Slicing and Dicing a Newspaper

An editors' blog chronicling the debate is, at times, brutally candid. "Personality: The Merc has none. Or at least it's not one that's immediately apparent," one entry says. "We repeatedly heard that people felt the writing and storytelling was flat, monotonous. . . . Many Merc staffers remain cynical that the process is going to lead anywhere."

Some comments have also been harsh. "This initiative is about feigning interest in what people want," one man wrote. "Then the Merc will find ways to cut the product even more." Another said the paper's writing style "is not just bland, it's simplistic. Most of the articles seem to be written at a 6th grade level at best."

Said another man: "Please bear in mind that there is a 'silent majority' of subscribers in this area who read the Mercury News for what it is -- a daily newspaper. We are not plugged into the Internet 24/7. We don't have devices to read the news, anytime, anywhere -- hell, some of us out here don't even have computers. We really couldn't give a damn about your Web site. You have taken us for granted. This is a huge error on your part."

Yet the loudest complaints so far have involved a cutback in Sunday comics and the difficulty in finding crossword and Sudoku puzzles -- hardly what journalists spend their time worrying about. "That is the main thing that drives people nuts. Wow, people love the puzzles," O'Brien says.

Could all this slicing and dicing be for naught? The Mercury News might succeed in jump-starting its Web operation, but online sites, for the moment, don't produce the kind of revenue needed to support a large reporting staff.

Hutton says that when she was growing up in the 1960s, her mother, who raised four children on her own, read an afternoon paper each night. But the industry, she says, has been remarkably slow to recognize that it now competes with everything from video games to cable systems with hundreds of digital channels.

"I've been very clear with everyone since I got here: Nothing is guaranteed in the future," Hutton says.

The Blog Bog

As newspapers rush to embrace blogs, some of them are getting bruised in the process.

The Cleveland Plain Dealer launched its Wide Open blog last summer, inviting four local Democratic and Republican activists to write for the site. But after the paper discovered that one of the Democrats, Jeff Coryell, had contributed $100 to a Democratic congressional candidate, Coryell refused a demand that he stop writing about the candidate and was forced off the blog. Editors said they were concerned that the paper's fairness could be questioned since the bloggers were paid. The other Democrat promptly quit, and the Plain Dealer shut down the blog, saying: "A car can't run on two wheels, and Wide Open can't continue with only one side of the political spectrum represented."

Coryell wrote on another Ohio blog that he was "extremely disappointed" the paper had tried "to limit what a freelance political blogger could write." Outside bloggers ripped the Plain Dealer, with Buzz Machine's Jeff Jarvis calling it "self-centered and truly self-righteous."

The Newark Star-Ledger gave a blog to Carla Katz, president of the New Jersey union representing state and local government employees, and a former girlfriend of Gov. Jon Corzine. Katz soon used the blog to rip Star-Ledger reporter Josh Margolin for being "downright obsessed" with covering her and efforts by dissidents to oust her.

"I was thinking that if the Ledger is going to write soooooo much about me and the Local that I should even the playing field and, well, write about Josh. The Josh chronicles," Katz wrote. "So folks, send me your best Josh Margolin stories." Margolin took the criticism in stride, telling Editor & Publisher, "Once anyone is given the space to blog, the call is clear, they have the right to say what they want to say."