Media Limbo

There's more uncertainty this morning for the journalists who work at the Philadelphia Inquirer, Philadelphia Daily News and San Jose Mercury News, along with nine other papers.

Knight Ridder is selling them, but McClatchy doesn't want them. The McClatchy chain is going to turn around and sell them to someone else. So they are, for the moment, orphans.

This is a sadly symbolic moment in the history of newspapers, with the once-proud Knight Ridder outfit bailing out of the biz under pressure from a major shareholder, having presided over the decline of a number of papers, but particularly the Inquirer, which was once a shining jewel under the editorship of Gene Roberts in the 1970s and 1980s.

There is a terrific piece by Michael Shapiro in Columbia Journalism Review on all the twists and turns and failed strategies to restore the Inky to its former luster in recent years. It happens to include a comment I published in 2001 from Knight Ridder spokesman Polk Laffoon IV: "Our definition of what is good journalism here has evolved from the time Gene Roberts was editing The Philadelphia Inquirer. We put a lot of emphasis on local news and useful or service-oriented features and news that readers tell us over and over that they want . . . health and nutrition, personal finance, personal technology."

Well, that didn't work. Neither did having more suburban zones, having fewer suburban zones, cutting foreign bureaus, concentrating on regional stories, and a bunch of other schemes. Even now, with the Inquirer having eliminated 75 editorial jobs, 15 percent of the newsroom, Editor Amanda Bennett has come up with a reinvention plan that involves ignoring daily stories to which the Inquirer can't add anything in favor of smarter and sharper analysis pieces and deep narratives, as well as breaking more stories on the Web. Unfortunately, much of the staff views this as the paper wanting everything -- fewer reporters doing more work and writing more online stuff that takes away from the supposedly smarter print pieces -- with the risk that it ends up with nothing, or at least no significant journalistic improvement.

And what if the new owner, whoever that is, believes the way to go is to cut even more jobs? That seems to have been the Tony Ridder strategy until now, and look what it's produced. Even if you buy the notion that the Inquirer's profit margins, said to be in the 15 to 17 percent range, were inadequate in an age when Wall Street demands 25 percent or more from this aging business, is slashing staff -- and, inevitably, quality -- the way to go? Isn't that a vicious cycle?

(I'm well aware, as I mentioned yesterday, that The Washington Post is about to reduce its newsroom by 10 percent with the second early retirement program in just over two years, and I hope that won't hurt the editorial product too badly, since we do have a very large staff. Clearly, it will hurt somewhat, no question about it, especially since some of the most talented and employable folks tend to take these buyouts.)

At a time when many people, including those in my profession, are wondering how newspapers can stay relevant, the uncertain fate of fine papers like the Inquirer and the Merc is really cause for concern, and downright depressing.

"The decision to sell 12 newspapers drew immediate criticism from some journalists," reports the New York Times . "James M. Naughton, a former executive editor of The Philadelphia Inquirer, said he was dismayed that McClatchy was putting 'growth markets ahead of community responsibility. McClatchy's reputation would be enhanced by retaining newspapers which may not produce margins as high as McClatchy historically has produced but which are vital to their communities,' he said."

The Mercury News has the outgoing boss's reaction:

"Tony Ridder, chairman and chief executive officer of Knight Ridder, spent the past several weeks crafting the best deal he could to sell his company. And he feels terrible about it.

"Forced by dissident shareholders in November to offer the company for sale, Ridder found what looked like a good deal for the Knight Ridder family of 32 papers -- a sale to McClatchy of Sacramento. But it has turned into what Ridder sees as the shocking abandonment of 12 of them."