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I was tempted to blog this the other day, but was waiting for some key info to appear. That info just arrived.
As you may have heard, LA TIMES editor John Carroll recently gave a speech in which he slammed Fox News as being biased. FOX chairman and CEO Roger Ailes responded in a Wall Street Journal article:
...Mr. Carroll essentially announced that the reason Fox News Channel is the No. 1 cable news network and is gaining viewers is because the American people are stupid and gullible.
...Mr. Carroll’s pathetic attempt to smear Fox News Channel will only drive his paper’s circulation down, as it should. Fox News Channel’s audience in Los Angeles is increasing daily. The Los Angeles Times is becoming less relevant in people’s lives, so Mr. Carroll is trying to flog health back to a newspaper by attacking television news.
Ailes was implying that the LA TIMES is being hurt financially by its policy of suppressing information favorable to political views it opposes. At the time, I could find no recent info to support the contention that profits at the LA TIMES were off.
That was just a few days ago. Now we see this (via LA Observed ):
Hammer hangs over LAT staff
Five Pulitzers or no, Tribune Publishing president Jack Fuller just threw a pall over the newsroom at the L.A. Times. While rumors swirl about 60 impending editorial department layoffs (and 120 overall), Fuller’s note to employees avoided specifics:
From: Corporate-Relations
Sent: Monday, June 07, 2004 1:39 PM
Subject: Message from Jack Fuller/Cost-Saving Initiatives
Dear Fellow Employee,
Today we released our summary of revenues for May and announced that we are reducing expenses across the publishing group through a series of cost saving initiatives. We’re taking this action because revenue growth at some of our newspapers has not materialized as fast as we had originally planned. While the help-wanted advertising category continues to improve and preprint advertising is growing, other advertising categories at some of our newspapers are experiencing difficulties. The problem is limited to a few newspapers, including the Los Angeles Times.
Failing to react to the revenue shortfall in publishing would cause a drag on the earnings of Tribune Company as a whole. By implementing expense control initiatives immediately, we can avoid that. Additionally, next year we expect to face continued expense pressure due to pension and retirement costs and a possible increase in the price of newsprint. The cost saving measures we implement now will help us deal with these 2005 issues, as well.
Implementation of expense control initiatives is being determined by each individual business unit and may consist of both staff reductions and other cost saving measures.
Sincerely,
Jack
So profits are indeed off. The question remains, is the LA TIMES offending its own readers with its biased news coverage?
We know that the TIMES itself admitted to losing at least 10,000 subscriptions due to its coverage of Schwarzennegger during his election campaign. Fox News, which supports America and wants to see us succeed in the war on terror, is the #1 cable news network. The slanting of news by the media is less of a secret now that we in the blogosphere are all over it.
I’ll conclude with this telling quote, again from Ailes’ Wall St. Journal article:
... He [LA TIMES editor Carroll] owes the fine journalists at the Fox News Channel an apology for his insulting comments. However, we will never see that. He treated Fox News Channel worse in his newspaper than he treated the terrorists who recently beheaded an American.
That’s a telling point. The LA TIMES was done with the Nick Berg story in record time; but for weeks it couldn’t print enough stories slamming Bush, the U.S., and U.S. soldiers over Fallujah. And when its editor gives a major speech, it isn’t to attack the forces trying to kill Americans—it’s to attack Fox News, which supports our efforts to save American lives.
Yes—that may indeed explain why they’re losing money.
#1
#2>Declining circulation is an industry-wide problem that has been discussed, with much hand wringing, for years.
Yes; but for years the press has been trying to control this country via supressing of views opposed to the ones they are pushing. It may be that the public is catching on and saying, we're going to look elsewhere for the real story.
All that hand-wringing and the press can't see the forest for the trees. Let them show love and support for Americans, and Americans may show them love and support back.
It's overly simplistic to claim that circulation at LAT is down because of unfavorable editorial coverage. There is, rightly so, a big difference between the tone of the editorial page and the front page.
Declining circulation is an industry-wide problem that has been discussed, with much hand wringing, for years. Average reader ages are continuing to increase as younger readers find news from different sources. Every publishing group in the country is actively courting the youth markets with new products. Tribune Company, the parent of the LA Times, is now publishing "Red Eye" in Chicago, a tabloid format paper that is supposed to appeal to younger readers.
On top of the readership issue, print advertising is in a continued slump. After 9/11 print advertising had the biggest decrease since the '20s. It hasn't, and won't, fully recover to previous levels. The dot com boom funneled a huge amount of very profitable ads into many publications. This cannot be replaced. Every publisher is continuing to tighten their belt, and minimize expenses.
The story from Tribune Company is that they are looking to eliminate 200 jobs across the entire chain. That is less than 1%. That kind of decrease is fairly small in this era of corporate profit over everything else. LA Times and Baltimore Sun are first offering buy outs to any employee who wants it. If they cannot find enough who want that, they may have layoffs. The rumors swirling comment from LA Observed is just that, rumors. News rooms are filled with people who jump at the first bit of gossip. Believe 60 fewer editorial positions when you see it.
Lastly, it's telling that the CEO of Fox News would expect journalists to treat anyone badly. Terrorism in every form is dispicable and cowardly. However, it is not the job of a newspaper to cast judgement from the news page. The editorial page is another matter. That is rightfully the place of opinion. If your opinion doesn't match theirs, too bad. Expecting every voice to line up in agreement is silly at best, and disturbingly dangerous at worst. Business conditions are certainly having a larger impact on the Tribune Company than editorial positions.