CSotD: Trading in Junck Bonds
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RJ Matson is a good editorial cartoonist, whose take on the Supreme Court's Affordable Care Act ruling headlined my post on the topic in June.
And, as of Thursday, he's unemployed. Tom Spurgeon reports that the St. Louis Post Dispatch held a throat-slashing party at the end of the week that included their editorial cartoonist, as well as a photojournalist noted locally for videos of area bands playing in area pubs.
I note those two, out of 23 who lost their jobs, because they seem to me the most short-sighted firings.
That is to say, I recognize the hard times newspapers are going through, and, as in any industry, it's not only tough to see people losing their jobs, but it's tough when you've already cut to the bone and now they're firing people whose jobs are increasingly important to the company. And who, for the past couple of years, have been the less with which we all needed to be doing more.
Fact is, all of us who rely on a newspaper for our paychecks know that we could be handed the cardboard box at any moment.
Well, nearly all of us. Lee Enterprises CEO Mary Junck, head of the company that brought out those long knives in St. Louis, got a bonus of half-a-million bucks in April, when the company emerged from Chapter 11, and then picked up a second bonus last week in the form of a stock option worth $625,000.
Disclosure: When I talk about decisions that turned out badly, I may be talking about the paper I worked for in Plattsburgh, NY, which was owned by Ottaway which in turn was owned by Dow Jones. But when I talk about decisions that were, at the time they were made, clearly, jaw-droppingly stupid, short-sighted and aimed entirely to benefit the suits at corporate HQ, I'm talking about the paper I worked at in Glens Falls, and the suits at Lee Enterprises, which acquired it about a year after I fled there to avoid corporate groupthink.
Having said that, getting rid of your editorial cartoonist is a stupid decision not confined to Lee Enterprises. Slashing staff while stuffing over a million bucks into your own pocket is a uniquely impolitic way of going about it, mind you. (Lee also announced that they can't afford to make contributions to the pension fund this year. Yes, while Mary was getting her bonuses.)
But cutting your ties to the local community is a popular move in newspaper circles and it remains puzzling.
I chose the cartoon above because it's local. Not particularly controversial; just a comment on the weather, but people do talk about the weather and as St. Louis residents swelter, a little local acknowledgment is nice.
I'm not sure how many people are aware of the dual nature of the staff cartoonist, but even the most famous perform double duty. Clay Bennett is well-known for his national commentary, but he's on staff at the Chattanooga Times Free Press, and, when a Republican election commissioner was accused of turning away non-GOP voters at an open primary last week, he penned this local cartoon:
That type of commentary is vital, not just because it turns a spotlight on local issues, but because it reinforces the bond that must exist between a successful newspaper and the community it serves.
"Successful newspaper." Wow. There's a term you don't hear much anymore. And one reason is that papers have been cutting their ties to their own communities by firing local cartoonists and staffers like a photojournalist who shoots popular videos of local bands.
Cartoonists will talk about how cartoons sell papers, how a good comics page gets people to pick up the paper. But it wasn't what made them buy a newspaper: It's what tilted their choice of which newspaper to buy. And, while that was a factor when Hearst and Pulitzer were slugging it out in New York City at the turn of the 20th century, we're down to a handful of cities where there's more than one paper to choose.
The decision today is not which paper to buy, but whether to buy a paper at all. And, in a world in which a lot of dedicated comics fans install elaborate, buggy workarounds on their computers or visit a series of equally buggy newspaper sites each morning rather than pay twenty bucks a year to comics.com or dailyink, the notion of anyone shelling out four or five hundred bucks for a subscription based on the comics page is pretty hard to envision.
Features at a paper, I have argued before, are like the food at a diner: A diner is not a four-star restaurant. It's just a cheap place to get lunch. Nobody raves about the cole slaw or goes crazy about the french fries, but those side dishes are critical to the success of the eatery, because they add up to a satisfying meal.
The RJ Matsons and Clay Bennetts are more than french fries — they're the homemade pies or the great fried chicken that people really do notice and that will actively draw in patrons. And they are part of an overall feeling of "This is my paper" that creates that bond between the newspaper and its readers.
The greatest threat to newspapers is not the Internet. It is the suits, who think McDonalds is better than the local diner because its easier to micromanage a franchise where every outlet looks the same and serves the same menu and the burger flippers are interchangeable robotniks.
There is a reason USAToday picked up the nickname "McPaper," and its success has a great deal more to do with travelers and tourists than with local readers.
Why am I bothering to tell anyone this? Mary is probably in her soundproof Scrooge McDuck vault, sledding around on her cash. She couldn't hear me when I worked for her and she sure isn't listening to me now.
Anyway, sorry, RJ.
Sorry, St. Louis.
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