Time’s Up for the Star-Telegram? Not Yet.
by Steve SmithAre rumors of the Star-Telegram’s demise premature? Fort Worth’s only daily newspaper made Time Magazine’s list of 10 most endangered newspapers in America that was the buzz of the blogosphere yesterday after the S-T rang in at No. 9. Sayeth Time: “The parent of the Dallas Morning News, Belo, is probably a stronger company than the Star-Telegram’s parent, McClatchy. The Morning News has a circulation of about 350,000, while the Star-Telegram has just over 200,000. The Star-Telegram will have to shut down or become an edition of its rival. Putting them together would save tens of millions of dollars a year.”
Nice theory, but the only problem is that Belo is almost as deep in the hurt locker as McClatchy. As Tim Rogers at FrontBurner correctly points out, “Belo isn’t in a position to acquire a decent Metro columnist, much less another newspaper.” A straight-up Belo acquisition of the S-T won’t happen unless Bob Decherd wins the Powerball Lottery.
That said, I think that increasing combined operations will lead to something approximating a de facto merger, if not a real one, at some point this year. Personally, I’m not a big fan of all this brand mixing and content sharing. I don’t particularly want to read DMN content in the Star-Telegram and I think Dallas people people probably feel the same way about the Startlegrammer content. Part of the reason people are willing to plunk down for a subscription is the unique value of reporters and columnists who have the connections and the experience to put the news in context. The move toward less content plus less connection to the community is not a recipe for success. It’s a move further into “why bother?”
Which leads to my next point. What might have been overlooked by some — but not by the Blotch blog at the FWWeekly — was the announcement from the S-T last week of free weekly print edition of DFW.com that sounds like it’s designed to get all up in Lee Newquist’s bidness.
Of course, with all the slash and burn going on at 400 West 7th, I wonder who is going to actually write this copy, organize the listings and all of the other heavy lifting that goes in to putting together a useful entertainment tabloid. Well, wonder no more: looks like the answer is freelancers, according to a job posting on JournalismJobs.com.
Pardon me if I’m skeptical, but it sounds more like the type of innovation that has help McClatchy climb all the way to No. 6 on Fortune Magazine’s list of Least Admired Companies for Innovation. Is another print product really the answer when a more salient point would seem to be how to transition to online only? In spite of everything, newspapers are still profitable, but time to figure out a solution is running out. I think creating a new print product is more obstacle than opportunity.
Tags: star-telegram
15 Comments, Comments or Pings
Larry
Sounds sort of like Quick. That used to be a five times a week freebie handed out to commuters. I hear that it is now a weekly distributed to the young and hip target audience. I commute daily on Dart and seldom do I see a Quick. And when I do, it is not being read by ‘18-to-35-year-olds who eat out, set trends, make a difference and have fun.”
The tone of their help wanted ad seems to me to be a bit condescending. Maybe because I am not hip. Or maybe it is because I know how to spell intimately or at the very least know how to use spell check. Sort of a sad commentary when a publication can’t edit copy.
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Our ideal freelancers know the Dallas-Fort Worth market intimiately and are comfortable writing for and about the 18-to-35-year-olds who eat out, set trends, make a difference and have fun. We are particularly seeking out specialists in dining, fashion and environmental topics (our publication aims not just to tell readers how to spend their disposable income, but also how to make an impact on the world). If you are boring, unreliable or impossible to get along with, please do not apply.
Mar 10th, 2009
JP
On a related topic, the Star-Telegram has been working on improving their mobile website. It’s not perfect – but I much prefer it over their regular (full-browser) website. Here’s hoping they can develop some standalone apps in lieu of just mobile browsing.
Mar 10th, 2009
Don Young
Hey! Wait just a doggone minute. This is Fort Worth we’re talking about here. We got the sweet spot of the Barnett Shale and Dallas got George Bush, right. Why, just the other day I saw a billboard that read, “Natural gas: moving us forward”. All that money was supposed to, “raise all boats”, too, according to the current occupant at city hall. Am I missing something? I must’ve got some bad liquor or something. Tell this ol’ paperboy it ain’t true.
Mar 10th, 2009
Ann
I don’t like the idea of a combined dallas fort worth paper… I still remember years ago when we went over to the dallas side of the metroplex to stay over night at my inlaws house while they were out of town and in the morning I wanted a paper… a fort worth paper… and there was none to be found! You can get the dallas morning news in fort worth but we could not find a star telegram anywhere over there! Even though we get both papers daily… my husband likes to read both sports pages… I still won’t read the dallas morning news.
Mar 10th, 2009
Quaid
“our publication aims not just to tell readers how to spend their disposable income”
I rarely resort to violence, unless you ask my 4th grade nemesis, but that ad makes me want to drive over and apply just to have the opportunity to punch them in the face.
Mar 10th, 2009
vinnyv28
AH Belo may be stronger than McClatchy, but that’s just being the better swimmer on the Titanic. THIS month, Belo will be shutting down all Fort Worth printing operations and will lay off virtually all those dedicated employees.
For their brilliant leadership, the management of the printing center was allowed to retire with BANK (of course). Meanwhile, all the peons are required to stay until the doors close else forfeit their pitiful severance (that is capped at 10 weeks even if you’ve been with the company for decades). No time off is even being granted to look or interview for other jobs. Understandably, it is very stressful for the employees – and especially confusing for those that volunteered to take the early retirement severance package last year in order to “help” the company – only to be turned down by the company!
The management of AH Belo is just downright questionable at best. Fort Worth does not need any more of that crap from another newspaper – if they were to merge, I’m sure it would be the same stupid shenanigans. The only way to successfully make a universal DFW newspaper would be to burn the two papers down and start fresh with people that actually give a sh*t about DFW and its people.
Mar 11th, 2009
Wayne Coyne
Chris Kelly’s e-mail is attached to the listing, I’m guessing he wrote it. So there ya go.
Mar 11th, 2009
Don Young
The Star-Telegram in its current form needs to die. The employees of the S-T, subscribers and the reading public deserve a better paper. (Or maybe we got the paper we deserve.) The S-T editorial staff has acted arrogantly and irresponsibly on the gas drilling issue, the most important issue to ever face this town. They failed the public and have not been held accountable.
They failed at their responsibility to fully inform the public of the dangers of drilling when the information was out there for the taking and when it would have made a difference. They even criticized efforts to shed light on a dirty industry. Other media such as, The FW Weekly, West and Clear and other blogs tried to take up the slack but with limited readership. Their (lack of) reporting on public health, safety and the environment took a back seat to profits and cozy relationships with major clients doing the drilling. In most cases, when they did get it right they failed to do so in a timely manner.
The S-T failed to fully explore the impacts of drilling on real estate marketability, insurance and future development and how those things impact quality of life. They embraced the industry unabashedly and continue to do so despite knowing the drawbacks and serious risks involved. Their, bend-over-backwards style of supporting urban drilling is nowhere more evident than in their partnering with and pandering to the BS Expo. The op-ed board needs a complete makeover. If they have an ethics advisor he/she needs to be fired or jailed.
Bottom line: They have been an advertising mouthpiece and cheerleading squad for industrial operations in our city that have had a detrimental effect on people and property for now and the long term. I can’t imagine a more well deserved fate than the newspaper that determined MONEY was more important than public health and safety goes down for lack of MONEY. Let it all fall down and cast salt upon the ruins.
Mar 11th, 2009
Nancy Pearson
My brothers have both worked for the Star for almost thirty years, as well as several other family members and many friends..It is heart wrenching to see what these fine, hardworking, dedicated people are going through…
Mar 11th, 2009
Sonja
I think the problem for the Star-Telegram and all newspapers is an evolving citizen attitude of what is important anyway. My mother still subscribes, and is frightened by the concept of a town without a paper and a citizenry that doesn’t read one, and thinks similarly to one of my profs. in the teacher credentialing program I’m attending, who told us accusingly, “your generation doesn’t read the newspaper.”
I guess I’m a bit put off by the level of trust some in the over-60 population have in the newspaper. I suspect that once it was the best source of information, when the alternative was going over the back fence and hearing gossip from next door, but the increased and expanding sources of information on the internet have a way of undercutting the claims the newspaper has always made of non-bias. It’s as if, in the past, the newspaper was the most unbiased news source, but now the internet is that. And this, not the price of paper, may be what is cutting their market off at the knees.
I will also add just one more thing that is perhaps more scary for the creative community than the apparent failing of the newsprint and magazine industry. That is, that the idea of paid journalists whose full-time career is writing short non-fiction copy is only about 100 years old. Before that, most writing was non-professional. Could it be that we have been living in a heyday of paid-for copy, and the number of employed writers is declining not temporarily, but over the long run, not to rise again for God knows how long?
I don’t know, and I’m standing by to see what comes next.
Mar 12th, 2009
Pete Wann
@Sonja
I think you’re on the right track about bias here. I don’t think it’s the case that the internet is non-biased, but because it’s easier to access as both a publisher and a consumer, what filters to the top is generally less biased overall than what’s in the newspaper or on TV news.
Failing that, for the same reasons as above, it’s at least easier to get both sides of a story with TONS of context and hyperlinked evidence to back up claims. 15 years ago, it wouldn’t have been possible to completely destroy your own credibility so thoroughly as it is now.
I’ve always wondered why classically trained reporters (or more often, their editors) never seemed to give a shit about the truth, only “facts.” I’ve come to the conclusion that if they actually reported on reality, they’d lose access to their sources because the reporters would be constantly pointing out how frequently their sources deliberately misled them. Also, due to the inherent constraints of the daily newspaper format, there isn’t room to constantly re-hash historical context and past statements, etc.
Maybe that’s the actual failing of newspapers — they’re still of the same quality, but society has changed. It used to be that a reporter could count on his/her readers to have read the paper the day before and before that, etc., therefore already knowing the context in which the current story exists. That’s not the case any more — everyone’s time and attention are so fragmented that we only get bits and pieces of everything.
Mar 13th, 2009
Sonja
Thanks for the vote of confidence Pete. I was reflecting on this this morning, and I realized that when I need information I go to the internet and often completely skip journalism. For example, I wondered how much FWISD spends per student per year. I did a google search and came up with the number from an archived powerpoint presentation that someone at the district did. Before newspapers, no one had time to track down this stuff, now if you know what you’re doing it’s there for the taking.
Another example: weather reports. I don’t need the newspaper for that, I just go to
the NOAA website. As far as I can tell this site is funded by the Federal Government and does an excellent job compared with buying a paper.
Mar 13th, 2009
Scott
Amon Cater has to be rolling in his grave! It’s sad that my hometown paper is in the state it is in and when my subscription ends. I’m done. Where do I start? The front-page section A is just a table of contents or cliff notes for the rest of the paper. I just so happen to have temporary move to the Summerfield area, so now I am no longer part of Ft Worth I am “North Ft Worth”. The rest of Ft Worth does not pertain to me. And God forbid if I did want any news from our neighbors to the East. The business section, if they had an original thought to put down on paper I think hell would freeze over. It’s a treasure hunt if you want to see what’s playing at the movies and I think ST has a travel section in the Sunday issue, if you can find what section it is in. Here is the best way to explain the competent of out beloved ST. Last year before the football season, the business section did a story on fantasy football and the millions that play and the millions it cost business on wasted time dedicated to researching their teams during work. So you think they would know that would be a huge base to tap into, a captive audience, NOPE! Guess the sports department knows the quality of the business section and never reads it too. That just seems like business 101 to me. And let’s say you might actually want to read the ST, your going to lunch, maybe Montgomery Plaza and you try finding a paper machine. Nada, not happing. You can’t even buy one at Target. A lot of people love getting away by grabbing something to read and going to lunch but ST has yet to figure this out. Next time you go out for lunch look for a ST paper machine. Common sense will tell you this is a dead paper. RIP Star Telegram.
Mar 14th, 2009
Ann
Scott, You can buy the star telegram at any starbucks and they are all over the place… LOL even Montgomery Plaza.
Mar 15th, 2009
Scott
Guess you can tell I’m not a coffee drinker. Must be one of the few who has never stepped into a Starbucks.
Mar 16th, 2009
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