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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I ran into an extremely rare item on Friday, a Star-Bulletin street box flying solo without an accompanying Advertiser box.
Solo Advertiser boxes are seen frequently, as are pairs with both papers, but this is the first freestanding Star-Bulletin box that I've seen in weeks of looking.
It is located on Bishop Street, mid-block between Beretania and Hotel.
When I went by, it was empty.
That says it all, doesn't it?
It almost slipped by me: This is the 4-month anniversary of Rupert Phillips' September 16 announcement of the Star-Bulletin's planned closing. It's been such a wild ride that I'm not sure whether to be amazed at how much time has passed and how much has transpired, or at how little time has passed and so little changed. I feel both ways, simultaneously, despite how contradictory it sounds. I think we all share a vivid "sense memory" of walking through the newsroom as the papers came off the press with the banner headline announcing the end of the S-B's 117 year publishing run . Looking at the pictures again instantly brings it all back.
We've been told to attend attend a staff meeting today, where we should hear of plans for the city desk, whether a new editor will be appointed, and how assignments may shift in the immediate future.There is a hiring notice posted on the newsroom bulletin board, but it is generic rather than specific, announcing unspecified openings for reporters, editors, copy editors, etc. "Anticipated vacancies" is one account circulating. Perhaps some of those applications sent out have been successful and folks are about to accept positions elsewhere....more of what we may hear later today.
It may be progress. The Star-Bulletin street sales box reappeared sometime in the last several days outside U.S. District Court in downtown Honolulu after a noticeable absence.Yesterday's meeting of city reporters produced little sizzle. We will be continuing with a system of shared power, meaning no replacement was announced for departed city editor Dan Woods.
There was no mistaking the mood, though, as reporters were urged to do more of what we do best. "Do your best, raise the bar, and demoralize the Advertiser," was the suggestion of the day.
A Howard Kurtz column in Monday's Washington Post described an incident in which the Gannett-owned newspaper in Boise, Idaho, insisted on giving executives of Micron Technology, a hometown company, an opportunity to review a lengthy story about the firm before it could be published.
The decision led to the resignation of the paper's business editor after just a month on the job.
Kurtz reports that editors declined comment later, but a lawyer for the paper defended the corporate review as "good journalism".
If you had stopped to shop after work yesterday at Star Supermarket in Kaneohe, as I did, you could have picked up a copy of the Wall Street Journal, or what I think was the L.A. Times, or a prominently displayed morning Advertiser, but you couldn't get a Star-Bulletin, at least not on the main racks where all the other papers were being displayed. I probably should have looked around a bit more to determine if we were really entirely absent, but I didn't.And back downtown at the Federal Court, the reappearing Star-Bulletin box has not even been repainted or fixed up. It is an old, faded box, returned in original condition.
Yesterday was relatively mellow in the newsroom. With no word coming from Gannett or Liberty Newspapers, people remain leery about the future. Editors seem to anticipate continued staffing problems ahead, although we will be trying to fill several open positions, which will reduce some of the immediate pressures. There were several conversations about bad working conditions or management attitudes across the hall at the Advertiser. It seems several people have their favorite examples of management mistreatment, with details sharpened from frequent retelling. Even if Gannett eventually succeeds in closing the Star-Bulletin, they are going to have a hell of a job rebuilding their own newsroom and restoring a livable atmosphere.
One of our cats here at home is battling a chronic liver infection, and some nights I get up and sit with her, coaxing her to eat a snack. In the dark with this black cat, with the silence of our country neighborhood accented only by the background roar of the surf, I try to connect to the feeling of security that we were able to wrap ourselves in just a few months back, and I consistently fail. There we were, with a great union contract, supportive management, more than a decade to go on our JOA, and we could really concentrate fully on doing news. Then boom. Gone. Welcome to Gannett's Twilight Zone, where uncertainty reigns.
Note the small experiment below, the addition of a search function to find bits and pieces from prior entries in this diary (as well as the rest of this site). I'll leave it for a while and see if it works.Small town? Honolulu attorney Jim Bickerton is the local counsel for the group of community leaders who have filed an antitrust suit aimed at keeping the Star-Bulletin alive. But now Bickerton's partner, William W. Saunders, Jr., has sued the Star-Bulletin on behalf of a developer who alleges he was libeled when a story quoted a business partner as saying, "...frankly we think he stole us blind."
I guess there is no conflict because, technically, both suits are against the paper and its owners, but it still surprised me a bit when I ran across the complaint in a stack of recent filings.
A S-B colleague shared these thoughts in an e-mail last night:
"I hate to be a cynic, but I think perhaps what we're seeing in developments like vending racks returned to the street and banner ads on Starbulletin.com do not herald a return to the status quo, but rather, are signs of an attempt to deflect court action when Gannett and Liberty argue that the suits be dismissed as moot."If there had been some public announcement to the effect that "We had a bad idea. We've heard your concerns. The Star-Bulletin will continue to publish at least until 2012," then the moves that are being taken might be sincere.
"But there has been no public announcement whatsoever. By keeping in the dark the people who are the shareholders, as it were, of this community, Gannett and Liberty are signaling that they still have a hidden agenda which is not consistent with the desires of the community."
He then goes on to suggest that instead of focusing on saving the Star-Bulletin, it might be time to "raise the bar" and suggest that our islands are too small to accept corporations with business practices like Gannett. Perhaps "Adios and Aloha, Gannett" is the slogan to sustain us.
But isn't Gannett just the leading edge of the threats to the survival of the Star-Bulletin? That is certainly my sense observing the largest and most respected news organizations such as the Washington Post in a panic-driven frenzy to leap into joint publishing deals with Internet upstarts, in an apparent acknowledgment that newspapers as we know them are among the walking dead, doomed but still moving for now.
Gannett and Liberty Newspapers claim delays in closing the Star-Bulletin, caused by the state's antitrust lawsuit,, will cost each side over $10 million. They went back into federal court yesterday to renew an earlier demand that the state be required to post a $21 million bond that would cover the losses in the event the newspaper owners eventually win the case.The same argument was made and rejected soon after the case was filed, and it is not clear at this point whether the renewed request contains any substantial new evidence to back up the claim of losses. A March 28 hearing has been scheduled on the motion.
The motion appears to accomplish several things. First, it provides the newspaper owners some degree of leverage in behind the scenes settlement negotiations with the state by adding both uncertainty and potential costs to the state of proceeding to trial. Second, it again buys time, with a hearing more than two months away. And, third, it continues the propaganda campaign aimed at convincing casual observers that the Star-Bulletin is failing financially, although they have not explicitly made that claim.
The Star-Bulletin's story yesterday noted that the claimed losses appear to consist of the costs of operating and delivering the paper, but do not reflect any of the evening paper's circulation or advertising revenues.
If the case is not settled in the interim, the state is sure to demand further discovery in order to assess the claims of financial losses. That could prove very interesting.
Gannett struck again yesterday, this time with a new and unexpected lawsuit filed in U.S. District Court seeking to have the state's suit declared unconstitutional.According to the Star-Bulletin story: "It also asks the court to find that Liberty can cease publishing the Star-Bulletin, can enter into any agreement and receive any payment to end its joint operating agreement with the Gannett-owned Honolulu Advertiser, and not be required to put the afternoon paper up for sale."
More on these developments later today...[I feel like the kid who didn't do his homework. Today is Meda's birthday, and with running around in town today in search of suitable birthday present, and getting ready to cook dinner for friends, I'm not going to make the update as planned. I'll just have to miss my deadline and put it off until the morning....]
I just ran into a wonderful but painful little site featuring personal memories of the Detroit newspaper strike and the Sunday Journal, a weekly paper put out by strikers for four years. Really a "must read".
The flurry of court action has created lots of confusion, with several related and overlapping moves.Just weeks after withdrawing their motions to dismiss both the state lawsuit and the separate but parallel case brought by several "community leaders" backed by the Newspaper Guild, Gannett and Liberty Newspapers have now filed their own countersuit. It has been reported first in the state case, but I presume a similar counterattack will be launched against Jean King & Co.
The countersuit is substantively equivalent to the owners' motion, filed just days earlier, which aims at forcing the state to put up a $21 million bond as a condition of maintaining the preliminary injunction, which has kept the Star-Bulletin in business beyond the planned Oct. 30 closing.
Gannett's attorneys say the minimal $10,000 bond was initially approved by Judge Kay with the "understanding" that the state would cover a larger judgment if it ultimately loses the case. But Gannett says the state has subsequently argued damages should be limited to the amount of the bond. As a result, Gannett/Liberty say the state must either put up the larger bond, or acknowledge that damages could run to the $21 million figure. A transcript of portions of the earlier hearing before Judge Kay were attached to the motion, and appear to support Gannett's position on the bond. The laws on preliminary injunctions cited in their motion also appear to be on Gannett's side on the bond issue.
Lawrence P Gasho, identified as Gannett vice president, financial analysis, said the annual cost of producing the Star-Bulletin $10.67 million. "This included the Star-Bulletin's editorial expenses, the Star-Bulletin's administrative expenses, the cost of the Star-Bulletin's fringe benefits, Hawaii Newspaper Agency expenses directly attributable to the Star-Bulletin and the guaranteed payment to liberty required under the joint operating agreement."
Gasho estimated the financial impact during the full remaining term of the JOA at $130 million.
Gasho's statement did not clarify whether revenue of the Star-Bulletin is included in the calculation, but stated: "...because Liberty does not share in the profits and losses of the JOA, that entire negative financial impact of continuing the Star-Bulletin in the JOA is borne by Gannett Pacific Corp."
There were also some additional disclosures of interest:
- The Liberty Newspapers Limited Partnership, with Phillips Media Services as general partner, made an initial investment of $10 million in 1993 to purchase the Star-Bulletin.
- Phillips has a 31.25% interest in the partnership.
- At the beginning of 1999, they "refinanced" part of the purchase by borrowing $5 million, which was then distributed as a cash payment to the partners.
- Liberty had a total outstanding debt of $11,625,000 as of October 30, 1999 related to its purchase of the Star-Bulletin.
- Phillips Media Services is paid a management fee of $30,000 annually as Liberty's general partner.
No new legal arguments emerged in Gannett's new court moves, apart from their demand for an increased bond. But the moves are classic litigators' strategy, where "the best defense is a good offense."
Taking the aggressive stance of filing a countersuit, Gannett/Liberty raise practical rather than new legal obstacles to the state. Now, with its limited budget and available staff time, the Attorney General's office must not only be planning its discovery strategy and the paperwork that will entail, but now must devote additional resources to responding to the new initiatives. And while contemplating this new drain on resources, they have to at least worry about the potential costs of the state eventually at the same time the Legislature is fretting over the state budget.
Bury the A.G. in new paperwork requirements, stretch its resources, wave the threat of extended liability--from Gannett/Liberty's viewpoint, all these create a very favorable context for negotiating a settlement, which is probably their goal. Good for them, bad for us, it appears.
A one Star-Bulletin staffer commented on Friday, capturing the mood in the newsroom: "It just goes on and on, doesn't it?" he said, shaking his head. "But every day it goes on is another day we've won!"
Expressions of support keep arriving from unexpected quarters. Last week, I received an email message from Diamond Tokuda, of duPont Manual Magnet High School in Louisville, Kentucky, who learned about the Star-Bulletin's situation while searching the web for information about the islands, and proceeded to do a journalism class project analyzing our case.
Then Diamond created a banner to send friends to this journal: "Yo, before I get carried away, here's a really good little link (but only if u give a rat's ass about journalism, which ::sigh:: most people don't)."
Does making it into a classroom at duPont Manual Magnet in Louisville mean we're already part of journalism lore? Whether we eventually win or lose, it looks like the Star-Bulletin's battle for survival will leave at least some modest ripples in the world.
Here's an interesting read about a newspaper war that Gannett lost in Rupert Phillips' Arkansas back yard, a defeat attributed, not surprisingly, to a lack of understanding of the local community.
[My apologies. The server that handles RoadRunner's user home pages was down between Tuesday morning and sometime in the wee hours of Thursday, so I've been unable to post updates in the interim. It is now about 1:45 a.m. Thursday, Hawaii Standard Time, and they're finally up and running. So here we go:]There were a couple of topics in the halls of the Star-Bulletin today. The major buzz came from news that the sale of the San Francisco Examiner has been restructured to include all the parts necessary for independent publication of the newspaper. The restructuring resulted from "concerns" expressed by various authorities, including the Department of Justice, according to published reports.
The significant point for us is that the original proposal would have stripped the Examiner of assets, just as the 1993 changes here stripped the Star-Bulletin of its share of the JOA's profits and productive assets. The Examiner restructuring could indicate serious official review of such arrangements, potentially good for us. But potential suitors of the Examiner are only being given a few weeks to prepare bids and express their interest, and there is some speculation that the higher cost for the broader package could actually drive away potential suitors, especially those in the region that already have available production facilities.
Throughout the newsroom, quiet conversation is still turning to interpretations of the latest legal moves by Gannett. It's hard to take them at face value, which would indicate a continued aggressive attempt to close us down at the earliest moment. What about the Justice Department (absolutely no signals from there at all)? Would the Attorney General abandon our defense? There's no escaping the ongoing speculation.
A new sports editor has been named, although there has been no official announcement and sports reporters aren't clear why editor Joe Edwards was dumped. Some attribute his problems to personal differences with others in the management team. Others say his stress on daily news, and foot dragging with pre planned "packages", led to his problems. Whatever the case, recruitment has been from within, given the difficulties of hiring under our existing conditions. And the move just reinforces existing uncertainties throughout the newsroom.
It was tough being locked out of these pages for the second day in a row. Customer Service at our local RoadRunner offices sent this response to my inquiry:"We are currently experiencing an issue with Personal homepage(PHP) server that would result in the issue you are writing about. We are working on it as quickly as we can and hope to have this resolved soon. However, we do not have any time of resolution regarding this issue.""...an issue"?? Another warping of the language. This was not an issue. This was a problem, a failure, a crash, a bomb, an outage, an extended disaster. It was a lot of things, for those of us who have become codependent on this modest communication vehicle, but "an issue" it was not.
It wasn't only frustrating for the anxious scribe. Several people inquired about my tardiness. When I explained the technical snafu, one sent off a blistering message to Oceanic Cable, which operates RoadRunner in Hawaii.
"There are people here in the community of Hawaii who look forward to, and enjoy reading the home pages of your subscribers.Some of your subscribers have been unable to update their home pages. My understanding is that it's because there's a problem with your home page server.
Fix it.
You have money.
Spend it.
We don't want excuses or explanations. We want results.
Fix it."
And what a day it was in the newsroom. The Guild Reporter, the monthly paper put out by The Newspaper Guild and distributed to its members nationwide, arrived in the mail today complete with three full pages of excerpts from this journal under the banner, "Hawaiian Journal," and "Walking the plank: An inside view of Gannett's efforts to close the Star-Bulletin." At some point, it will migrate to the Guild's "Online Archive" for nonmembers who don't have access to the print version.
It may have been the Guild's paper that prompted an email from a copy editor in Wisconsin, who describes his own paper as "anti-Gannett":
I found your diary fascinating - to be stuck on that cliff for four months! And never knowing whether to look for a lifeline or a parachute...I find it interesting that your case and San Francisco's have finally found some people waking up and realizing two newspapers are needed in a city. Maybe its because some really good newspapers are starting to bite the dust.
Lifeline or parachute...that image certainly captures the essence of our ongoing ambivalence and the personal calculus implicit in our everyday newsroom discussions.
No comments came my way on Thursday about the Guild's spread from this journal. I expected some comments from staffers who had not previously read it online, but none were forthcoming.
What I did get, coincidentally, was an urgent directive passed down by word of mouth through a string of editors and assistants to essentially set aside long-term projects and focus on short-term production. Not necessarily sinister or objectionable, under the circumstances, except that it reverses specific understandings on directions and priorities reached just a week before with the assistant city editor newly assigned to coordinate enterprise reporting. Although he gave me the news yesterday, it was obviously not his decision.
Newsroom politics are involved, and there is obvious pressure to beef up day to day reporting, but the timing and manner of this move troubles me. Does this indicate a management belief that the Star-Bulletin's only future is short term?
The two antitrust lawsuits against Gannett and Liberty Newspapers have recently been consolidated, so both will be moving towards a September trial on the same schedule. A quick check of the federal court files this week shows that some key deadlines are rapidly approaching.Any move by Gannett/Liberty to have the case declared moot as a result of the expiration of their agreement to close the Star-Bulletin would have to be filed in court by Friday, February 18. Amendments to the complaints, or motions to name additional parties, are due the day before.
More important for us, perhaps, settlement will be the topic during the next two weeks. Both sides are required to submit a confidential settlement statement to Magistrate Judge Barry Kurren by February 9, and a settlement conference will be held before Kurren a few days later. In addition, court rules require the opposing parties to exchange written settlement offers and meet to discuss possible deals prior to date due.
If no deal is reached, then the process of discovery will have to go into very high gear. All discovery must be completed by a July 21 deadline, which leaves less than six months from today. If the state is going to dig out hidden facts that will provide evidence of an illegal conspiracy, they're going to have to move quickly. A defendant like Gannett with its relatively unlimited legal budget can easily stall and drag out the process, so I would think time is of the essence.
Mike Fisch, Gannett's head of the Hawaii Newspaper Agency, came the closest I can recall to losing his cool yesterday when asked to react to accusations by the Save Our Star-Bulletin group regarding the disappearance of street sale boxes. In a morning press conference, SOS spokesman Richard Port underscored Gannett's failure to replace 150 Star-Bulletin news racks removed around the time of the planned closure last fall. The point was simple and direct: If you can't find a paper, you certainly can't buy one.The SOS press conference was covered on several television news broadcasts, as well as in both papers.
A S-B story quoted Port: "The point is that they are indicating they are losing money, but they are not taking appropriate steps to run a profitable newspaper," Port said. "I think the court will look at this and wonder" why they are not trying to make a profit.
In response, Fisch lashed out at the Newspaper Guild, as quoted in today's Advertiser: "If (Guild staffer) Mr. Cahill is interested in preserving the profitability of the Star-Bulletin then he, as well as the other union leaders, can work with the newspaper in a more cooperative, proactive (way) to improve the productivity of the Hawaii Newspaper Agency."
It's the first time that things have turned towards personal attacks. Perhaps it reflects the presence of a team from Gannett HQ, or the initial stages of contract negotiations. But whatever the case, it is getting ugly out there. This doesn't bode well for the climate of our negotiations.
In the same shift towards the personal, Gannett/Liberty's countersuit filed a week ago--more specifically, a third-party complaint--is aimed primarily at Attorney General Earl Anzai in his individual capacity. It seeks to recover damages, costs, and attorneys fees from Anzai's personal assets, while seeking only declaratory relief from his official persona.
Other observations: Another small business that has advertised for years in our papers is shifting a share of its budget into radio. The owner told me yesterday that he is making the move in response to Gannett's actions during the weeks following the announcement that the S-B would be closed. During this period, Gannett signaled that its vision of a one-newspaper town was not going to be client friendly. The hard line pitched by sales reps was that advertising rates would not go down, despite the loss of exposure with the closing of the 2nd paper. He now feels like he's being forced to test the alternatives by this monopoly mindset. Similar moves by other businesses has to be making an impact on HNA's bottom line.
The Hearst Corp.'s decision to restructure its sale offering of the San Francisco Examiner deserves more attention. Hearst was one of the media corporations that jumped into the Star-Bulletin case with a legal brief supporting Gannett's supposed First Amendment right to close our newspaper without conditions. But now Hearst, citing legal concerns raised by local and federal agencies, has abandoned its plan to strip the Examiner of its production assets and will instead offer everything needed for a new owner to put out the paper.The interesting message for us: With its own corporate posterior on the firing line, Hearst lacked the necessary confidence in its First Amendment argument to push forward with its original plan. I can't help wondering whether they have received subtle signals from the Justice Department or their own legal analysts that led them to abandon the First Amendment hard line that Gannett is still pushing forward with.
As the State of Hawaii argued in an earlier court filing, Gannett's "callous misuse of the First Amendment should not be condoned."
There were continuing rumbles heard in the newsroom today about last week's comments by Mike Fisch, Honolulu's ranking Gannettoid. The company must be cranking the pressure up on him, since this is the first crack in his generally personable veneer. After all, the mishandling of this whole affairs has led to the publicized defections of major advertising accounts, essentially delivering to the competition a whole slew of prominent demonstration clients. That can't look good to the Gannett bean counters.There are also suspicions that moves have been made to artificially inflate the Advertisers circulation figures during an audit period, while the temporary removal of Star-Bulletin sales racks, late press runs, and other things have probably cut our comparable circulation figures. There's a rumor that dorm residents at the University of Hawaii are receiving free Advertisers, for example. It wouldn't be the first time that Gannett, or the Advertiser, have padded the data with some creative strategies.
There are also continuing pressures from advertisers which are also forcing concessions, although not addressing all issues. Advertisers are unhappy that they get no discount for camera ready copy, so essentially they pay twice for design/layout work, but Gannett's refusing to budge on this.
But Gannett has conceded some scheduling changes. Whereas an advertiser who wanted to run something in Wednesday's newspaper formerly had a deadline the prior Thursday, they now have until Monday for a Wednesday run.
There are also rumors being whispered through the newsroom that an Advertiser position previously offered to a Star-Bulletin section editor but blocked by the injunction has been offered to someone else in town. It's apparently hush-hush right now, but it demonstrates again that even the minority who previously received offers aren't immune from the nagging uncertainties that have plagued us for 4-1/2 months.
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