June 1, Thursday

Early morning news from webmaster Blaine Fergerstrom: His stolen truck was located by police overnight in front of a "known drug house" in Aiea. Of course, we're all aware that the truck was stolen from a spot probably less than 100 feet from the nearest Gannett security guard, and apparently within view of one of the company's high-tech security cameras. So it goes.

Gannett and HNA are skewered by Eddie Sherman in this week's MidWeek. According to Sherman, a group of advertising folks was treated to this remark by Mark Adkins, Gannett's VP of advertising at the Hawaii Newspaper Agency:

"I've told our people that we can't be bothered with people who only want to spend $300 to $400 a month. It's not worth it. If you can't afford it, you shouldn't be a player."

Several questions pressed during yesterday's closing arguments in the San Francisco newspaper trial are full of implications for the Star-Bulletin. An article today by the SF Chronicle's Reynolds Holding cites several queries by Judge Vaughn Walker:

According to Holding:

"Walker immediately asked (Chronicle attorney J. Thomas) Rosch why Hearst's deal with the Fangs -- and particularly the $66 million subsidy -- was not a wasteful and anticompetitive attempt to preserve a failing newspaper that should be allowed to die."

Walker followed by asking whether the decision to sell the Examiner instead of closing it was intended just to "curry favor with (the U.S. Department of) Justice and local political figures."

We won't know the meaning of those questions until Walker issues an opinion, expected to be forthcoming soon.

 

June 2, Friday

Rumors of interested buyers are surfacing repeatedly, with Thursday's most concrete contribution indicating possible interest by the Pulitzer chain, which already owns Kauai's Garden Island newspaper.

ESOP planning continues in the mood of "let's be players, not victims". Not everyone is excited about the ESOP possibilities. I guess newspapers aren't yet considered part of the the dot com-stock option madness.

The sun rises at 5:48 a.m. in Kaaawa these mornings, which is as early as it is going to get. During this part of the year, we don't make it down to the beach before sunrise, but even the post-sunrise views have been spectacular. Here's just a sample from the last two days.

 

June 3, Saturday

A late entry today after staying overnight in Honolulu, avoiding the drive across the mountains and up the coastline to Kaaawa after an evening with a few friends. We don't do it as often as we should, since it means leaving the cats with extra food and assuming they'll manage just fine. It somehow seems that there's always one cat or another that is ailing, and that little niggle of worry sits in the back of my mind, battering away at the barriers of good sense.

In any case, we pushed ahead last night and partied on the Maunalani Heights, looking down over Diamond Head and Waikiki.

Our friends are very supportive, generally think we're a much better newspaper, and would like to be able to buy the Star-Bulletin in the morning instead of the other one.

That said, I found myself alone with Dane towards the end of the evening, while we were cleaning up and preparing to leave. He wanted to know what I really think is going to happen because, in his opinion, the economics of our situation aren't good.

I tried to describe the different things in play right now, and at least the possibility that a buyer will show up to take the paper independent.

His reaction was sobering. After hearing me out, he noted that objective trends are bad for newspapers in general, not only the Star-Bulletin, and a sale of the S-B would be a reprieve, not a solution. He sees more possibilities in the weeklies, lean, staff-poor but potentially profitable, and in a stripped down, web-centered product focused tightly on local news unavailable elsewhere. Of course, these are pretty gloomy forecasts from the standpoint of experienced reporters. It made for an unsettling end to an otherwise stimulating evening.

Good news, set aside for more than a week, is that the existing Guild contract has been extended beyond its June 11 expiration.

The Star-Bulletin earned first place for informational graphic in the Best of the West competition, which went to Dave Swann and Mike Rovner for a front page graphic explaining the Xerox building shootings. The judges report:

"This step-by-step look at an office massacre is clean, efficient and chilling," the judge wrote. "Editors and artists resisted the temptation to throw too much into this graphic. There is not a wasted word, line or color here. It spares us the color or typography that overpowered other graphics. It also had a clear hierarchy ("the weapon" is clearly presented as a sidebar.)"

I wonder if potential newspaper buyers care at all about such things, or if they tend to be afflicted with Gannett's extreme bottom line mentality?

After seeing the little item with the search info below, George Steele suggested my problem was that I removed Hiwa from the keyboard before she was able to run the spell check.

 

June 4, Sunday

It's tough to look forward to a summer of continued uncertainty and stress. The worst, in some ways, is the sense of treading water rather than heading anywhere in particular. We're waiting, and although being on yesterday's United flight that sat on the ground in Chicago for 8 hours would have been hell, our form of open-ended waiting isn't far behind.

For you cat people, a random memory of another June day. Tuesday will be the anniversary of "acquisition day" of one of our all time favorite cats, Kua, back in 1987. We can remember it because it was D-Day when Meda got "kitten fever" and we set out across town in search of a likely candidate. The result was Kua, captured in this photo staring out the screen door of our old townhouse apartment in Honolulu, along with Miki, our unrelated calico who decided to act as "mom". Miki is still with us 13 years later. Kua isn't.

 

June 5, Monday

Staff of City Beat, a Cincinnati alternative, voted a newspaper union leader one their "Best Local Heroes" for battling Gannett in their city's JOA:

Best Ink-Stained Wretch: Robert J. Bryan, president of Graphic Communications International Union Local 20N, the union that represents about 100 pressmen at the Queensgate facility that prints The Enquirer and The Post. Bryant, a retired pressman himself, battled Gannett - owner of The Enquirer and the presses for both papers - for more than a year to get a new contract to hold the wage scale and benefits the workers already had. He spoke at Gannett shareholder meetings and wrote letters to company directors like former First Lady Rosalind Carter. Gannett and the union finally signed a new contract in January.

I also stumbled across another treasure trove of interesting stuff yesterday--transcripts from the Washington Press Club Foundation's oral history of women in journalism. I happened to find one of these transcripts dealing with Gannett, but there's quite a list of fascinating interviews here.

Apart from that, we're just surviving week to week, and it's the start of yet another one for the Star-Bulletin.

 

June 6, Tuesday

The potential Star-Bulletin ESOP hit the news over the weekend with a story on the letter of interest signed by 75 percent of the existing staff and submitted to the broker handling the sale.

More recommended reading: a long piece in Salon.com on the San Francisco Examiner trial ("They Trade Horses, Don't They?").

More sobering news. APBNews.com, the award-winning and highly praised online news service focusing on crime issues, laid off all of its 140 employees yesterday after a third round of financing fell victim to the recent Internet stock plunge. So the mystique of the online world isn't ready to displace old fashioned type on paper quite yet. Whether that's good news or bad news for us here at the Star-Bulletin isn't clear.

Some indications are expected later this week of the potential for any buyer going to the stage of submitting a proposal. We hope for the best. I'm not sure how many folks are actively planning for the worst, just in case. My initial impression is that it is beginning to happen, but most folks are proceeding in a very low key, private manner. The danger is that planning, once initiated, can become self-fulfilling, leading to premature staff departures. Of course, after waiting this long, staffers would be reluctant to walk away from potential severance pay. We'll see.

I had a request for larger versions of photos from our morning walks so that they can be used as screen savers or desktop pictures. I've been keeping them small to save space, but will consider other options. In the meantime, if there's a particular photo you would like, just email me and I'll send a copy your way.

 

June 7, Wednesday

Sometimes I start to feel we're terribly confused and it's actually the Advertiser that is under attack, its staff facing unemployment or dislocation. At least the stories from across the hall convey that disorienting possibility.

Yesterday there was hallway gossip that Gannett/Advertiser folks are going to boycott the Society of Professional Journalists' awards banquet coming up in couple of weeks. It seems many of them feel there's some kind of conspiracy afoot that has biased judges against their submissions, although both SPJ and the Hawaii Publishers Association have done extra work to assure out-of-state judges for their respective competitions. It must be a conspiracy, because how else can they account for the "failing" Star-Bulletin garnering far more awards? And if it's a conspiracy, why should they attend? At least that's what Star-Bulletin staffers with friends across the hall are hearing.

Isn't life strange and interesting?

 

June 8, Thursday

Another "successful" online operation struggles to survive. This time it's Salon.com announcing layoffs of 9 percent of its staff, according to a story in today's San Francisco Chronicle.

The Chronicle also reported that its attorney has provided details of its fear that the Justice Department would sue if a deal was not reached for the Hearst Corp. to sell the Examiner before completing its purchase of the Chronicle.

``I concluded,'' said attorney Gerald Connell in a declaration filed yesterday, ``that the (Justice Department's antitrust) division staff would not accept the proposition that there was no buyer at liquidation value, and would recommend that a case be filed by the division to block Hearst's purchase of the Chronicle unless Hearst transferred the Examiner to someone who would continue to publish it.''

We've had no indication of Justice's continued interest or concern in the Honolulu case since a request for documents late last year. So whether there continues to be pressure from Justice is an unknown. But we can hope.

And in another sign of what must be tense times in the newsrooms of both SF newspapers, Joel Pimsleur, a former Chronicle writer, filed suit alleging that he was fired for criticizing the Hearst deal in a television news interview, the Chronicle reported yesterday.

 

June 9, Friday

We're heading into a long weekend created by the Kamehameha Day holiday on Monday. I'm sure there's an interesting history buried in Star-Bulletin lore to explain why this is included in our relatively short list of official days off. Perhaps someone who recalls will read this and respond.

Pressure continues to ratchet up while we continue to wait. If you can push rumor to reality by a collective force of will, then several friendly buyers will be submitting their preliminary proposals soon. On the other hand, there's a frustrating sense that this whole 65-day exercise is a sham, with Gannett hoping it will give them grounds to shut us down without further court interference, and the state and the newspaper guild believing it will be recognized as a sham and force the court to order Gannett and Liberty to devise terms for a more realistic officer.

In the meantime, we shuddered yesterday at the news that Gannett is gobbling up another 21 newspapers in five states, purchased for $1.1 billion from Thomson Corp. Another hammer blow on the stake aimed at the heart of American newspaper journalism.

And the Star-Bulletin's archive of articles on the battle over the proposed closure of the paper is now listed on the "related web sites" section of Yahoo's Full Coverage of media mergers. I guess it's one way of getting fame and notoriety. I tried unsuccessfully to get this diary on their list, but the "official" S-B site is a great source of information for folks around the world.

 

June 10, Saturday

Another day, another unexpected twist in the San Francisco newspaper case, where the judge has now asked the Justice Department to intervene in the case. According to a story by Reynolds Holding in today's SF Chronicle, the judge appears to be attempting to clarify the Justice Dept's assessment of antitrust arguments raised by both sides in the case.

DOJ signed off on the deal, indicating that it survived their antitrust scrutiny, but other aspects of their position have left lingering questions. In a story yesterday, Holding described copies of DOJ correspondence filed in court by attorneys for Clint Reilly, who is trying to block the sale of the Examiner. Reilly claims the DOJ letters support his position. Where this ends up will certainly impact on the Hawaii court's future decisions in the Star-Bulletin case, so we're watching closely. Staff messages have announced each new development from San Francisco as they roll across the AP wire.

Newsroom musings turned yesterday to conditions of survival. "What ifs" are always dangerous, and we could easily become mired in speculation about endlessly depressing scenarios. But they're obviously part of planning for the future. What if a buyer moves to bust the union? What if they demand concessions? What if the buyer is, very simply, a jerk? When would it be better to let the paper close than to continue under grim conditions?

Objectively, it's far to early to dwell on such potential problems. Subjectively, there isn't much else to do while waiting, and its hard to keep from exploring those dark places under the mental stairs, just to see if there's anything scary there.

 

June 11, Sunday

 "It's a joke." That's what one potential bidder says about "the book" of information about the Star-Bulletin being distributed by Gannett and Liberty Newspapers through their selected broker, according to an article by Peter Wagner.

Apparently "the book" contains no financial information. Nothing about the costs, or income, of the Star-Bulletin. Nothing that would allow a potential bidder to form an opinion about the viability of the investment.

The broker is trying to minimize the problem, saying that this stage is very preliminary and is only intended to identify "qualified" parties, with detailed financial data to follow. But the packet sent out appears to require any interested parties to submit a non binding proposal by June 19, including a tentative bid. Catch-22!

It's hard not to be paranoid in the midst of such craziness. It would be crazy not to be paranoid under the circumstances.

So it goes in Hawaii on a warm, clear Sunday morning.

For me, it's a morning walk followed by a drive to the vet with Buster, whose skin cancer on his forehead almost immediately reappeared following surgery just 6 weeks ago.

 

June 12, Monday

 We're one week away from the initial "deadline" for potential bidders to indicate their interest in the Star-Bulletin, and the scene is about as confused as possible.

Conflicting information is being handed out, financial data withheld, and it's unclear whether a recalcitrant Gannett is simply trying to sabotage any last chance of a real sale and continued competition from the Star-Bulletin.

With this holiday Monday, it will be a short week in the newsroom for most staffers, so a bit less time for sharing anxieties, for good or ill.

For those who asked about Buster: He's home, for now. We're getting referred to this vet hospital's best surgeon, and will consult with him this week. They'll have to try to cut a broader area on Buster's forehead, which will mean some reconstructive surgery and a "distinctive" new look. Well, for a beautiful cat who already has one cropped ear and a hole in the other ear, what's a bit more "distinction"? They also warn that he may have to stay at the vet during at least some of his recuperation, to keep him from injuring the area while it's healing. But the prognosis if we do nothing is grim, given this aggressive and quick growing spot. Just what we need during the otherwise already stressful period, but Buster doesn't know that.

But just to show he's still in charge, Buster went out Saturday night and defended his turf against an incursion by a cat who lives across the fence next door. They've watched each other through the fence for months, but that apparently doesn't count for much. I don't know yet how the other cat came out, but Buster had quite a battle, with scratches covering his head and shoulders. But, as the vet pointed out, all injuries were on the front end. "He never ran away," she noted.

 

June 13, Tuesday

George Steele had this reaction to the unfolding news about the Gannett-directed attempt to find a buyer for the Star-Bulletin as an independent daily newspaper:

i'm almost to the point of concluding that this is all an elaborate sham.

you ask your parents for a pony, and they take you to daiei.

"sorry, they don't have any ponies."

then they take you to liberty house.

"no ponies here."

then mcdonalds.

"never had a single pony."

by the end of the day, you've been exhausted by being dragged to all those places that never, EVER had ponies, and you whimper and give up.

and anytime you bring it up, they say "we TRIED. don't you remember?"

 

June 14, Wednesday

Nothing heard yesterday regarding any potential suitors as we drift towards Monday's deadline.

In fact, the absence of hallway gossip was unusual. We're just days from the deadline, and what else is there to say? The ESOP committee continues to meet, and will probably hear of any actual proposals before the rest of us.

Pacific Business News has a story in this week's edition by Erika Engle which focuses on the overlap of Guild contract talks and the attempt to sell the Bulletin.

The Denver Business Journal, a PBN sibling, had an interesting story last month about the antitrust scrutiny of the proposed Denver JOA by the Department of Justice. We're reading between the lines and trying to anticipate what this means for DOJ's interest in the Star-Bulletin's situation.

 

June 15, Thursday

The newsroom mood is getting serious as we approach the first of a series of internal deadlines in the court-directed process of marketing the Star-Bulletin. Potential buyers are supposed to register their interest by Monday. There's been a belief that there might be some disclosures at that time, giving us some way to gauge the survival potential, but that may not be the case. It is possible, I suppose, that the broker will keep it all confidential for a while longer, leaving us to dance with our anxieties for another unspecified period. Our only news may be through informal channels as potential bidders seek to make contact with our ESOP committee, or, in the case any local bidders, we benefit from home town networks.

In the meantime, the process, and the games being played by Gannett, continue to generate anger and frustration in our newsroom. There's a general sense that we're being screwed, and that the effort to sell the Star-Bulletin is being undercut by contradictory signals and a lack of information to potential buyers. It will be a hard deal to make at best, and Gannett's foot dragging only makes it harder.

An article in today's San Francisco Examiner reports that publisher Ted Fang intends to pay "union scale" but has not decided whether to recognize the union if his purchase of the paper is approved. The article also reports that Fang says he will pay a bonus if the paper dies after three years, but a much larger bonus if it survives, as an incentive to keep staffers on board.

The announcement of winners in the local SPJ chapter's annual competition will be made at a gathering Saturday night. That should be a strange session with raging undercurrents. Contrary to earlier rumors, I'm told the Advertiser reserved ten tickets, and their folks will hopefully attend.

 

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