Tell me it's not so.I had a very vivid dream early this morning. Of course, it may be the fact that I've got a cold, that has gotten progressively worse since yesterday noon. In any case, in my dream, you were processing some photo or video, which was taking time.
You finally turned around and told me you were quitting because the S-B was refusing to upgrade equipment.
"This would have been done long ago on a new G-4," you were telling me.
In my dream, you said you had signed up for a couple of software workshops, while reviewing various high paying options.
Like I say, this was too vivid.
Ouch.
A few minutes later, Blaine responded:
Weird coincidence, Ian. Very, very weird.
This morning, I show up to the office wearing a lei.
Staffers ask, "Is it your birthday? What's the occasion?"
I reply: "It's my last day."
Staffer: "Aaaaaaaaugh!"Ian, God's truth, this really happened!
It's not so, but something is definitely in the air... or is it in the water?Nonetheless, I'm still here. They can't make me go.
-Blaine
But a staff message sent out yesterday said that two more good reporters are leaving the Star-Bulletin. September 1 will be the last day for Lori Tighe and Suzanne Tswei, as well as the deadline for S-B bidders.
On-line readers probably didn't notice anything, except that the StarBulletin.com's Today! page was a bit short on content on Tuesday (8/15).But sparks were flying in the newsroom over a prominent feature story on husband and wife techno team Shawnja and Peter Yamaguchi, owners of Internet Concept Solutions, and their web site, JobsHawaii.com.
The story got an in-house reaction from those who recall that Yamaguchi had quietly registered the domain name "StarBulletin.net" in the days following last September's announcement of the paper's closing. That was interpreted as a raid on the Star-Bulletin's assets that didn't sit well with with our staff, to put it politely.
Tuesday's story not only painted a very favorable picture of the Yamaguchi's company, but included a listing of other job listings on-line that failed to even mention HNA's own Hawaiisjobs.com, which is advertised on StarBulletin.com.
The result: the story never appeared in the on-line edition of the Star-Bulletin.
That decision will probably provide fodder for future journalism ethics classes, but for now it's just another taste of our competitive drive, even after the troubles of the last year.
What do you do when it's gray, drizzling, and humid, and you're plagued by the congestion, cough, fever, and headache of a lingering cold? You abandon hopes of a productive day, stop worrying about a daily entry, and hope for better times tomorrow.
Last week's notice about staff departures may have been premature. Several people responded over the weekend that Suzanne is hoping to continue at the Star-Bulletin for at least three months, although it's not a done deal yet. But staffers are also talking about the apparent departure of award winning photographer, Kathryn Bender, who is going on leave, which could be announced this week.Still no word leaking out about bid prospects. It's strange to be in the middle of a news operation with such a total news blackout about the issue most important to us.
I've been cautioned that although there may be several presses in Honolulu besides HNA that could theoretically run a daily newspaper, they might not be capable of printing the Star-Bulletin as it is currently configured without significant expenditures. So arranging printing might not be as simple as it seemed, and may require a new format, or a smaller paper. A smaller paper means fewer ads and less revenue, so this is another hurdle for potential bidders to get past.
Public schools open today, and University of Hawaii classes start, and potential bidders have to wrap up their proposals by the end of next week. Beginnings and endings. I guess that's how the world works.
The week began with several announcements. As expected, photographer Kathryn Bender's exit was made official yesterday. "She informed us late last week that she is planning to make a career change," the announcement said.And we got official word that Suzanne Tswei will stay onboard for at least several more months, a move dubbed "a rare case of resignation interruptus".
Then came the mid-afternoon bombshell, another general e-mail message to all staff that business writer Peter Wagner will end a 19-1/2 year career with the Star-Bulletin on September 1. He'll be taking over as editor of Island Business magazine, put out by Honolulu Publishing Co.
This was a tough one to take. Peter's been at the desk next to mine for several years, and we've shared a lot of conversations about the future of the Star-Bulletin, as well as our fears and uncertainties about those possibilities. But Peter's been determined and unflinching in his reporting, serving as the lead writer probing the details of the ongoing search for a buyer and the unfolding court case. He's been real tight lipped about the Island Business deal, giving up no recent clues of his plans.
Peter says the position was offered and was something he couldn't walk past at this stage in his life, and that it doesn't reflect his assessment of the S-B's potential. But the announcement certainly rattled all of us who have been closely following events. And it means Peter won't be here to report on the bids, or lack of bids, also due on the first of September.
Longtime reporter and Guild activist Mary Adamski offered some perspective based on her tally of staff departures over several years.
According to Mary's notes, Peter will be the 8th person to leave so far this year. There were nine departures in 1999, most prior to Rupert's Sept. 16 announcement.
In 1998, eleven staffers left, and in 1997 the toll was ten.
Back in 1993, when the Star-Bulletin was transferred from Gannett to Liberty Publishing, 15 staffers departed.
Her point: Despite the impact on the newsroom of each of the current departures, they don't reflect much more than normal attrition. The numbers seem to agree with that assessment, but the bland conclusion doesn't feel right, perhaps given the specific nature of this year's departures. Or maybe its just that we're watching too closely.
The ocean was stormy and wild yesterday morning, and threatening clouds added to the spirit of the morning.
By evening, the storm hit the newspaper building. Rumors were spreading last night that Gannett had summarily fired nine longtime composing employees of the Hawaii Newspaper Agency, which handles production for the JOA. A list of names was being forwarded to security guards with orders not to allow them back on the property.
However, these rumors have not been confirmed by union reps in the light of day as of mid-morning Wednesday, and I'm not sure what is really going on.
We're all located in the same building, so I would expect the situation to clarify soon, but then again, you never know. Have I given Gannett an undeserved slap in this instance?
An action of this kind while contract talks are underway would certainly impact on the tone of those negotiations.
I'm told Gannett management, in a second cost-cutting move, yesterday directed the building security to be cut to a single guard on a 9-5 shift, abandoning the 24-hour multiple guard system that's been in place for the last year.
Kaaawa, Hawaii. August 22, 2000
And there are apparently a number of open and unfilled positions in the Advertiser newsroom right now, spreading the sense of uncertainty that we've experienced through their side of the building as well.
Whether these moves at the end of the quarter reflect Gannett's corporate unhappiness with the costs of the antitrust litigation or the underlying profitability of the JOA isn't clear. And Gannett's problem is their return on investment has to factor in the paper losses on the value of the real estate here on Kapiolani Blvd. which followed the collapse of the Japanese economic bubble. This must have created a pool of red on the corporate ledgers.
The cutbacks in the number of security guards were confirmed yesterday, but rumors of firings or layoffs downstairs at HNA are apparently not true, as far as I could determine yesterday. Whether they reflect things to come remains to be seen.S-B man about town, Dave Donnelly, wrote an interesting item on Monday about his introduction to Sukarman Sia, known to friends as simply "S.S.", at a downtown cigar bar. What didn't make it to the printed page was Sia's comment that he recommended purchase of the Star-Bulletin to a friend who is publisher of the Singapore-basedStraits Times. Sia said he didn't know if his friend had pursued the suggestion, but it's still an interesting thought.
Caught sitting alone at the lunch counter next door at Columbia Inn yesterday, Star-Bulletin publisher John Flanagan said he is "more optimistic than ever" about the prospects of a successful sale, but added that he had little optimism earlier in the process. John declined to translate his feeling into the paper's odds of survival, and remained mum on the basis for his sense of relative optimism.
At this point we're all the same position. Waiting.
Sunrise in Kaaawa has moved back to about 6:12 a.m., and
it won't be long before we're back in green flash
territory. Oops. The server handling my photos seems to be having
problems, and these weren't loading at last check. Hopefully
it will be back up soon.
But it feels like we're being slowly, incrementally erased from the picture.
A bunch of shiny new vans appeared out back yesterday morning.
These are painted with a simple "Hawaii Newspaper Agency" on the back. Previously, the names of the two papers were used, like the truck on the right of this picture.
It may be that the new paint job is just cheaper because, as I understand it, HNA would be eliminated after the sale or closure of the Star-Bulletin, and repainting will be necessary in any case.
Meanwhile, newsroom morale is remarkably stable, but we all hope the waiting ends with the upcoming deadline. One week and counting.
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Trini Peltier, who was already working here when newsprint was invented, says she stopped in the back and asked an HNA staffer why he was scraping a Star-Bulletin banner off the side of one of the old vans. He said they sometimes get damaged and have to be removed, but after a quick examination, Trini responded that it really looked ok. She needled a bit: "Maybe you're taking it off because it says Star-Bulletin?"So what did he say?
"He can't say nothing," Trini said, acting out the body language of someone who is caught and knows it.
A clump of those old vans, stripped of advertising, are now parked in the front lot. They're all high mileage and pretty worn. Cynics speculate that they'll designate the oldest vans as the ones "owned" by the Star-Bulletin and offered up to the successful bidder.
But apart from smalltalk about the vans, and some personal gossip about a Gannett exec that's been burning ears throughout the building, there were remarkably few hallway discussions yesterday as the week ended and we head into the final stretch.
The Star-Bulletin staff ESOP committee has been extremely tightlipped, so the rest of us have no idea whether we'll be riding tandem with any potential bidder when the deadline hits on Friday. That would obviously be the most favorable situation for us, but what the odds are nobody knows.Meanwhile, I belatedly signed onto the Star-Bulletin Seti@Home group. If you haven't heard of the Berkeley-based SETI project, here's their self-description:
SETI@home is a scientific experiment that uses Internet-connected computers in the Search for Extraterrestrial Intelligence (SETI). You can participate by running a free program that downloads and analyzes radio telescope data.
As of this morning, members of the Star-Bulletin group have contributed an aggregate total of 16.7 YEARS of computer time to this project.No big thing, but just another project reflecting the essential wackiness, togetherness and competitiveness felt in the newsroom. If you've got a computer, and if you're reading this you probably do, then you can also sign up and boost the Star-Bulletin's SETI numbers.
Sunrise in Kaaawa, Monday
It will be real interesting to see the mood in the newsroom this week, sort of the final stretch in the search for a buyer.I did hear of a lengthy meeting some weeks back between Cec Heftel, who has said he is interesting in buying the S-B, and MidWeek publisher, Ken Berry. Don't know if this session had any links to a potential Star-Bulletin deal.
You would think that potential bidders would be leaving a bit more of a trail around town if they were seriously investigating the economic viability of an independent Star-Bulletin. The lack of reports of such contacts makes me a bit queasy. But I've been that way all along, so it's nothing new.
Most staffers were off deadline after second edition yesterday when the Star-Bulletin's ESOP committee offered an impromptu update. With staff gathered around the city desk, several members of the committee shared their "behind the scenes" view of what lies ahead. The update was offered on a "confidential" basis, so I can't report what was said at this time.There wasn't much new information in any case, and committee members declined to comment on rumors or speculation. The general mood was guardedly upbeat. Questions from staff reflected both a concern about the odds of survival and a desire to know how long the whole process might last, whether or not bids actually materialize on Friday.
Later in the day, one staffer noted that Gannett will be in the same situation as last year, facing the potential for major disruption in the midst of the heavy advertising season between now and the end of the year. The plans to close the Star-Bulletin right at this same time last year angered advertisers large and small, and, if Gannett execs learned from the experience, they would likely want to delay major changes until after the holidays.
On the other hand, there's probably an overwhelming and now irrational urge over there to just zap us at the first available opportunity.
S-B reporter Peter Wagner, soon to be known as "former", is in the process of handing off the ongoing reporting on our situation to business writer Rick Daysog. Rick is tenacious, and loves to dig. Both were hard at work Tuesday working the phones, and I expect there may be an update on the sale process in today's paper.Late flash: Daysog reports in today's S-B that Canadian publisher David Black intends to submit a bid for the Star-Bulletin. The story was available first online, and later on A-1 when the papers hit the street.
There's a sign-up sheet on the newsroom bulletin board for a black polo shirt featuring a University of Hawaii logo with "Honolulu Star-Bulletin" embroidered on the sleeve. I have to admit that my thoughts flipped quickly from "don't need one" to "could be a collector's item real soon". Not politically correct, I know, but it happened.
Another staffer stopped by my desk in the last day or so to say, "let's just get it over with." There haven't been a lot of open comments that I've heard, but my sense is that similar frustrations are simmering just below the surface throughout the newsroom.
A little item from Detroit noted that the JOA dailies (including Gannett's Detroit News) failed to note a demonstration with about 300 union members and backers urging the public to continue boycotting both papers until new contracts are signed. Ann Mullen reports in Metrotimes.com that the Free Press reported on several other minor demonstrations involving other issues, including labor issues, but not a peep about the newspaper unions. Thanks to Jim Romenesko's MediaNews for spotting this item.
What a difference a day makes. Daysog came through with a great story, packed with new information. As word of the Canadian bidder, David Black of Victoria-based Black Press, reverberated through the Star-Bulletin's newsroom yesterday, the reaction was overwhelmingly positive.He appears to be well capitalized, has lots of newspaper experience, does not appear to shy away from direct competition, and has previously started a paper from scratch. Sounds like our kind of guy.
"Guardedly giddy" was how one writer described his feelings, and the phrase echoed through the halls. Several people said they are now more optimistic than ever about chances of surviving the JOA.
Canadian staffers received conceptual promotions as we toyed with the potential impact of the news. In our minds, the day's paper took on a different look, including a bit of north of the border talk, eh?
We actually don't know that much, except bits and pieces that lead to the conclusion that Black is serious. He was reportedly in Honolulu, and in the news building, during the due diligence period, and it appears that he personally met with advertisers to gauge the potential attracting their business to an independent Star-Bulletin, according to stories circulating yesterday.
From the little we know, the prospects of a bid tomorrow from Black appear more substantive than the potential of other known bidders. Many staffers have lost confidence that the group led by Cec Heftel will actually make a serious offer, or any offer at all. But Black's interest, which managed to stay secret until this week, also raised hopes that other newspaper operators might be preparing offers, but that was all pure speculation.
There were lots of Internet searches going on through the day for clues about Black's other newspaper operations.
One that caught my eye was a profile in the newsletter of the Canadian Community Newspapers Association, in which Black discusses his views of the business.
Little is known about Black's relations with unions, or his receptiveness to working with the S-B ESOP. But for now, we all got a much needed psychological boost from his appearance on the scene.
If you've had first hand experience with Black's newspapers, let me know what you think.
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