I hate to say this, but I am losing confidence in Mark Zieman as publisher — and ultimate leader — at The Kansas City Star.
My colleague John Landsberg of Bottom Line Communications reported yesterday that there will be another round of layoffs at The Star. I can’t keep track of how many rounds there have been in the last few years, but I think this will be at least the fifth.
This latest news is particularly maddening and frustrating not because The Star’s staff apparently will get even thinner, but because of Zieman’s optimistic tone when he announced the previous round of layoffs last September.
Back then he said The Star was approaching the end of the year “financially strong” and that the industry was at a “turning point.”
To me, that not only was irresponsible, it was misleading and showed Zieman was indulging in wishful thinking. While such words might buoy employee morale temporarily, the words make it all that much harder for employees to swallow another round of layoffs. The real danger of statements like that is that they spread a sense of false hope and paint the publisher as someone trying to buy time before something even worse happens.
Employees of every organization like to hear words of encouragement and hope from their leaders, but, more important, they want a candid assessment of where things stand. Zieman has failed miserably on that front, not just in September but with unrealistically optimistic words with each round of layoffs.
So, now, unfortunately, it’s like the boy yelling fire in the theater. Except it’s the reverse because there is a fire and Zieman keeps trying to convince his troops it’s just about extinguished, when it’s obviously out of control.
I mentioned that something big could happen. Like what? Well, how about a decision to drop the print edition several days a week. That seems like the next likely step to me.
Zieman probably won’t admit it until it happens, because he’s obviously reluctant to take off the rose-colored glasses. But it could easily happen, and it wouldn’t surprise me to see one or two weekday papers — maybe Monday and Tuesday — dropped within a year or two.
Several papers around the country have already dropped some or all print editions, and the St. Louis Post-Dispatch took a step in that direction last year, when it dropped single-copy sales — in boxes and convenience stores — of the Saturday paper. It still puts out a Saturday paper, but it goes only to subscribers.
In reporting the story last October, the Riverfront Times, the St. Louis alternative paper, asked Editor Arnie Robbins how long it would be before the Post-Dispatch would cease putting out a print publication altogether.
“I’m not feeling particularly clairvoyant this morning,” Robbins replied. “But I think in the next 10 years you could see the elimination of the weekday paper, with the Sunday still coming out in print. The rest of the week would be online or delivered through niche products and phone and e-reader apps. We’re working on a few of those projects right now that we’re excited about.'”
Well, let’s credit Robbins with some degree of candor. Ten years very likely is an overestimation of how much longer the daily P-D will survive, but at least he doesn’t have blinders on.
Now, compare that statement with what Zieman told employees in the September memo announcing that round of layoffs:
“I know that weathering this recession has been exceptionally hard for each of you. But we will begin next year with a steadily improving revenue trend. We are posting record online traffic and revenue, we remain the dominant media company in our region, our presses and readership metrics are among the best in the country and our news products are recognized nationally for their journalistic excellence. The Star won’t die, but this recession will.”
Metrics. Journalistic excellence. The Star won’t die. Uh huh.
This is really a desperate situation in my view. I think The Star’s owner, McClatchy Co., is headed for bankruptcy.
As I reported in June, Morningstar, the independent investment and stock research company, had a grim outlook for the company. An article in Morningstar StockInvestor, a periodical available to Morningstar members by subscription, said this:
“Our fair value estimate on McClatchy shares is $0.”
Are you listening, Mark? That’s zero. Nothing. Worthless shares for the stockholders.
At the time, McClatchy’s stock was selling at $4.28 a share. The stock closed Friday at $4.89 a share, but that’s no indication of a significant upswing. Sprint, as difficult as its situation is, has a much better chance of surviving than McClatchy does.
The company paid too much for KnightRidder in 2006 and bought the KR papers at precisely the wrong time.
Do you remember when Payless Cashways senior managers, led by then-chief executive officer David Stanley (fondly known to some as Minnesota Dave because he flew back to his home in Minneapolis every weekend) took the company private in 1988? They paid too much ($900 million); the company muddled along for about 10 years and then rolled over and died.
McClatchy, too, is going to roll over and die, I believe…or get bought out for a song. I can hear the late “Dandy” Don Meredith singing from heaven, “Turn out the lights; the party’s over.”
And what will happen with the papers McClatchy owns? I don’t know. But it isn’t a bright picture, and I hope Zieman doesn’t weigh in with more irrationally optimistic statements when he officially announces the newest round of layoffs.
JimmyCsays: At the juncture of journalism and daily life in KC 
Great piece, Jim.
Kate Beem
http://momonthedge.com
How bright do you have To be to figure out that the one thing few bloggers have the time, talent or resources to do is provide original news on local issues? You don’t even need to do much national news since we can get online and read the accounts of national events from the newspapers who exist where the events are happening.
And yet who were the first people axed by the great brain trusts at The Star but the reporters and the copy editors and worker bees who provided the backbone of what could have been a top-notch local newspaper.
And who is it that’s still there, seemingly safe and sound from any adversity? Is it a great mystery what Lewis Diuguid is going to write a column on next week? Will anyone be stunned to see a column from Barb Shelly shilling for the latest establishment scam, or denouncing whatever program the GOP tries to implement in DC?
Certainly, we might be stunned to see Miriam Pepper produce anything. She was promoted over people who were vastly more talented than she ever dreamed of being and has done nothing except make The Star’s editorial page even more predictably tedious, but I’m betting they’ll survive yet another onslaught as the inverted pyramid becomes even more top heavy.
There are larger forces at play in the decline of the local newspaper, but that decline might not have been so precipitous had the large dailies not hidden behind the ad revenue of national merchants while they insulted and ridiculed the beliefs and interests of their readers and forgot completely what they, as journalists, were supposed to do in the first place. “Truth to Power”? In whose fantasy is that occurring?
And so they fiddled while frustrated readers dropped their subscriptions and went elsewhere for their information – to everyone’s detriment.
I have two newspapers on my couch, The Pitch, and The Bonner Springs Chieftain. The one is there for local news, the other for the small chance that there just might be some truth to power to be had. Frankly, I wish there was a third one there on a daily basis.
I certainly don’t have all the answers, but it seems to me that if I were running The Star, I would be trying to figure out what I could do better than anyone else, and what part of my marketplace is already glutted. Thus far, Zieman seems destined to continue a policy of doing just the reverse of that formula.
Thanks, Kate. You’ve got guts.
John — It’s terribly difficult being a publisher of a second-tier newspaper these days, and I don’t envy Zieman a bit. But I think he would be a lot better off if he spoke plainly and candidly to the employees — “We don’t know where this is going to end up; we ask you to be patient and to persevere during these incredibly turbulent times.”
Further, I think both he and editor Mike Fannin ought to get out of their third-floor offices and spend an hour or two every day with the employees who are producing the paper and preparing it for delivery. Those employees who are not close to retirement have got to be extremely worried about their futures.
Jim
The task is made no easier when decisions are made based on a personal agenda instead of a rational decision making model. The editorial page has remained virtually untouched and yet opinions on any topic can be had at the drop of a hat.
I can read and opine on any issue I want, but I don’t have the time, or the contacts to do original research on any topic that may momentarily interest me. And so it puzzles me when a quality news gathering organization is dismantled while an editorial staff that has been a national embarrassment remains in place.
Another puzzling trend is that small community newspapers are doing better than the big city dailies, one suspects because they provide the kind of news that most readers are interested, and, just as importantly tend to share the values of their readers, and so I’m curious as to why the Olathe Daily News was first swallowed up and then dismantled when it could have easily remained a valuable individual property. Someone wasn’t thinking when that occurred.
Jim:
More sad news on layoffs. Unbelievable. How can there be anyone left?
To John Altevogt :
Barb Shelly doesn’t shill for anyone. She is one of the brightest, most fearless writers The Kansas City Star has or has ever had.
Ms. Shelly’s intelligence is not the issue. Indeed, I was quite impressed with Mary Sanchez when she appeared on O’Reilly and defended one of Mike Hendricks’ recent blunders, and my point would be just as relevant for her.
The issue is staving off the wolf from the door for as long as possible and what personnel decisions might facilitate such a goal. The question then becomes what services can a community newspaper offer its customers that are relatively unique in the marketplace and I would contend that opinion writers are at the bottom of the totem pole, intelligent and fearless, or not.
The (Kansas) legislature will be in session shortly, and this time out The Star is only going to have half the coverage it has had heretofore. Gaming is an important issue and Rick Alm is gone. The KCKPD is mired in a huge scandal and there’s virtual silence because Mark Wiebe is gone, Julie Adam is gone and Jim is writing this blog.
Health care is a huge issue right now and Julius Karash is gone. I guarantee you that Ms. Shelly’s latest blurb in Midwest Voices denouncing the Republicans as jerks for trying to repeal Obama’s Deathcare is no substitute for Karash’s detailed, hopefully objective, hopefully unshackled reporting on health care issues, no matter how fearless, or brilliant you perceive her writing to be.
Get rid of the editorial staff save for someone to screen reader’s letters and organize a few national columnists, if any, and use the money to pay reporters.