What a difference four years makes in the way a failing newspaper chain covers the comings and goings of high-level managers at its own newspapers.
On Sept. 25, 2015, The Star carried a nine-paragraph story about Mi-Ai Parrish resigning as publisher of The Kansas City Star, a McClatchy paper, to take a comparable post at The Arizona Republic, owned by the Gannett chain.
When Kansas native Tony Berg was named to succeed her in early 2016, The Star carried a 13-inch story announcing his arrival as publisher. The story quoted Mark Zieman, McClatchy’s vice president of operations, as saying: “I’m confident Tony has the skills to get us through the digital transformation. He has the drive.”
And yet, last Friday when Berg was let go as publisher of The Star, a 13-paragraph story about Mike Fannin being elevated from editor to president of The Star did not say one word about Berg being summarily demoted from publisher of four McClatchy papers to one, The Wichita Eagle.
The same afternoon, McClatchy also filed a brief (but required) document with the Securities and Exchange Commission announcing the departure of two senior officers, CFO Elaine Lintecum, and…Zieman.
Lintecum’s departure appears to be a straightforward retirement. But Berg and Zieman are probably money-saving moves. The company has been drowning in debt since it paid $4.5 billion for the Knight Ridder chain 13 years ago, and has been throwing its furniture into the fire ever since, trying to get from one winter to the next.
**
When I read The Star’s online story about Fannin’s being named president, I thought McClatchy was giving him an added title mainly to give him a pay raise, with Berg continuing on as publisher.
With no mention whatsoever of Berg, that was a logical assumption.
But how wrong I was!
It took another reporter — former KC Star reporter and now KCUR health and legal affairs editor Dan Margolies to bring the facts to light.
Reading The Star’s story piqued Margolies’ curiosity about Berg, and he smartly went to Berg’s LinkedIn page and saw it listed Berg as publisher of only The Eagle but previously publisher of all four McClatchy Central Division papers — The Star, The Eagle, the Fort-Worth Star-Telegram and the Belleville (Illinois) News-Democrat.
With that, Margolies had his story, the headline of which included the words “Publisher Exits for Wichita.”
…I should say Margolies had THE story because The Star certainly failed to inform its dwindling readership what was going on.
In fact, that is probably the most appalling and irresponsible story I’ve ever seen in The Star. It strikes deeply at the paper’s credibility and reinforces President Trump’s much-ballyhooed (but largely off-base) charge that the mainstream media dishes up a steady diet of “fake news.”
I can understand why McClatchy chose to dump Zieman (probably) and demote Berg — like I said, it’s all about money — but as a former Star reporter and editor I am offended and angry that it whitewashed the Berg story…Thirteen paragraphs when he was hired; zero when he’s demoted? The ouster is news by any measure and should have been reported.
**
Back to the money…Next month, McClatchy will report its third-quarter earnings, and I expect a dismal report, albeit draped in the usual pie-in-the-sky verbiage and pretzel-twisted statistics.
The prospect of a bad report may well have been a factor in the Zieman and Berg moves.
In addition, while The Star probably remains McClatchy’s most profitable paper (it has inured advertisers to extremely high advertising rates), print circulation continues to plummet.
Between the third quarter of 2018 and the third quarter of 2019, Sunday print circulation plunged 23 percent — from 104,071 paid copies to 79,976.
Average Monday-to-Friday print circulation went from 66,520 to 54,000, a 19 percent decrease.
Stand-alone digital subscriptions rose from about 7,300 to about 10,000, but that’s paltry for a metro area the size of Kansas City, and digital advertising is not nearly as lucrative as its print counterpart.
In its quarterly reports, McClatchy officers keep emphasizing “the digital transformation,” just as Zieman did when he touted Berg’s arrival three years ago.
It’s becoming clearer every day, though, that no one — not Zieman, not Berg, not CEO Craig Forman — “has the skills to get us through the digital transformation.” McClatchy is in a nosedive and is almost surely going to be sucked up by another chain within a year or two.
Let’s hope The Star’s next owner is more interested in honest and accurate reporting. That’s all we can do, hope.
JimmyCsays: At the juncture of journalism and daily life in KC 
Credit where it’s due, Berg brought on additional reporting staff, brought some new faces for us to hate at editorial and I think sincerely tried to establish some sense of balance in the reporting. Unfortunately, he failed at The Star, probably thanks to Fannin.
He may do better at the Eagle. Shorman and Dion Lefler are fairly good reporters and, I suspect that most of the legislative coverage will come from them.
Ultimately, it will all probably go for naught as McClatchy is swallowed up and the new boss, same as the old boss, will bring in their own people to run The Star into its grave.
As I said last week, I would have had more respect for The Star had they simply reported nothing about the latest transition. And face it, companies typically don’t announce demotions of their top brass to the public (even though a legitimate argument can be made that The Star should be an exception to that rule).
What was so offensive was them only publicizing Fannin’s promotion and then having one of their best reporters write a piece that made Fannin look like the second coming of Roy Roberts.
Only if he’s very, very lucky will Fannin, when it’s his turn, avoid the ignominious dispatching that Berg got.
I agree with Mike, better not to report anything if Berg’s departure could not be mentioned. It was an odd decision that I can only conclude was a directive by Fannin.
I am confident the parameters for this story were dictated by Sacramento, not Kansas City.
Good digging, Fitz, but honestly, who cares? What matters is not the Star’s past but how it is managing the present — the stories and events affecting life in Kansas City. With every passing month we tabulate the important stories left uncovered, or poorly covered, in a community whose watchdog is hobbling on three legs, two of which are slowly coming loose from their bearings.
I guess I’m not succeeding at getting people worked up about a specific journalistic breakdown that speaks to the larger picture. I’m not saying that every publisher’s departure must be given exactly the same treatment, but, holy shit, how can they herald the arrival of one with clanging bells and blaring whistles and a few years later not utter a peep when they show him the door?
It makes no sense and, to me, shows the readers can’t trust much of anything they put out. I would like to trust The Star — I always did when I worked there — but I don’t any longer. And it’s because of McClatchy.
This is corporate America, the new and shiny get the attention and quietly shown the door when the newness wears off. Journalist’s are practicing their art, the corporate raiders execute their plans to achieve their goals. The reader/consumer of media does not care or want to understand the wizards behind the curtains, they only want to participate in a “viral” experience. Jimmy your passion is for an art form whose time has passed, and we are getting what the consumer demands. Do not blame McClatchy for society, they are a product of consumer demand, that is capitalism.