Thursday, June 23, 2011
Media Gannett and The Tennessean to Journalism: Drop Dead
Posted by Matt Pulle on Thu, Jun 23, 2011 at 12:33 PM
Yesterday morning, at a time when The Tennessean desperately needed to assure its readers that hope was not lost, the lead story on its website was about alternatives to vanilla ice cream. In a way, that was perfect. In the wake of massive layoffs at The Tennessean, we’re all looking for something else to read besides our bland, generic and utterly innocuous daily paper.
In fact, there’s no point in even getting mad at it anymore.
The Tennessean, as we know it, is dead. If that sounds a tad melodramatic, let me explain: The days when our daily deserved, at the very least, your intermittent attention over coffee because for all its gaping flaws it was the dominant news source in town, well, I think those days are gone. Who knows what happens next? Maybe 10 years from now the paper will consist of little more than recipes and slide shows of Jason Aldean.
Tuesday’s news that Gannett was giving up on journalism and slashing 20 positions from the Tennessean’s newsroom as a part of a broader company-wide purge signals a new era for the paper, one of flickering relevance and frivolous content, one where you can go a week without picking up the paper and not skip a beat. This has never been the case. During all those years when Henry Walker and I ridiculed the decisions of then-editor Frank Sutherland and then-managing editor David Green — such as Sutherland's Survivor-inspired wine column advising which zinfandels go best with insects — we at least took the paper seriously most of the time. And we felt like you did too.
Even when our daily started trimming its political coverage while promoting the celebrity musings of Brad Schmitt as if he were Tom Wolfe, The Tennessean still featured relevant and engaging journalism. Whether it was the withering (and schizophrenic) attack columns from Tim Chavez avidly pounding Bredesen, Brad Schrade’s investigative series on cronyism at the Tennessee Highway Patrol, or, yes, Schmitt’s bitchy coverage of the latest B-list divorce, the paper still had a way, like most dailies, of getting people to talk and take note.
That doesn’t really happen anymore. The paper still has some hard-working, visible reporters — Michael Cass and Brandon Gee immediately come to mind, among others — but upper management does its best to diminish their work. Earlier this month, the paper featured a front-page, above-the-fold story about how the Titans and Predators manage to avoid problems when they tweet. (“Careless tweets can spell trouble,” read the alarming subhed.) When you make that story the centerpiece of your news coverage, why should your readers take anything else in your paper seriously?
None of this is to suggest I have any answers on how Gannett and The Tennessean can revive its business. If I did, I wouldn’t be a part-time volunteer blogger for Pith in the Wind. And to be fair, my friends at SouthComm aren’t exactly ready to pick up the slack. There are some weeks in which the City Paper and the Scene are about as thick as Mila Kunis, and neither is exactly overburdened with staff.
But any of us can figure out what approach doesn’t work: Headlining stories about Twitter and ice cream, posting slide shows about local celebs, and eschewing all controversial commentary on anyone important — in the hopes of attracting new generations of apathetic readers.
You know what happens when you cater your newspaper to people who don’t read newspapers? The people who do read newspapers won’t want to read your newspaper anymore. And the people who weren’t reading your newspaper in the first place still won’t be reading your newspaper. They’re too busy tweeting.
Comments (28)
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I wish I didn't have to read it at all. I'm thinking 10 more months and I can bypass it entirely. If you want to read gushing descriptions of $123 flip-flops and $80 candles (with space-gobbling photos of both) and need a weekly fix of Ozment or a related character childishly defaming immigration-controllers (with no balance whatsoever), The Tennessean is your read. Hey, The Scene is, too. Truly the alternative!
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I'm not willing to pay to read articles written by 6th graders who have yet to master the art of spelling and grammar. And with all the violence going on in Nashville these days, I will not read another article that says some guy shot his dead wife. Articles, if they can even be called that, written by so-called "reporters", are nothing more than teasers. Whatever happened to who, what, where, when, why and how? Whatever happened to follow-up stories? Whatever happen to good investigative reporting? Whatever happened to the Tennessean? :(
I don't read the Tennessean or the Nashville Scene. I'm not even from Tennessee. I saw this link posted on Facebook and decided to read it. And I'm not really sure what your point was.
As a journalist myself, I don't see the need for kicking a newspaper while its down. I have had several close friends laid off from newspapers, and it is traumatic and devastating, regardless of your age. For young people laid off as part of a "first hired, first fired" ordeal, it's extremely jarring to come to work with that love of journalism you have fresh out of college, only to have someone tell you that you don't have a job any more, but it's not because you suck, it's because it's cheaper without you around. For older journalists, it's being told, "You've given your heart and soul to this paper, but that wasn't enough."
It doesn't sound like the Tennessean is the greatest place in the world to work, and I would venture to guess this layoff has only made it worse.
I support people holding newspapers accountable, but this was a low blow. I feel as though you could have written this same column and used it as an opportunity to educate your readers about the struggles newsrooms are going through. You don't work at the Tennessean, and therefore, you don't know the full story, so don't pretend to.
During the election process between Clinton and Bush 41 The Tennesean ran photos of the campaigners side by side on the front page. Clinton's photo showed him smiling while holding a baby. Bush's photo showed him scowling and pointing a finger. Innocent and unintentional bias? I don't think so.
Two of my friends were let go from Gannett's Rochester paper on Tuesday. One of them had just bought a house. And one of my dearest friends, an amazing copy chief, was let go from the same paper a little more than a year ago. I don't think she has ever fully recovered. Probably never will. The human toll in all of this passed the unbearable mark long ago.
The answer to rejuvenating The Tennessean is relatively simple, Matt, though it won't happen overnight -- cover the BASIC news: cop shop, courts, politics, government, schools, planning commissions, etc., etc., etc. (My God, for the most part this past state legislative session, The Tennessean relied on my good friends Tom Humphrey of the Knoxville News-Sentinel and Lucas Johnson of the Associated Press to cover the state capitol -- outrageous! In my 18 years there, we usually had a minimum of 3 reporters on the Hill daily during the session.)
Hand reporter's notebooks to some of that top-heavy management staff and put them to work; hire more reporters. Get Schmitt back to help cover cops, and Darnell on Belle Meade, and Daughtrey on the Hill, and Kerr on Metro Council, find some piss-and-vinegar investigative reporters like Laura Franks and Shiela Wissner, and on and on and on. Turn them all loose on Middle Tennessee and see what happens. That paper could kick some ass other than its own.
Time was, every TV and radio station assignment desk went through The Tennessean first before deciding what to cover on a given day. I still have many friends from my days at 1100 Broadway who toil daily in various vineyards there, but must constantly look over their shoulders for fear of being laid off or furloughed. Do something about morale -- like saying "nice job," or "good work." Those staffers do their work inside of ridiculously early deadlines: God forbid Jesus come back after 10 p.m. -- it wouldn't make the paper the next day -- it'd be the day after!
Readers will come back "home" to The Tennessean if management will just open the coverage door and forget about the effing bottom line. It's that simple, folks.
Well, great. The Nashville Scene dragged goddamn Matt Pulle back from law school to rub a little salt in our layoff wounds. Doesn't that just supersize this turd sandwich of a week for us all.
Hey, Nashville Scene! How 'bout you make this a weekly event?
Week One of our five-week wait to see if we're going to get laid off, along with 16 percent of the newsroom! Breaking news: Matt Pulle thinks you suck!
Week two! Guess what! Pulle still thinks you suck! Let's gather some community commenters to discuss how awesome it's going to be when you're fired!
Week three! We hire Matt Pulle to produce a six-part series detailing how every story, ever, in the Tennessean has sucked! Especially yours!
Week four! Are you bleeding from your eyeballs yet? Matt Pulle says, it's probably just your suck, trying to escape!
Week five! In five days, you have a one-in-six chance of getting fired! Thank goodness! Then your suck will no longer be making the streets of Nashville all sticky!
Week six! We fly Matt Pulle back to town to track you down in line at the unemployment office and punch you repeatedly in the kidneys.
Because the Nashville Scene thinks you deserve it, Tennessean! Because despite writing your fucking heart out for this town every fucking day, The Nashville Scene thinks it's hilarious that 125 reporters, photographers, editors and copy editors who are scared out of their goddamn minds right now.
When you snipe at the Tennessean, you fucking snipe at us. Gannett's not the Tennessean. WE are the Tennessean. And we are fucking awesome.
Our political coverage is awesome. Our community coverage is awesome. Our sports coverage is awesome. Our education coverage will give you a Ph.D. by proxy. Our columnists are awesome. Our goddamn ice cream slideshows are genius. We are 2011 Pulizter finalists! Hear us roar!
And if we're fortunate enough to keep our jobs come Aug. 1, we will continue to report circles around you, Nashville Scene. And if we lose our jobs, well, we'll be broke and heartbroken, but still pretty damn awesome.
So back the fuck off, you clownshoes.
"Our political coverage is awesome. Our community coverage is awesome. Our sports coverage is awesome. Our education coverage will give you a Ph.D. by proxy. Our columnists are awesome. Our goddamn ice cream slideshows are genius. We are 2011 Pulizter finalists! Hear us roar!"
This is a joke, right? The only thing about the Tennessean that is awesome is how awesomely it sucks. And this has been true for quite some time. Gannett has destroyed the Tennessean, as it has every newspaper it has sucked into its McNews maw. The piss-poor quality of the writing, the sparseness of its coverage, the lack of depth, the lack of knowledge of the city, the focus on the trivial, the focus group- and poll-driven decisions about content, the bastardizing of the editorial page. Did you see that they are having a contest to try and even get a local columnist?
Like the old Mary Tyler Moore show, the only local writer still around is the most incompetent (Gail Kerr, who has not been seen getting off her considerably fat ass to actually get out of the office for any reason except to go to luch in many years and specializes in writing about the obvious or the unimportant). Gannett persists in cycling out what few reporters it is willing to pay into other cities. Even the sports page is outdone by sports radio day-in and day-out.
If not for the obituary page (a paid advertisement service, by the way; the Tennessean will let you know someone is dead, but any details come at a price), there would be no value whatsoever in this rag. You can't even find out the movie times on Saturday morning. East has great ideas, but the profit-driven corporate fucks who run Gannett have no concept of the civic responsibility of a newspaper. Meanwhile, yes, the Tennessean sucks. It is not "awesome" except in its awfulness, and 20 less writers can't make it anything but even worse, as impossible as that might seem.
CJR's headline said it all:
"Gannett’s Multimillionaires Regret to Inform 700 Workers of Their Layoffs"
http://www.cjr.org/the_audit/gannetts_mult…
And the sad story:
Gannett says “we need to take further steps to align our costs with the current revenue trends,” so it’s laying off 700 employees in its newspaper division—about 2 percent of the company’s total workforce.
Poynter’s Jim Romenesko is good to note that Bob Dickey, the guy who announced the “extremely difficult and painful decisions,” got paid $3.4 million last year.
And he’s not even the CEO.
That’s Craig Dubow, who raked in $9.4 million.
And $3.4 million Dickey isn’t even No. 2 in the Gannett lottery. Chief Operating Officer Gracia Martore took home a whopping $8.2 million. Plus, the struggling newspaper company (redundant, I know) had at least three other multimillionaires on the payroll: CFO Paul Saleh, who made $2.9 million; USA Today publisher David Hunke, who got $2.5 million; and president of broadcasting Dave Lougee, who got a mere $2.2 million. These folks are kidding, right?
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When Gannett started laying people off back in 2009 I remember several folks pointing out how insanely profitable the newspaper company is. It just isn't profitable enough to satisfy shareholders and greedy corporate executives.
Perry:
You're dead on except for one thing. The corporate fucks at Gannett DO understand the concept of civic responsibility. They just believe that no such responsibility rests on the shoulders of a daily newspaper. I heard Craig Moon unabashedly make this point once in a lecture at the Owen School, after he had so impressed his Gannett bosses by dismantling the Tennessean that they promoted him to USA Today. As Moon explained it, Gannett believes its newspapers are obligated to (a) give subscribers the kind of news that interests them (as revealed by polling data) and (b) "add value" for shareholders.
I'm a Tennessean subscriber, Can't Think, and I can tell you: Your education coverage is not good. "Our education coverage will give you a Ph.D. by proxy" -- seriously -- I hope that was a joke.
I'm an ex-Gannett employee, and while the woeful mismanagement of the corporation inspires me to dance around this bonfire, the fact there's nowhere for reporters, editors and photogs to take their skills to is a far more sobering issue. Beating a dead horse did little to advance a conversation regarding a much bigger issue in this community and nationwide. I loathe Gannett, but just like this week's round of layoffs, you brought nothing inspiring or relevant to the discussion - you even fixated on criticisms of an editorial agenda long since defunct due to these kinds of layoffs. I got over my fixation, get over yours and let's figure out what the fuck we're gonna do now.
And to top it off each year there are seven journalism graduates for each job available in Tennessee.
Oh were the days of getting the Tennessean in the morning to find out everything that had happened overnight, or was going to happen the coming day(s) in politics, everyday life in Nashville and surrounding areas, human interests, police and the crime going on and how they were handling it, etc. We knew when it was election time to read everything going on in the Tennessean, and then come home that afternoon to our Nashville Banner that gave us the other side of the politics and news, and all these other things I mentioned above. It gave us balanace here in Nashville and the surrounding areas. We always got a look at all sides without things being onesided it seemed. Then, the Banner closed. The Tennessean carried on and seemed to do a really good job of covering all of the news for a while, but as time as gone on the changing of ownership has changed how the owners want things done, and the have changed and changed things so, that I hardly recognize the paper I once knew. There are many good writers at the paper, and I'm sure that all work hard to do the best they can at their jobs, and losing your job or the fear of losing your job is not a good one. I've been there and done that when I too lost my job somewhere after 29+ years for downsizing after putting my heart and soul into my work. It's never easy to lose a job. But, the Tennessean needs to revive the days of telling both sides of the story, not just one side. It gets old, and it always seems to appear that they are siding with the administration no matter what area of government they are talking about. Many times you can tell by the story that the reporter has not been out to talk with the people that are involved with the stories, and I have found this many times. I want to say, get out of the office, go find out where this ?? is located, or see what is going on ???, but you can tell from the story they are not doing that. They think Nashville West Shopping Center is in Bellevue (it's not, it's in West Nashville in the Charlotte Park, Hillwood neighborhoods area). They think that the Brewhouse on Charlotte Pike at River Road is in Bellevue (it's not, it's in West Nashville by West Meade and River Road area). Look at the 37209 zip code, everything North of I-40 is 37209 (West Nashville Post Office - not Bellevue 37221).
I love my paper every morning, The Tennessean, and I wouldn't know what to do without having my paper in my hand every morning, even though I can go on the internet and look up things, I want my newspaper in my hand while I drink my morning coffee. I have taken the Tennessean for 45 years here in Nashville, and read the Tennessean at my parents home growing up, too. So, you see I love my paper, and I do want it to succeed, but the newspaper needs to get back to the grassroot reporting and report both sides, and do indepth study, not just repeating what a person tells you over the phone. Get out there and get that story, and save this newspaper for me and others!!!!!
You know, as a Tennessean reporter, I agree with most of what my somewhat disgruntled co-worker said above, but not everything.
Yes, we are all on pins and needles not knowing who will stay and who will go. Yes, I think it's wrong for some people this blog to kick us when we're down, so to speak. But I refuse to get to the point where I yell, scream and cuss about it.
This week has been trying at 1100 Broadway and that's putting it mildly folks, but anger solves nothing.
I'm a reporter and I love my job. Personally, and yes I might be a little biased here, I think some of our coverage is top notch. We were, in fact, named a Pulizter Prize finalist for our flood coverage. I, like many of my fellow reporters, was devastated by what I saw out there and tried my best to put my feelings into words for our readers. It was nice to be appreciated for that effort. But, that said, I'm not completely deluded. Yes, there are areas that need work. I can think of examples from my own body of work. There are things I could have done better. I'd love the chance to stay and improve, but I won't know my fate for another month at least.
Until then, though, I can tell each and every one of you that I'll bust my butt doing the best work I can. I'll look at my stories and scrutinize them inch by inch thinking how I could have done better. I'm a writer and that's what writers do. I love this town. I will never leave Tennessee because it's my home. If I lose my job, and yes, I have a one in six chance of that happening, I'll pick myself up, dust myself off and I'll start over. Am I scared, absolutely, but I have faith and I have a wonderful supportive family.
I regret nothing about my career at the Tennessean. I don't think we're crazy for working here, like one person pointed out on here. I think we do it because we're passionate about it. At least, that's the reason I get up, get out of bed and come to work still excited.
I still have the fire in the belly, as my mother would call it, for journalism. I don't think it will ever go away.
To me, each and every co-worker at the Tennessean is special because we all share that same fire. I can't believe what someone said about Gail Kerr earlier. She is someone that I respect and admire, and anyone who has seen her lately would never, ever call her a "fat ass." She's skin and bones. She's sick and she's still busting her butt for this paper. That, my friends, is what I call a trooper. You might not agree with everything she writes, but you have to admire that kind of spirit. I know I do.
Reporters, many of us would not be so upset if we didn't know the nature and the extent of the damage to this nation that the intentional failures of "journalism" have enabled.
And if we weren't so familiar with an earlier standard.
"Gannett's not the Tennessean. WE are the Tennessean. And we are fucking awesome."
No. You suck. Your reporting is under-developed (read: you suck). Your editing is, at times, little more than spell check, and even then typos can be found in the lede (read: you suck). Your design is unimaginative (read: you suck). Your investigative stories ... where are they? Show me some (read: you suck). Your columnists are lazy, and faaaaar too often regurgitate press releases (read: you suck). And you deliver newspapers to people who neither subscribed nor paid for a subscription, yet you count them in your circulation figures (read: you suck).
The real news is online! These so-called journalists at The Tennessean can keep their muli-culti garbage, soft news, and product reviews. The editors wouldn't let you write a real story even if you had the inclination. No, you don't care about truth, you just care about holding onto your job. Well, guess what? The world is changing and you must change too if you want to survive.
My comments were mainly directed toward Gannett and the appropriately-designated "corporate fucks" who have systematically destroyed the Tennessean along with its other papers. Spiderri speaks truth, though, the Tennessean sucks in all respects. I do feel sorry for the reporters who will lose their jobs, thanks to Gannett's incompetence, mismanagement, cluelessness, callousness, and lack of focus. The Tennessean is failing because it is a bad product. The solution, of course, is not to make the product worse by further devaluing the product.
As for Gail Kerr, though, her being sick doesn't absolve her of her many, may years of laziness, her inept and worthless columns, her allegiance to the Nashville oligarchy, her failure to ever leave the office to actually learn anything about what is happenng in Nashville, her focus on the trivial and her pointing out the obvious. Betcha she will somehow remain while more worthy employees, perhaps those who posted here, will get their walking papers.
But Godfrey is also right. What now? The Scene has a limited staff and limited readership for that matter. Bloggers may be part of the "new media," but they are not journalists or what can really be called reporters, they have no standards of quality or accuracy, and they almost always have some kind of axe to grind, often a bizarre one. You can preach the gospel of the internet all you want, but the fact is, the information it synthesizes and transmits (especially anything of substance) quite often originates where? Why, in a newspaper or a wire service. TV is so limited by time and subject to the herd mentality as it decides what needs to be covered (more devastating by far than the propangandizing of FOXNews or MSNBC) at the national level, or so shallow (rain storms, crime, apartment fires) at the local level, that it is worthless as a news source. So as Gannett and its clones destroy real responsible journalism, make the profession's jobs disappear (or pay so little that no one will want them), where will we turn for what we used to know as news? Who will make the First Amendment protection of freedom of the press even mean anything? The demise of newspapers like the Tennessean, even one that Gannett has tuned into a pathetic joke like the Tennessean, is just not good for America. Gannett is a sorry, disgraceful, despicable sack of shit. It has a lot to answer for. It makes money as it decimates journalism, and that has terrible consequences for all of us.
It is time for everyone on this post to read H. Marshall McLuhan. When I thought about journalism 40 years ago, I recognized there wasn't any room for personal innovation. The game of Chess has more Queens & Kings and not nearly enough pawns....
As a blogger (and perhaps even one with a bizarre axe to grind), I just want to second what Perry Aubric is saying--blogging can't replace actual paid journalism. Period. End of story. And people who claim it can are either lying to themselves or lying to bloggers or both. What blogging is is basically the online equivalent of old men in the coffee shop gossiping in the morning. Yes, there's a lot of knowledge and a lot of insight, but none of those guys are going down to the morgue to see if the injuries on a body match the police report. And neither am I.
For me, the reason it's so terrifying to watch the Tennessean circle the drain is not because I think they're doing such a terrific job (I mean, please, the story about the struggles of the weight-loss church? I was embarrassed for the Tennessean that that ran.); they have earned every bit of criticism they have. But because we still need a good daily paper in this town, we still need people who are paid to do things that volunteers can't, won't, and don't have the skills for.
Even if Gannett thinks they need fewer people in the newsroom there, I KNOW we need more.
This town needs a functioning daily paper. And the fact that our daily paper is owned by people who don't seem to think that's so? That should be very upsetting to everyone in town.
While agreeing with the rest of your post, Betsy, the weight-loss church story was actually one of the few news pieces on the Tennessean website I have bothered to read lately. (I cancelled my subscription 7 years ago and have barely missed it.) The local media got scooped on that whole story some years ago when the New Yorker article appeared.
I subscribe, but I'm constantly disappointed at the puny local section. During legislative session, the local section should be 3-4 times the size it normally is, because those idiots on the Hill debate and pass a lot of legislation that changes the lives of Tennesseans, but relatively little of it is reported. We have to embarass ourselves nationally, before the Tennessean really pays attention.
And just once, I'd like to see a reporter actually verify what a politician tells him/her. I read repeated lies, both direct and implied, by Jack Johnson and Debra Maggart in the Tennessean concerning the changes being made in education law, and not once did the reporter bother to vet the truth of the statements.
Perry Aubric, whoever you are out in this big ole world, and however much I agree with you on some things -- what sort of graduate credentials in being an asshole did you have to acquire to launch such a vicious personal attack on Gail Kerr, and then just amplify it when you learn she has been gravely ill?
I hope that's your real name, so I never have to take you seriously again nor, should we meet, to shake your hand.
Gee, Tom. Guess I didn't get the memo that being in the public eye and writing a thrice-weekly column in a newspaper somehow exempts someone from criticism. I have a chronic condition myself; how dare you criticize me? Being sick, according to you, makes any person immune from being reviewed, critiqued, or evaluated, doesn't it? Even if they are in the public eye and a part of a discussion about how bad a newspaper might suck.
I think that particular columnist's work is terrible and symptomatic of the problems with Gannett and it's substandard local local product. That you don't like that means exactly zero to me.
