Hearst threatens to close historic 'San Francisco Chronicle'
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Independent Minds
San Francisco could become the biggest city in the US without a daily newspaper if the San Francisco Chronicle's owner, Hearst, follows through on a threat to shut its doors.
The historic newspaper company says the Chronicle's 1,500 staff must agree to deep cuts and at least scores of redundancies within the next few weeks if they want to save the paper.
The crisis in the US newspaper industry has accelerated in the past few weeks, as proprietors respond to a collapse in advertising revenue that has been compounding the longer-term problem of declining readership. Dozens of local titles are under threat of closure and two regional newspaper groups went bankrupt last weekend.
The San Francisco Chronicle would be by far the biggest casualty to date. It is the 12th most read paper in the US, serving the country's 14th largest city by population. Gavin Newsom, the San Francisco mayor, warned of the consequences of its closure. "The Chronicle plays an important role in our civic life and we don't want to see this treasured institution close its doors," he said.
Hearst, founded by the magnate William Randolph Hearst, says the Chronicle is losing $50m (£35m) a year. "Survival is the outcome we all want to achieve," the company's chief executive, Frank Bennack, said. "But without specific changes we are seeking across the entire Chronicle organisation, we will have no choice but to quickly seek a buyer for the Chronicle, and, should a buyer not be found, to shut down the newspaper."
The history of the Chronicle stretches back to the California gold rush, when San Francisco was growing rapidly. It was founded as the Daily Dramatic Chronicle in 1865, by teenage brothers.
A union meeting was being held yesterday to discuss the closure threat.
Across the US newspaper industry, advertising revenues are falling at a faster pace than at any point in 37 years, and owners have been scrambling to cut costs, axing dividends to shareholders and selling non-newspaper assets to pay off debt.
Philadelphia Newspapers, owner of the East Coast city's famous Philadelphia Inquirer, filed for bankruptcy on Sunday, after being overwhelmed by debt. The Journal Register Co, owner of the New Haven Register, had filed for bankruptcy protection the previous day.
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Comments
It's not a new idea, you know, they have been charging for newspapers and magazines for hundreds of years, so it wouldn't really be that shocking to put another push behind it. If readership is really up among younger demographics, as Isaacson's article states, then they shouldn't mind coughing up a few cents an article to keep their favorite paper alive.
The death of the Chronicle would surely be heard around the nation as the eminent death-rattle of the print journalism industry. They've already been picking off the tenured, talented staffers in favor of younger, and cheaper writers who are less demanding of their employer financially. So, it begins to look like a very real possibility that we could soon be limited to only reading our news on the web.
I can't imagine a world without newspapers, and I don't even want to try. People should take a vested interest in what's happening here and put some support behind these threatened entities.
On a side note, good article, I like the writing.
I wholeheartedly disagree with you.
Free online content is not an issue, it's a remarkable development in the evolution of mass communication. The free exchange of ideas and information will only benefit mankind, not hinder it. If the New York Times were to begin charging users for accessing information online, I would cease visiting their website.
The failure to generate revenue from online banner advertisements is generally due to poor concept, design, and targeting, not to online media as a platform. The only 2 banner ads I see on this website are for "free government money" and the "Obituary Archive." Both are provided by Google AdWords, and both are tantamount to SPAM. Does The Independent REALLY expect to generate revenue off of such poorly targeted and poorly designed ads?
It is not a sad day that newspapers are facing bankruptcy. It is an accurate indicator of a dying industry. Print newspapers are wasteful, static and antiquated. If the SF Chronicle is losing $50 million a year and has been for 8 years, then it should rightfully fold. I'd argue the same about the Big 3 American automakers; they don't deserve a dime of bailout money.
This morning the 4 editors of The Daily Anchor published our opinions on the matter: http://www.thedailyanchor.com/2009/02/2
Cheers,
Andrew Lennon
Editor-in-Chief
The Daily Anchor | Marketing, Sales and Advertising Blog
www.thedailyanchor.com
I must conclude that you are without a soul. Perhaps that's part of your job description. Those who can write Jon Caroll's column; those who can't are editors-in-chief of The Daily Anchor.
HERB CAEN LIVES and may take vengeance upon soulless editors-in-chief
Would you make them buy a computer, learn how to use one, and then have them try to navigate on-line, just so they could read the daily news? Or are you suggesting they go skip, hop and jump to the nearest library every day and use the computers there? Or, instead of reading the in-depth news and terrific columns of every day life in the Chronicle, be reduced to merely hearing the "news" or a few mouthfuls of soundbites on the radio, and shut up and be happy with that?
I had been employed there as a knowledge engineer and I knew that the company could only stay competitive if it had the foresight to provide information in innovative ways. But with such people as executive editor Matthew Wilson and human relations director Susan Bloch calling the shots, the company's lack of vision and emphasis on mediocrity set it in a direction that was bound to have negative consequences.
Even the union leadership cannot escape blame. The Media Guild was weak, and in the late 1990s, they sold the membership out by endorsing a "sweetheart" contract that, in my opinion, weakened morale and didn't take into account the skyrocketing cost of health benefits.
When the Hearts Corp. bought the paper in 2000, it was buying already-damaged goods. The Chronicle's failure to survive is a lesson for other newspapers that have failed to to keep up with the pace of information technology.
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