Tale of two cities, one publisher

THE BIG MEDIA story in Hawaii isn't the tsunami threat anymore but rather David Black's purchase of the Honolulu Advertiser - the longtime rival of Black's smaller Honolulu Star-Bulletin. As Harry Liggett, formerly of the Beacon Journal, noted on the BJ Retirees blog:

The sale will lead to layoffs when and if the papers are combined, although the number of layoffs has not been determined.

Black's joy over his latest deal was only slightly muted. "It's a sad day when we can't keep two good papers running in a city of this size," he said.

Sad, indeed. At the time of the announced merger, Black's Beacon Journal was trying to wrap up negotiations with the Guild on a contract that expired way back in July 2008. And later this week the down-sized union will be voting on a proposed settlement that Guild spokesperson Stephanie Warsmith says is "concessionary" in pay and benefits. More concessions for a newsroom that has already been reduced to the size of a holiday staff. (Latest departures: three sportswriters.)

Buying and selling newspapers has been Black's modus operandi since he purchased the Beacon Journal and other papers in 2006 from McClatchy, which bought them from Knight-Ridder. At the time, Black, a Canadian publisher who owns a large estate of mostly weekly newspapers, expressed his delight in acquiring the Beacon Journal, asserting in a memo to the staff that there would be no layoffs while recognizing the paper's labor unions. Now-former BJ publisher Jim Crutchfield lauded Black's reputation "for figuring out how things work and making them better. He appreciates that value of journalism."

There is nothing that I can add.

Unclassical response to classical music

 ON JAN. 13 E.J. Thomas Hall on the University of Akron campus was the host of an historic visit by the Guarneri String Quartet for a performance on the Tuesday Musical series.  It was historic because the world-famous quartet, created in 1964,  was  making its valedictory  tour of concert halls before retiring at the end of the 2008-2009 season. Its program of Janacek, Mozart and Dvorak did not disappoint the audience who had come to expect extraordinarily played music by a  group that had been critically acclaimed across the globe.  For the privilege of hearing it in our backyard, we could thank Tuesday Musical, which across generations has striven to produce the highest level of classical music programming.  If you need more evidence to convince you, the series has scheduled Renee Fleming, perhaps the most revered operatic soprano on the Met stage today, for a solo program on April 7.  .  

How nice.  The Akron area's long-standing reputation as a committed supporter of the finest in classical programming deserves nothing less for keeping the concert halls active through good economic times and bad.  Well, only partly nice.  There is one critical missing part these days that has the folks at Tuesday Musical, the Akron Symphony and E.J. Thomas Hall scampering about for a solution.  Since the departure of Elaine Guregian as the Beacon Journal's classical music critic, she hasn't been replaced.  No reviews nor advance feature stories on the Guarneri, which might as well have performed in Kansas that night.  The same is true of the Akron Symphony's concert the past weekend. 

In both instances, it may have been the first time either group was snubbed by the local "metropolitan" newspaper.  Based on what their representatives have been told by the paper's editors so far, it's not likely to change.   They went away with nothing more than a rite of passage into the economics of  today's newspapers, at least as the editors and their Canadian owner might describe it. That means the BJ will continue to pretend to be a full-service newspaper while ignoring an important segment of the city's cultural spectrum.  It means that  the paper can find ways  to devote five pages to sports news (and - trust me -  I'm a big sports fan) daily and not come up with the equivalent of a couple of pages a month to concert fare.  Unless, of course, one of the entertainment venues happens to shut down, as was the recent case of the published  hysterics over the sudden demise of Carousel Dinner Theatre. Good Lord, there goes another potential advertiser!

Regarding Carousel, Dan Dahl, executive director of Thomas Hall , has moved to lure the Carousel series subscribers who will not get refunds for their subscriptions to Carousel shows. He is offering a free ticket to one of Thomas Hall's three remaining Broadway shows that come to town through April.   "This will cost us money," sighs Dahl, who faces the same economic demands as everyone else in the business and is searching  for ways introduce his stage to newcomers. 

The outlook is grim.  "It's unconscionable," says Barbara Feld,  Tuesday Musical's veteran executive director.  "It's terrible for a paper not to have a reviewer.  There wasn't  a word about the Guarneri. It just diminishes the cultural legitimacy of the community." She says she is embarrassed to tell a performing artist that if they come to Akron "there won't be anything in the paper."  It creates a prairie town atmosphere all around.  That would appear to be of no consquence to its absentee owner, David Black, in his faraway office in Victoria, British Columbia.  

There isn't much joy in other organizations, either.  Both Jessie Raynor, executive director of the Akron Area Arts Alliance, and Margot Snider, exectutive director of the Akron Symphony, share Feld's pessimism that the Beacon Journal  will respond to their concerns. "We were told," Raynor says, "that Elaine will not be replaced."     Snider laments that the symphony "obviously is being hurt" and predicts  the situation will only get worse.

I asked Bruce Winges, the BJ's editor via e-mail about these concerns.  His  reply was not reassuring. He said:

"We do not have anyone on our staff with Elaine's expertise, and we are not in a position to hire.  We will, however, continue to cover the arts community (we recently did a look at the state of funding for the arts in Akron and there is the closing of the dinner theater."

Is he in a bind between the owner's Scrooge-like attitude and the cultural needs of the Akron area.  Doubtless.   No one who has spent much time reading about the current travail of newspapers can ignore the economic pressure on the industry.  But is it only economic pressure, or is it also  the lack of will and imagination by local editors and the big guy who owns the place that are cheating a special group of readers?   For one thing, has there been any  consideration of alternatives that would help?   If there is absolute resistence to adding a music critic to the staff, there are other ways to solve the problem.  There are competent freelancers in the music schools at the University of Akron and Kent State who might be willing for a few bucks and a free ticket to write an advance story about a concert and then a review.  So I don't step aside when editors wring their handkershiefs and say that I ought to understand their predicament.  

Today's deadlock is especially brutal in a town with no television station and a couple of bargain-basement radio stations incapable of taking take up the slack. The one exception is the heroic effort by WKSU to inform its listeners of the best that the  area  music organizations have to offer.  As I have asked in the past, "When can  a newspaper stop calling itself a newspaper?"

Incredible!  

. 

To David Black, Beacon Journal

OPEN LETTER to David Black, owner of the Akron Beacon Journal, Victoria, British Columbia:

Dear David, 

The exodus of many of the Akron Beacon Journal's most experienced news room staffers in recent weeks has created a sieve in the institutional memory of the once-proud Knight newspaper.  We need to talk about its consequences.

        The paper's former reputation as a leader in the state's governmental, political and hometown coverage was the proud creation of John S. Knight, a widely respected publisher, editor and, most of all, journalist whose determination to provide quality on its daily pages worked its way down to the exacting placement of commas in the most routine stories.  He had a love affair with Akron while building a newspaper empire. 

        The city that he  loved thrived with a strong industrial base,   an important university campus in its midst and a cultural heritage reaching back nearly a century or so  to Gertrude Seiberling's music salons at the Seiberlings' Stan Hywet  residence.  Even today, when many cities are losing their orchestras, The Akron Symphony Orchestra  remains strong and vital.  So does the more than century-old Tuesday Musical Club.  And in the visual arts, it recently opened its door to an impressive addition to its art museum. 

        I make a special point of the city's  cultural commitments  only because  the Beacon Journal's longtime music critic, Elaine Guregian, turned off her BJ computer and joined the Cleveland Orchestra's front office, with no indication as yet that the BJ will replace her with someone of equal professional value.

         But there's more:  popular sports and general columnists have vanished through the front door, unwilling  to commit their future to a paper that you have been decimating since you entered the scene as a reclusive publisher largely concerned with weekly newspaper ownership (roughly 150, many that are said  to be easily circulated free of charge to the readers' doorsteps.)

        Lest you accuse me of being ignorant of the great pressures on newspaper publishing in the modern world, I am not.  As a  veteran newspaperman myself, I regret the threatened demise of my profession.  However, I remain confused by an apparent game plan that a  half a loaf is better than none, and then a half of a half, etc.   I must ask: What do you have mind as a publisher?  At what point because of the shrinkage do we stop referring to your paper as a newsaper?  What is your obligation to treat not only the paper but the city with professional concern so that you would still merit with pride your name on the paper?

     

       Many people in this town would like to know.  Unless you can explain how the loss of your best reporters and editors can improve the ailing look of the Beacon Journal these days,  you will only make matters worse for yourself  with the paper's readers.  Perhaps you might consider a visit to Akron someday to offer some answers to these questions.  Otherwise, why should anyone care about the bottom  line for a newspaper that has already lost its soul?

Respectfully, Abe Zaidan