Website Seeks to Build Support for Mercury News (Dinosaur Media Extinction Alert)

LA Times ^ | March 17, 2006 | Claire Hoffman

[abb]

Employees of the San Jose Mercury News, fearing that the planned sale of their newspaper will lead to staffing and coverage cutbacks, launched a website Thursday that asks readers to push for a new owner committed to high-quality journalism.

Www.savethemerc.com appeared just four days after McClatchy Co. said it intended to sell the Mercury News and 11 other papers around the country as part of its $4.5-billion acquisition of Knight Ridder Inc., a San Jose-based chain that owns 32 daily papers.

The website asks readers, community leaders and advertisers in Silicon Valley — the heart of the 155-year-old Mercury News' coverage area — "to insist that any prospective owner meet the community's equally high expectations." It invites them to sign a statement of support saying that the sale of the Mercury News should not "lead to a smaller, less ambitious newspaper."

"We wanted to make sure everyone understands what the stakes are," said Mike Cassidy, a columnist who has written for the paper for 20 years. "It is important to let prospective owners know how concerned employees and readers are about what will happen with this paper."

[abb]

Deck chair re-arrangement drill....

[sauropod]

Employees of the San Jose Mercury News, fearing that the planned sale of their newspaper will lead to staffing and coverage cutbacks...

After taking in a couple editions of this rag last week, the employees of the Snooze oughta be fearing being laid off because of their propensity to lie...

About everything.

[mewzilla]

I can see the signage now: Will Stop Slanting For Food

[ncountylee]

...and the band is now on the deck playing a dirge.

[ken5050]

The newspaper staff launches a website to try and save the newspaper....delicious....and what's that word again.."schaden..." something..(G)

[abb]

LOL, good catch, ken. That sorta gives it all away, doesn't it?

[SerpentDove]

Too little. Too late.

[Utah Binger]

"to insist that any prospective owner meet the community's equally high expectations."

Huh? The nerds in Silicon Valley don't care about that rag. When we left San Jose eight years ago we found the same thing. Don't need no stinkin' morning paper. That news is old news; yesterday's news. And the slant? Whoa!

[softwarecreator]

I can't answer for everyone's reason for no longer reading newspapers, but for me it was the extreme left wing slant of the papers I used to buy.  I would read, on a daily basis, USAtoday, the Detroit Free Press and sometimes, the NY Times ... but those days are long gone.

I know the spin says it's every other factor but the anti-American bias, but that is what did it for me.

[antiRepublicrat]

(Dinosaur Media Extinction Alert)

IIRC, Mercury News was one of the first big news outlets to go online, and included a daily mailing of the latest news. This was around 1995. Of course, it could have been a different Mercury News.

[Bigs from Michigan]

A few interesting points, at least to me they are interesting....

1. If KR reduces the staff of the SJMN it will be to reduce costs and make the paper profitable. As we all know, Profit is the force behind the new business. Profit, in the news business, comes from public acceptance of your product being honest, fair, balanced and open. All of which SJMN are not.

2. The website is a good means of communicating there Views. Seeing it is the primary cause of the death spiral of the MSM. What better way to communicate to the masses than the web. Ironic, isn't it...

3. The Employees of the SJMN are trying to tell the owners what to do, or how to run a paper. This is arrogance of the highest order. First, if the current employees produced a great paper, the paper would not be in a death spiral. Second, this is the typical liberal attitude that they know best, and they will keep right on doing the same things and wonder why they keep failing. A sure sign of insanity.

4. the reporters, writers and editors of the paper seem to think that, not withstanding falling sales, that they have the absolute right to continue to produce a bad paper without the restraints of a marketplace and without regard to the losses incurred. After all, capitalism, market forces, profit, and ownership are all matters that affect the lesser people, not Media people.

[Vision]

It invites them to sign a statement of support saying that the sale of the Mercury News should not "lead to a smaller, less ambitious newspaper."

Ten years from now and for the rest of their life they'll be saying..."back in the good old days, we controlled society with the news we wanted to print and everybody read it."

[ncountylee]

..."back in the good old days, we controlled society with the news we wanted to print and everybody read it." The disgraced network anchors are saying that now (Cronkite through Wallace).

[jiggyboy]

The petition asks for your "comments" and then says that they won't be passed on to the new owner. It's probably reflexive for them to do everything with the attitude of "we don't care what you think, we just want to get the numbers".

[abb]

update

Response to 'Save The Merc' Drive Strong

By Miki Johnson

Published: March 17, 2006 5:10 PM ET

NEW YORK Since going live with a couple dozen supporters' names yesterday, SaveTheMerc.com has received support from more than 100 concerned citizens, ranging from a former U.S. human rights commissioner to longtime readers and local business owners.

The Web site, launched yesterday around 2 p.m. California time, presents the public with a values statement about what the San Jose Mercury News staff and local community expect from any potential buyers of the paper, which McClatchy announced Monday it is looking to sell amid its takeover of Knight Ridder's properties. The site also provides a platform so those interested can add their names to the growing list of supporters.

"Just knowing this many people care about what happens to this paper, it's lifting some spirits," says San Fransisco Mercury News Reporter Mary Anne Ostrom, who has been handling responses for the site. "It wasn't until we launched this Web site that we got a notion of how deep concerns [about the paper's ownership] are or how wide they run."

Several of the paper's former staffers helped out by calling community member and asking them to add their names to the list. "Virtually everyone we asked signed on," Ostrom says.

Mike Cassidy, who wrote a column for the Mercury News about the staff's concerns, also received an outpouring of positive responses. "In what's a pretty dreary time for the Mercury News, it's great to see," he says. "Despite reporters and editors and their appearance of a rough-and-tough exterior, a number of us are softies, and it hurts," he admits. "It's hard for someone like me not to take [the sale] a little personally."

But Cassidy is also determined that McClatchy's handoff of the paper is more a reflection of the Mercury News not fitting into the company's criteria of high-growth papers than a slight of the paper's coverage. He points out that the Pulitzer-prize-winning paper "provides information people need every day," and Ostrom is proud that it is known for supporting cultural and community groups.

Part of SaveTheMerc.com's goal was to stress the importance of continuing these traditions under new ownership. The site's organizers also would like to see a new owner who is dedicated to developing Web capabilities.

Although the site is supported by the San Jose Newspaper Guild and is being organized by staffers who happen to be members, guild President Becky Bartindale says they "wanted it to be inclusive of everyone who works at [the paper]....

"We knew there was a lot of community feeling out there … we wanted to create a place to open a dialogue with the community," she adds. The team of about 12 who are running the site began meeting this fall as Knight Ridder's sale started to look inevitable, but were torn about when to post the statement until the sale to McClatchy on Monday "created a sense of urgency," Cassidy says.

Miki Johnson (mjohnson@editorandpublisher.com)