S.F. Chronicle In Danger Of Closing

The Hearst Corp. said Tuesday that unless the San Francisco Chronicle can undertake "critical" cost cutting measures including job cuts within weeks, the company will be forced to sell or close the newspaper, MarketWatch reports.

Hearst said the Chronicle lost more than $50 million last year and added that, "this year's losses to date are worse." The Chronicle has had major losses each year since 2001, Hearst said. The closely-held media company said cost reductions including an unspecified reduction in union and non-union employees are needed to restore the Chronicle to health, MarketWatch reports.

Several other struggling newspapers around the country are also on the sales block, have filed for bankruptcy or are facing a possible shutdown.

Meanwhile, bankruptcy lawyers say three Philadelphia newspaper executives will roll back their 2008 raises while the company tries to shed debt and stay afloat.

Chief Executive Brian Tierney's 38 percent pay hike in December has boosted his salary to $850,000.

It has raised eyebrows when it was disclosed in this week's filing by owners of The Philadelphia Inquirer and the Philadelphia Daily News to seek bankruptcy protection. The raises have come as two newspapers shed staff amid declining circulation and revenues.

Lawyers in court Tuesday say Tierney and two other executives will roll back their recent raises as the case proceeds in Philadelphia.

Another newspaper publisher, Journal Register Co., has its opening hearing later Tuesday in a bankruptcy court in New York.

Meanwhile, two Minnesota newspapers will share in $238,000 in state grant money to help retrain their staffs to adapt to an increasingly Internet-based industry.

The Duluth News Tribune and the St. Paul Pioneer Press will work with the University of Minnesota's School of Journalism and Mass Communication on the project. The three will contribute about $469,000 to the effort, mostly by devoting staff time to training.

[harbinger19]

It is stupid and short sighted to fight wars based on lies and to pour hundreds of millions DAILY into such an undertaking. It is even stupider to convert a self sufficient nation into one reliant on trade and the illusion of value in stock. We reap what we sow and as long as we fail to connect the dots, there is no history nor any law of nature that says America will remain a viable superpower or even first world--in fact, history indicates that falls are inevitable for all empires--it is just that America is falling faster and more furiously than any empire that was ever created--except for the Third Reich.
Posted by harbinger19 at 2:52 AM : Feb 26, 2009


This bears explaining. It is one thing for a nation to use trade to propel its own industries, it is another thing entirely to become dependent on trade. Since America is a young country and basically a spoiled one, we lack the insight and humility to note the rise and fall of the Spanish, Dutch, British , French and Portugese and what made their empires fail.

Mostly, it was the tendency to try to dominate other races in foreign countries that could not be sustained over centuries--but hidden in that equation is the very real fact that as colonies became self sufficient, they no longer relied on the "mother or father land" and rebelled. Protracted wars in far away lands Always fail because economically they cannot be sustained over more than 8 to 10 years or so. The mere logistics of moving people, culture and supplies over long distances, means the expenditures are exorbitant. Add to that the cutting of resources from the rebelling region and almost to a one, the imperial power has to capitulate. We are in such a position now. Iraqis do not have to win our war to beat us, they just have to endure this war until we run out of resources and are economically ruined and we are near that now.

What does this have to do with newspapers? Nothing, but the ruined economy (and the hastened demise of newspapers) does have a lot to do with Iraq. The Chronical and other papers would eventually have been marginalized due to their type of resource being made obsolete--but that process has been hastened by our ill conceived war which many of us are either too arrogant, too party driven, too ignorant or too unrepentant to acknowledge as one of the main contributors to our present circumstance.

[harbinger19]

harbinger19,

You fail in three areas - history, economics and media. Wars and recessions can operate quite independently of each other and neither has anything to do with the demise of the Chronicle.

The Great Depression happened at a time of relative peace (maybe the Spanish and Abyssinians didn't think so) and ended because of a major war. Other recessions, such as the Panic of 1893 and the recession of the early 1960s were also in relative peacetime.

The Chronicle is dying because it forgot it was a newspaper. When you replace objective journalism with advocacy, you are going to lose a substantial part of your readership. People want to read what happened, not what someone thinks has happened.

Newspapers nearly everywhere are struggling; costs of newsprint and labor are a huge factor. If they were delivering a product people wanted, these problems could be overcome.
Posted by ozus at 4:19 PM : Feb 25, 2009


I never fail. My moniker is harbinger because I have an almost eerie propensity for predicting what will occur prior to it happening. Though the future is predicated upon the past, it would behoove you to not misunderstand the events that led to the Great Depression (which came on the heels of a protracted Great World War and the resultant aftermath in Germany) nor to recognizze the difference between our situation now and in the past.

Our success of getting out of the Great Depression was not due simply to the next world war--it was due to the fact that we were pinch hitters in that war--arriving only after most major powers in that war were already exhausted and low on supplies with bombed out infrastructure. Our "boom" was due to us having the only infrastructure and mfg facilities and resources still intact while the rest of Europe was in ruins and could not help themselves.

By hanging back (just like we did in WWI to the end) we were still relatively fresh and unblemished by the time the rest of the world ran low on food, supplies, iron, manpower and resources for the war. America was able to step in at the end of WWII and provide loans to most of Europe, Asia and Africa. Essentially we were the last man standing. But this time, our mfg bases are almost nonexistent as is our breadbasket. The majority of our steel, textile, electronic, automobile, industry is outsourced to either China, Mexico, or India.

We became so successful and boomed not due to war but due to waiting and being the "last man standing". WE could, and did prosper because we had no competition, and everyone was in need of our resources and products. Now our products is "service" Service has no impetus of its own--it requires an origin or product base and workers and the rest serve the result of those workers.

The point? This is not your grandfather's America anymore. There will be no wars to propel us out of our dilemma. We are akin to the German's this time, initiating unprovoked wars, expending resources with no idea that we no longer fit the bill of being a creation or productive society. America is now a reactive society and a consumer society--neither attribute is sustainable. This is all rehash said by me in 2004-2006 when I predicted our markets would crash and outsourcing and a ponzi schemed stock market would be our downfall (and that it was on the horizon) My track record is very clear and succinct: In a country where self sufficiency has been replaced with the pimping of resources, factories and intellectual property to other countries and our farming has converted to monoculture and over 85% of all grocery agriculture products are now imported--we have nothing to sustain us--we are at the whim of our pimps, who are still trying to squirrel away as much money to save themselves, their friends and their families as possible.

It is stupid and short sighted to fight wars based on lies and to pour hundreds of millions DAILY into such an undertaking. It is even stupider to convert a self sufficient nation into one reliant on trade and the illusion of value in stock. We reap what we sow and as long as we fail to connect the dots, there is no history nor any law of nature that says America will remain a viable superpower or even first world--in fact, history indicates that falls are inevitable for all empires--it is just that America is falling faster and more furiously than any empire that was ever created--except for the Third Reich.

[harbinger19]

The Chronicle is dying because it forgot it was a newspaper. When you replace objective journalism with advocacy, you are going to lose a substantial part of your readership. People want to read what happened, not what someone thinks has happened.

ozus, excellent point.
Posted by miriambk at 7:53 PM : Feb 25, 2009


Then again, most people who subscribed to and read newspapers are entering nursing homes, where they have access to two maybe three sets of a newspaper being passed around and no longer need subscriptions.

The truth is, that newspapers like books belong to a different age--as people obtain their media with more immediacy (through the internet or via phone and email) the idea of getting news that is either 2 months old (in the case of magazines) or days old (in the case of newspapers) is not appealing.

News papers are dying because the News is not "new" by the time it is printed and people who care about their news have found superior sources. The same is true on the internet. Roadrunner will have pages in the news and info that appears on the CBS and NBC pages a few days later. If they did not have the blogs (which the Road runner articles don't) their readership would suffer too.

No point in selling the "news" when it is already "Old"

[miriambk]

The Chronicle is dying because it forgot it was a newspaper. When you replace objective journalism with advocacy, you are going to lose a substantial part of your readership. People want to read what happened, not what someone thinks has happened.

ozus, excellent point.

[ozus]

independenti,

Unless you are 21 or less, you would have known that began in the 1960s in the community in general. Occupants of the Oval office with limited sexual morals have included Cleveland, Harding, FDR, JFK and, of course, Clinton. I'm sure I missed a couple

[ozus]

harbinger19,

You fail in three areas - history, economics and media. Wars and recessions can operate quite independently of each other and neither has anything to do with the demise of the Chronicle.

The Great Depression happened at a time of relative peace (maybe the Spanish and Abyssinians didn't think so) and ended because of a major war. Other recessions, such as the Panic of 1893 and the recession of the early 1960s were also in relative peacetime.

The Chronicle is dying because it forgot it was a newspaper. When you replace objective journalism with advocacy, you are going to lose a substantial part of your readership. People want to read what happened, not what someone thinks has happened.

Newspapers nearly everywhere are struggling; costs of newsprint and labor are a huge factor. If they were delivering a product people wanted, these problems could be overcome.

[harbinger19]

You won't be getting Fox news on line or any other rag on line if it keeps dominoing--because no matter what you do--it will eventually be YOUR job and YOUR company laying YOU off and without a home to plug into, and without electricity unmonitored for you to pirate, most of you who are laughing will be off line---you will join the hordes on the street, standing in line for soup, or a shelter, or health care at the free clinic--this is a harbinger and it is a very ugly one--sort of ironic that we are being destroyed from within, and remain unrepentant about spending 300 to 500 MILLION dollars a day minding the business of another country in an illegal war--doesn't it? We reap what we sow.

[ozus]

Newster1,

Haven't you noticed that public morality has declined at the same time as church attendances?

Without a religious basis, personal morality is a very hard sell. Having worked in ethics marketing, I found "earn the money you are paid" a very thin argument.

Have a look at graffiti, vandalism, swearing, drug use, mugging and shoplifting. They are all on the increase.

You can blame government, schools and parents, but in the end you have to look at the lack of a moral code.

[harbinger19]

More people to be fired--which means more mortgages going unpaid, which means more people losing their homes which means more people pounding the pavement for jobs, moving in with relatives or being homeless, which means more poverty and more burden on social systems which means......For those who see this as only another rag going under--pull your head out of your azzes--we are all interconnected--no matter what you do for a living or even if you own your own business--it dominoes--those who don't work, don't go the dentist or doctor, buy cheap foods, get clothing dry cleaned or even buy starbucks etc--as those businesses lose customers----they lay off the dental hygienists and secretaries, etc and as they get laid off, they lose their homes, stop buying at wholefoods and other stores, stop going to restaurants, etc.


Unless you are independently wealthy and can afford to never work, don't keep your money in a bank or any kind of investment vehicle and grow your own food--the nightmare of others will eventually make it to you--when the bastions of any society start folding, its worse than bad--we will know when it has hit the chortling crowd--because they won't be on line anymore--won't be able to afford that bill, either. So you might want to plan instead of yucking it up.

[miriambk]

Good riddance.