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LOCAL NEWS
THE NEWS PROJECT Cal journalism students meet the news bosses During a joint appearance at the UC Berkeley journalism school on Jan. 26, Bay Area News Project CEO Lisa Frazier and Editor Jonathan Weber said they anticipate hiring 15 journalists by late spring. Earlier comments had those jobs being filled more slowly, perhaps by year's end. Also, both Weber and Frazier said they foresee collaborations with KQED, despite recent news that organization's official involvement had ended. Debate on ways to end exploitation of journalists stirred by Newsosaur blog
Alan Mutter's Reflections of A Newsosaur blog unleashed quite a response -- the biggest he's had -- when he called for an end to the exploitation of journalists the other day. Guild organizers welcomed the fresh reinforcements in a battle we've been waging for years. Here are comments from Freelance Unit Chair Rebecca Rosen Lum and Local Representative Carl T. Hall. BANG-EB: THE GUILD UPDATE News of the MediaNews bankruptcy The MediaNews bankruptcy marches ahead. So far, proceedings in Delaware bankruptcy court seem to agree with the idea that Chapter 11 proceedings will be limited to MNG's holding company, Affiliated Media Inc., and will not affect employees or union contracts. David R. Hock of Cohen, Weiss and Simon represented The Newspaper Guild/Communications Workers of America locals at the first day hearing on Jan. 26. It appears the pre-packaged bankruptcy will come to a swift conclusion, heading for confirmation without objection on March 4. THE NEWS PROJECT New editor says hiring at nonprofit agency starts now Weber invites resumes -- nothing is 'precooked' After months of largely theoretical existence, the nonprofit Bay Area News Project leapt toward reality today by announcing the hiring of its top leaders: CEO Lisa Frazier and Editor-in-Chief Jonathan Weber. Following the exit of founder partner KQED from the project, the group also said it will supply stories to the new Bay Area sections of the New York Times. More local news
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NEWS OF THE INDUSTRY
Media General also paying high price to spread out debt Tampa Tribune parent Media General Inc. (MEG) announced the pricing of its offering of $300 million of senior secured notes that will help spread out the maturities of its approximately $730 million in debt. The notes will carry an interest rate of 11.75%. With its price set at a discount to face value, the notes yield maturity is 12.25%. The price of debt: McClatchy stock tumbles on steep bond interest rate McClatchy Co. shares tumbled Friday along with the broader market after the newspaper publisher agreed to pay steep interest rates to push back its deadline for repaying debt. Report: N.Y. Times execs met quietly with Steve Jobs about iPad Some 50 top executives of The New York Times, including Publisher and Times Co. Chairman Arthur Sulzberger Jr. met earlier this week in a New York restaurant with Apple CEO Steve Jobs, who demonstrated the iPad and talked it up as "the future of media," according to a report by Daniel Maurer on New York magazine's Web site. Arbitrator sides with former News-Press editor An arbitrator has rejected the Santa Barbara News-Press' $25 million claim against its former editor and ordered the newspaper's owner to pay more than $900,000 in fees stemming from their dispute. Seattle Times Co. renegotiates debt The Seattle Times Co. has renegotiated its debt, giving the publisher increased ability to continue publishing "high quality, independent journalism," as the company indicated in a letter updating its readers on its financial status. Journos aren't helpless against market forces Without question, there never has been a bigger response to this blog than the one that greeted the piece the other day encouraging journalists to demand to be paid decently for their work. Google News to publishers: Let's make love not war In the view of some traditional media execs, Google is a digital vampire or a parasite or tech tapeworm using someone else's content to profit. As that rhetoric heated up in the past year, Google has responded not with equal amounts of invective but with entreaties to help publishers.
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Monster's HotJobs deal shuts 200 papers out of Yahoo newspaper consortium Monster Worldwide's agreed acquisition of Yahoo's recruitment platform HotJobs means as many as 200 papers will be shut out of of the Yahoo newspaper consortium (NPC). As if the New York Times' Arthur Sulzberger and Janet Robinson didn't have enough headaches, trying to figure out how to fend off that other daily beast known as the Wall Street Journal. Until December, 2007, when Rupert Murdoch pulled off the coup of his lifetime, cajoling, wheedling and finally hard-lining just enough of the Bancroft family into selling the prize Journal to him, the Journal had been a national business daily -- not the Times' direct competition. Newspaper Web site traffic slipped in Q4 Newspaper Web site traffic is falling month-over-month, according to new figures provided by the Newspaper Association of America. The association today published the latest Q4 data for newspaper Web sites provided by Nielsen Online. The number of unique users declined when comparing October (73.2 million uniques) to November (72.3 million uniques) to December (70.3 million uniques). 13 years later, Herb Caen's voice is missed
Tomorrow is the first of February, an important day in the history of San Francisco. It will be 13 years exactly since Herb Caen died. Old San Franciscans revere Caen. A lot of new San Franciscans never heard of him. For the record, he was a newspaper columnist in this town for 58 years, longer than anybody. He was the uncrowned prince of San Francisco, a magic city of his own invention. Gannett's 4Q improves as cost cuts offset ad woes Gannett Co. posted its largest profit of the year in the fourth quarter as cost-cutting efforts were aided by a lessening decline in advertising sales. But shares of the biggest U.S. newspaper publisher tumbled after company executives didn't offer any hope for an upturn in newspaper advertising this year. More industry news
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New Times, New GuildHere are links to our week-long series, "New Times: New Guild," detailing how we have begun trying to move forward through the economic turmoil gripping the news industry. The series highlights projects including creation of the first Freelance Unit in the Guild, our role in the Bay Area News Project, growth of our statewide California Federation of Interpreters Unit, the 2010 bargaining outlook, a language and cultural awareness project, mobilizing at MediaNews and an ambitious jobs-training effort. Local President Michael Cabanatuan provides an overview of the entire series. We welcome your response — please send us an email.
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