CSotD: Washed up, yes, but in Sweden
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Cal Grondahl of the Standard-Examiner of Ogden, Utah, was cut this week.
Cal is a great cartoonist, the Standard-Examiner was lucky to have him and the whole thing is depressing, but, first, let's look at my favorite Cal Grondahl cartoon, which he did on the occasion of the death of Rosa Parks.
I was going to pull this 2005 educational piece out of my archives and slice out the cartoon itself, but I think I'll just run the whole piece:
To spare you clicking for the larger image (which I hope you will do anyway), here's the Cal Grondahl part:
And all I can add is "What a pro."
My role now is to go into high dudgeon about how local papers are killing off the things that make them special, the elements that make them stand out from CNN and HuffPost and Town Hall and all the other ways people can get news. And I am supposed to wonder aloud at what they think they're doing.
But what the hell, I'm past pretending anyone in management has a clue, or at least I'm past believing they are serious about pulling their papers back from the brink.
Having a local cartoonist like Cal, or any of the other local cartoonists who have gotten the axe, is certainly a vital way to make your product stand out, to create loyalty in the market.
But check it out: If you go into any small town in the country, or into any neighborhood even in a major city, you will find some local diner that stands out. Maybe they have the best pies in town, or maybe they cut their own fries, or maybe they make some crazy sandwich that everybody loves.
Whatever it is, they aren't McDonalds, they aren't intimidated by McDonalds, they do a solid trade throughout the week and you can't get a seat there on a Sunday morning.
The way they compete with McDonalds is by not trying to be McDonalds.
But most newspapers today are McDonald's — they aren't local, they aren't interested in being local and they are driven by a management style that favors the generic, because it can be dictated from a distance.
The Ogden Standard-Examiner is owned by Sandusky Newspapers, a small, privately held company, which disrupts my usual anti-Wall Street rant.
But despite not having shareholders breathing down their necks, they still think the way to compete with McDonalds is to be McDonalds.
But despite the futility of the approach, newspapers are being forced into the cookie cutter by owners and publishers who know what readers want because they've read articles in trade magazines about what other newspapers are doing.
Which is McDonalds-style thinking, so don't look for homemade blueberry pie because it's not on the menu.
The Ogden Standard-Examiner has lost a valuable part of its appeal and they say they're sorry and they hope to work with Grondahl on a contract basis, which is to say they'd like to have his work in the paper but not if they have to pay him decently for it.
Cal told the Salt Lake Tribune, "I don’t know what the numbers are but I hear the rumors. They have to make some hard decisions. I can see that."
Well, I've sat in those meetings and I've heard the numbers and I understand the hard decisions, too. But I also understand the difference between "floundering" and "foundering," and how little difference there is between "flailing" and "failing."
So anyway.
So, anyway, Grondahl was reportedly two years from retirement and, in his remarks to Jim Romenesko, seems not just resigned to the situation but exhibits a bit of admirable sangfroid.
Romenesko describes him as "two years from retirement," that is. In this day of 401k's, the concept is kind of meaningless for most workers. Grondahl is 63, and not much happens anymore in the way of magic when you turn 65.
So he's either three years from retirement or he's seven years from retirement or he's ready to take off now, and his reaction suggests the last one.
When I lost my last newspaper job, I was more like eight years from retirement — where "retirement" is the Social Security-defined age of 66 — and not at all ready, psychologically or financially, to down tools and go lie in the sun.
But I'm two years away now and I can fake it for that long without having to walk back into the meat grinder. Among the many things about newspapers that are no longer true is that it used to be fun to work at one.
Now you just sit there wondering when the next round of cuts will come, and who will be in it, and knowing that you can have your name on half the award plaques in the building and it won't protect you in the least.
My last decade in the business, my mantra was "It's just me and the dogs these days, and they think sleeping in the park and eating out of Dumpsters would be a blast."
Now I'm down to just one dog. In this trade, that's what passes for financial planning.
So don't weep for Cal. He's fine. I think he's in Sweden.
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