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Disappearing Ink
Recent information first. Connect the dots and tell me what you see:
Dot. 1 - Aug. 27: Record Searchlight newspaper employees received this email with the following announcement from Shanna Cannon, the paper’s president and publisher, in which she says the RS will no longer deliver papers to Trinity and Siskiyou Counties, beginning the end of October:
“After in-field research, and careful financial analysis, we have decided to end carrier delivery in Trinity and Siskiyou Counties effective at the end of October.
For some time now we’ve been struggling with service in these communities. The increase in fuel costs, over the past year, has made recruiting and retaining carriers an even bigger challenge. As a result, our service has suffered. Given the current economic climate, the Record Searchlight faces some difficult decisions. During the last several years, the Record Searchlight has been subsidizing the delivery of the newspaper to these areas and even then, we have found it difficult to meet basic standards of delivery. It is with a heavy heart that we’ve made the decision to no longer offer carrier delivery in these communities. The last paper delivered by a carrier to homes and businesses will be on Sunday, Oct. 26.
Keeping these communities connected remains a priority for us. We’re offering them three ways to continue to obtain their news from the Record Searchlight:
1. They may choose to have the newspapers delivered via the United States Postal Service. This will cost $6.00 more each month and they will receive the newspaper the same day it is published.
2. Soon, we’ll offer the opportunity to read the Record Searchlight print version online. Readers will be able to subscribe and receive our e-edition daily. This option will be available in early October. The cost is the same as the current home delivery rates plus, they’ll have extra benefits including automatic search for stories and the ability to increase the text size. They’ll be able to print coupons and ads.
3. They’ll be encouraged to read the daily news on Redding.com and it is free of charge. It is updated 24 hours a day and accessible anytime.
Our carrier force will be notified of these changes tomorrow, followed by a letter mailed to subscribers this Friday. This will be the first of several ways we communicate the changes to subscribers. External questions are being directed to Robbie Parham, our new Director of Circulation.
This decision was not an easy one, but given our inability to offer consistent service that meets our own standards of performance, it seems the best option for both our operation and our customers.
Should you have questions regarding these changes, or what we anticipate the impact being on our business, I encourage you to stop by my office or discuss your concerns with your department head.
In Hayfork, a young couple shares a Record Searchlight delivery route as their primary means of income. Their baby’s due in September. Their jobs end in October . . .
Dot 2 - Aug. 24: RS editor Silas Lyons wrote a disconnected sandwich column where the first and last paragraphs are ostensibly about legislators and tough choices, while the bologna in the middle contained national newspaper woes. The theme: Lookie what other newspapers are doing in these tough times. The San Diego Tribune is up for sale. McClatchy will cut 1,400 positions. Some publishers are “wondering aloud” whether to stop producing papers on holidays, or maybe not every day of the week.
For those who could stomach reading the whole thing, the column’s lead is really buried in the second to the last paragraph with this:
“In short, we make tough decisions in the face of reality, and I’m sure you’ll see more of them - both in your newspaper and in others around the country.”
But all the other papers are doing it . . .
Dot 3 - July 25: Record Searchlight employees received their Made Fresh Weekly newsletter -traditionally a place with employee newsie bits about births, retirements, anniversaries and company picnics. This edition featured a half-page message from Shanna Cannon, the paper’s president and publisher.
Her lead went like so:
“Some of you have requested to see industry news on a more regular basis. In order to meet that need, one time each month in Made Fresh I’ll be providing you with some of the latest news about our business. It won’t always be pretty, but keeping you better informed is the goal. I look forward to your feedback and welcome your thoughts and suggestions as this column evolves to meet your needs.”
Thought/suggestion: Stop gutting our community’s newspaper . . .
Cannon then shot off a graphic list of newspaper-industry “challenges” and “solutions”: Newsprint costs up. Newspaper company shares and advertising revenue down. Newsstand prices up. Number of news pages down. One paper claimed to even reduce its pages without reducing its news hole (remaining space after advertisements).
Maybe it contains less advertising . . .
In that same Made Fresh Weekly, the July circulation numbers are given: Daily 29,249, Sunday 32,920. (For a bit of perspective, more than 10 years ago the RS’ Sunday circulation was more than 40,000.)
Connect the dots . . .
1,586 views
It’s not hard to see, unless you are too close to see it all.
Craigslist and all the interwebs provided the gutshot. Poor Silas presides over the slow death of our hometown paper, and we bear witness.
A shame? Maybe. But sites (like News Cafe?) will spring up in it’s place. We gain a multitude of views to replace the monopoly. Our loss will be the publication of record. Where we all refer, and all agree that some impartial accuracy exists? The blogoshere is the wild west, and cannot provide the commonality, the community of agreement on what is news, what is relevant, and which factoids bear some semblance to reality.
The RS carries the baggage of their aging printing press, but if they can abandon that model and turn toward new media while retaining their cherished community credibility, they can survive and prosper. If not, they deserve to die anyway.
So now I’ve got my paper. Looking back over my insomniac post, it seems harsh. And it can’t be edited either, darn it.
Quick harsh posts seem to be the norm online. Too bad. Gone are carefully considered letters to the editor. I’ll confess to missing my printed paper over coffee, but I remember when the RS was an afternoon rag. Times do change.
Disruptive technology is aptly named. We’ve all seen it. Like former RS staff, I have personally felt the impact. On a shelf in the other room is a mantle clock I received for 20 years at Kodak. When was the last time you used film?
Kodak was a fine American institution. I can’t begin to describe all the good things they did, and the great discoveries they made, including, uh oh, digital cameras. The Kodak that exists now is a mere shell of itself, looking frantically for a business model that could replace all the money from the small yellow boxes of film. Staff gets cut. Times do change.
The RS faces similar disruption. If they can hang on to to their (now former) standards with integrity, perhaps they can face their challenges and survive. I hope they can. I have fond memories of our hometown paper.
My guess is it won’t be long before delivieries to anywhere outside the Redding City Limits will be discontinued.
If Icould get the New York Times or the San Francisco Chronicle delivered to my home on the day of publishing, I would gladly pay for that, but not the fishwrap that the R-S has become.
I just read a related post that some might find of interest - about the need for newspapers to modernize their plant to survive (which hasn’t been common in the US).
The point was made that in Europe, with more modern plant, advertisers paid more for the same reach, but got better localization and ads in color. Source: http://newsosaur.blogspot.com/2008/08/publishers-need-to-invest-in-new-plant.html
For a bit more perspective, 90 percent of the fall in circulation from 40,000 took place under the able stewardship of
Tom King and Kelly Brewer.
For a bit more perspective, circulation — at least at the R-S — always bottoms out in the summer, and the most recent daily was something like 32 or 33K.
Sad to say, obviously that will drop by around 1,000 without Trinity and Siskiyou counties. It’s heartbreaking to stop delivering to those areas, which inevitably means we’ll stop covering them in even a token fashion.
Salutations to all!
I feel the need to weigh in on the new policies Shanna Cannon the publisher of the Record Searchlight is setting in place -
I was supposed to be a part of the “new direction” the paper was taking but disagreed with upper management on how we were treating our customers - price increases, deteriorating content, sourcing out labor, targeting long term employees for termination, freelancing articles, converting free into paid sections of the paper (like the TV Book) - just not the club I wanted to belong to.
The paper is “going in a different direction” - the new Circulation Director Robbie Parham told me when she decided to let me go - and I am not supporting that direction - true enough - I don’t think the direction that the paper is going is the direction I want to go - it’s the high road for me - I live in this community and I love my neighbors.
The Circulation Director Robbie Parham - is under instruction from the Publisher Shanna Cannon to raise the price of the paper - in the plan the first phase was to increase prices in the “rural” areas becuse it was costing the company too much of it’s profits - this phase was put to the wayside because I could not give Shanna what she wanted - I did not see how we could charge more for a product that did not do what a newspaper should do - which is be a reflection of the community it represents.
The next phase was to evaluate which areas are not profitable to the company - Hayfork, Mount Shasta, Trinity, Weed, Burney, Mc Cloud - decide where we need to concentrate our resources - we identified Tehama county as a great growth potential community - that’s why the editorial department developed the Tehama Today sections published on Friday and Sunday each week - to lure that community into the web of deception - “We care about your community” - we gave you a “special section” in the newspaper - hook ‘em - now reel ‘em in.
Newspapers in Education is also cut back - costs too much to print all those papers for the kids to read!
The RS or should I say that Shanna Cannon does not have our community at heart, she like any of the other 3 Publishers we have had over the last 10 years, use the RS as a stepping stone - Shanna has no intent on living in our community for the long term - she is like all the rest - except during this ecomonmically challenging time - Shanna needs to make the paper look as profitable as possible - for her career advancement of course!
The powers that be - Shanna Cannon - wants to see Record Searchlight Customer Service Department - which is curently down to 3 employees from 6 - sourced out to our sister paper in Ventura - so your call could be directed to a person who knows nothing about you or the area in which we live - the info would be placed in the system and routed to the RS for resolution. We currently can not get through to the customer service department or resolve our billing or delivery issues because the 3 employees left are so bogged down with calls and extra work they can’t keep up! And just think if they get a lower bid from the Phillipines or Guam you could be talking to a different hemisphere all together!
In addition to this Shanna Cannon has also requested that management look into converting the Home Delivery and Single Copy managers (employees of the RS) into distributorships - thereby eliminating these employees and their benefits - out sourcing the delivery of your paper -
Art department, outsourced - editorial, freelancing - circulation, distributorshps - NIE, production cuts - size of the paper, smaller (and will get smaller by the end of the year), delivery, sub contract - employees, distributorships - hmmmm the high road seems to be the way to go
There are more changes to come for all - the employees and the community.
Good luck to the ones left behind -
I won’t be surprised to hear, somewhere in the future, that the RS is up for sale or out of business. You can’t continue to gut your business, alienate people and remain in operation. My husband and I have noticed of late the poorly written articles along with everything else that is wrong with the paper.
How’s that saying go? Evolve or die? All industries — including journalism — are subject to it. In this morning’s in-box: E-mail news summaries from the NY Times, LA Times, Salon.com, Joe Biden, Jeff Morris, AV News and more. The basics remain – report news and information — but the medium is evolving. Heck, where do you suppose mass communication (my major) evolved from? The illiterate masses went to church not only for Sunday salvation, but to be informed about what was going on in their world. Hence, the phrase mass communication. Methinks few people attend weekly services these days for that express need. The medium has evolved. Emotions have not. Messengers, still, get shot.
-Christy
I would greatly miss my morning paper, but times have changed, and business has no choice but to change too. The young people mostly get their news on T.V. and the internet and do not subscribe to newspapers. I like getting my news from a variety of sources, and hope our local paper can succeed. It might help if so many people weren’t knocking it. No one forces you to buy or read it…like T.V. there is an OFF “button”.
Christy, I think the actual phrase is “Adapt or die.” Same idea, different word.
Rocci, thanks for weighing in on this. It’s nice to have the input from someone who has been there, done that, and knows the scoop. Hope things are going well for you now!
Such a sad state the R-S is in now. I don’t recognize it anymore.
To Rocci, or should I type Raquel-grin: I wondered if you were still around. When your name didn’t pop us as the new Circulation Hatchet, er, Director, I figured you were another one who had bit the dust (or were about to).
About the spy: Man o’ man. You are privy to all that happens still; emails, plant newsletter.
My apologies. The latest figures from mid-August were 31,200
No wonder the RS is having problems. We keep receiving the Fri/Sat/Sun papers even though we paid for only 13 weeks about 1 1/2 years ago (one of those 13 weeks for $13 specials). I have called them several time to stop delivery and the papers just keep coming……..
I agree with “Pat J”. Funny that’s me, except I am known as pmarshall. Just thought I’d use an alias just in case my remarks might be “off the hook.” That being said, I would miss the wretched spotlight. We used to use all kinds of names for the newspaper, but it has improved over the years. You should have seen it in 1962! Oh, well, I know “times have changed”, and we must all change with the times. Not everyone has a computer or can even understand them. Too bad. I guess the Searchlight will have to look somewhere to keep the people interested. Yes, it costs a lot to do business these days. But keep the paper coming. And it’s always good to have editorials from people of the community.
Thanks pmarshall !! I too remember the R.S. from the 60’s.
Our household subscribes to a lot of magazines. I can think of at least four that cover current events, stuff that a newspaper should be covering. We actually pay a lot to stay informed about things that often doesn’t get coverage in the U.S. and definitely not in Redding. To claim that the web is the cause of the R/S’s demise is nonsense. I would be happy to pay a lot for a daily paper that didn’t S**K.
I have been saying since the Record Searchlight started making substantial changes that they were desperate attempts to put off the inevitable–the death of the printed paper. It is obvious that the paper thinks people like me are irrelevant. They have placed their hopes on those whose definition of a newspaper is very different than mine. Are there enough of them. I doubt it.
One more thing. It is so refreshing to know that I am not alone in missing a good daily paper. A major problem with a monopoly is that there hasn’t been a forum for saying this. What a pleasure to have Food for Thought: A News Cafe.
I’m also thankful to have Doni and Kelly’s News Cafe, but I don’t want to give up ANY of my news sources. McLisa who
claimed that the Web was to blame for the R.S. woes???
As a bay area transplant, I am definitely a news snob. Lots of things I was glad to leave behind….diverse, timely, thought-provoking news wasn’t on the list.
As an aside, I know for a fact that Redding School of the Arts has been TRYING to discontinue their RS delivery for many, many months…..they just keep showing up. I feed them to my worms (vermicomposting) but how sad is that!! If I delivered lunches to kids whose parents didn’t order them and didn’t WANT them, I’d be outta business in no time….and I’m not trying to make a profit!
What is wrong with a company that pulls back when they are not financial able to full fill their obligation? I can’t even name the thousands of companies that do this everyday. So, when the Record Searchlight goes on the record, just like a lot of other newspapers about their plans to make the company profitable, what is wrong with that? At least they are not closing. So they have gotten ride of some features. I don’t read the paper feeling like I am missing anything, because let’s be honest, we just read and move on. I am probably like a lot of other visitors on your site… occasionally I visit and rarely comment…. except to say, Doni, move on… I want to hear about our community, not your personal revenage on the Record Searchlight.
I get that I am a lowly insignificant contractor for the R/S but its obvious even to me that in a time of decline it’s even more important to have strong capable leadership. Mismanagement has been a problem for some time now. I Remember, union busting when it was made very clear that even talking about it could get a person terminated, or how about when the R/S bought its own papers to boost circulation and have the contractors sign a affidavit to limit their liability. The Sunday plus program that gets counted as circulation but never goes out. Salaried employees that work so much overtime that their wage comes out to $2.00an hour. I could go on and on but you get the point. With the policy of “if you don’t like it quit” so those that can just move on. My heart goes out to those that are stuck there good people that need their job. Everyone has just stopped caring (I don’t know I just work here). Never have I seen a company create so many disgruntled employees. Just try calling in to the service center and get anything done.
The cost and filling the positions was the reason for stopping service in these areas. That’s just not true I’m willing to work for what their willing to pay. I can’t even remember how many carriers that signed up for what their willing to pay and quit shortly afterward feeling cheated and lied to. In a small place reputation is everything. When anyone notices a problem especially with money it’s expected to be fixed in a timely manner. Waiting 30 days so the carrier has no claim per their contract will ruin a reputation no mater what the company’s intent was. Waiting weeks to contact someone interested in a position because management is so overwhelmed is mismanagement.
I am not going to bash the new management, but one trip to an area not talking to the carriers is not “in field research”. The ship is sinking the last caption abandoned it and their franticly trying to bail it out.
The bottom line is these are economically depressed areas with low profit and growth potential. More affluent areas are sot after (like buying more expensive tubes because the neighborhood didn’t like the color). Ad space is wasted on people who can’t afford to buy the products. Profit and agenda have and always been part of a free press. The question everyone needs to ask is how much of a part? Does profit dictate who can read it? Is content changed to attract more advertisers? Am I buying an ad or a newspaper? The answer is in the falling circulation numbers. Subscribers are just moving on.
I don’t have hard feelings toward the R/S it’s just my time to move on. I will still do my best to give the people in my community the best service possible. I will spend my time learning to care about what I do again. To those still at the R/S when the time comes just move on. Don’t lose your morals and dignity for a company that will use you up and throw you out.
Caught me, Pat. It might have been the voices in my head. I coulda sworn that someone blamed a loss in advertising revenue due to competition by online sites, or a loss in readership, or both. So what do they say is the cause of a 22 percent decline in readership over the last ten years in spite of a growing potential customer base?
I grew up with parents who loved the news…we subscribed to the Santa Ana (now Orange County) Register, Los Angeles Times and Chronicle. We always had stacks of magazines, Look and Life, Time and Newsweek….because it was important to my parents to get all different views of the world we lived in. Different rags = different opinions. And we watched NBC, ABC and CBS. Now we have the world wide web. My mom would be fascinated had she been able to experience this.
Printed materials are disappearing; we know that. I am glad to have Food for Thought to bring us local stories that no one else does. This town IS big enough for many voices. Check out Enjoy magazine, a wonderful printed work, the blogs linked to this website and to those blogs. Gosh I even click on redding.com and Fox News (my hubbie is cringing at that practice, but hey, we all need to read about really weird stuff).
My point, Doni has moved on. So have many others. We are fortunate that there are journalists and creative minds that are providing us with information in our local community that otherwise would go unreported. Not just this story — check out the archives.
Please remember when all the mills in this area began to close. It too was a dying industry, and many of those workers were hurt…bad….while the owners continued to make profits, their house payments and enjoy retirement. (Here comes the bit of bitter) — EW Scripps is a media giant and owns many, many, many profitable ventures — HG TV to name one. Competition is the way of the world and there is enough advertising dollars to share, even in our little city. Why hurt these little guys that work in Redding just to make a small percentage of the profit being made by a huge conglomerate?
This is news and someone needs to cover it. Thank you.
It was brought to my attention that the best way to put something on the market is to have previously cut the cost of operating so it has the potential for instant payoff for buyers. The RS by outsourcing and downsizing the remainder is doing just that.
Right On Lynne!!
What I’m really whining about is the dearth of responsible journalism on the corporate level. So many organizations seem to believe that people will get information from multiple sources, making them free to choose what they cover and which way the spin will rotate. The upside is that no one source can influence a geographic group, but an ideological group can become almost completely isolated. The more one can pick and choose from sources, the more likely one will pick from sources that one already agrees with. Some of us want information, not infotainment. It may be up to sites like this to create a new niche for the fourth estate.
Larry, good point, seen it, had it done to me, didn’t even get a t-shirt on my way out.
(If somebody posted a donigreenberg.com sticker file, I’d print them and stick ‘em. Oh, and while I’m dreaming, I wish Scott Mobley would run his weather blog here.)
For McLisa…Most of the young people I know don’t take any newspaper. They get their news on T.V. and some on the Web. The oldsters who were readers keep dying off. That’s just my take on it. pjp
McLisa,
You said:
“Some of us want information, not infotainment. It may be up to sites like this to create a new niche for the fourth estate.”
I believe you are right. Many corporate entities have whored themselves until they are a shadow of their former selves. They have left the work of informing the citizenry to grass roots internet concerns like donigreenberg.com, pink hollyhock, etc.
That could be a very good thing.
Yes, I was not happy when Doni left the paper. I always enjoyed her articles. I even cancelled the paper. But, I found I needed to see the local news , and still like having the paper. Not everyone can be pleased. Inspite of all the bad “raps”, I hope the paper will keep on coming.
In the town I grew up in, I started selling the afternoon paper when I was 8. The thought of my kids wandering around downtown, in and out of bars, to get a few bucks stuns me. I had a morning route for 6 years until I was a senior in high school, making $50 to $75 per month. Every house took the paper back then. Now just a few older people in our neighborhood do. I used to buy the Sunday paper for the ads, but we can’t afford anything until Christmas, so that stopped. I read the online version each day as well as Donnie’s and a dozen other news sites.
The poor quality of the local paper has been well documented, but I wish it was better. I wish it was relevant still. Times change. People prefer to get a diet of 30 second news bites without any meat to stories.
Well… lets face it. Times ARE hard for traditional publishers. The Internet is eating their lunch. Congrats to Doni and others who have figured out how to work the new media!
d
PS, off topic: Rocci, I wondered why my emails to you were bouncing. Now I know. Would you be so kind as to give me your new email address?