Good Wednesday morning Fellow Seekers,
On Monday, James O’Shea, editor of the Los Angeles Times, was fired because of his unwillingness to along with the latest round of newsroom cuts demanded by the publisher. It’s always inspiring to see someone take a stand on principle, especially when they have to make a significant personal sacrifice.
Another impressive, and depressing aspect of the story is that O’Shea is the third Editor since 2005 to leave under the same circumstances. They hired O’Shea (that’s him at right) to make the cuts that his predecessors wouldn’t make, but the demands soon reached a level of cuts that he wouldn’t make either. How would you like to be the next editor?
O’Shea spoke to the staff before leaving, and then sent out this e-mail to those who had missed his remarks. I’ve included the most interesting portions. There’s a more complete version here:
“…By now I am sure you have all heard I am leaving the Los Angeles Times after 14 months as editor of the paper… I know there’s a lot of talk about why I am leaving so let me set the record straight. In discussions about the current and future budgets, it became clear that Publisher David Hiller and I didn’t share a common vision for the future of the Los Angeles Times. In fact, we were far apart. So David decided he wanted a new editor…
This is a tough time in the company and the industry. I understand that. I spent much of my career covering business and economics. I understand the realities of the bottom line. I am not some naïve, starry-eyed journalist who can’t accept economic reality. I know you have to cut back in hard times. I’ve done that more often than I care to mention. I also know this is a time of transition with change sweeping throughout the industry. But when you don’t agree with the future course of the newspaper it’s best to simply move on. There are plenty of other challenges out there for me and I don’t intend to sit around idle. There are bike rides to be had, books to write and hopefully another opportunity or two to make a difference. I am not a quitter.One thing I want put on the record, though, is that I disagree completely with the way that this company allocates resources to its newsrooms, not just here but at Tribune newspapers all around the country [The L.A. Times is owned by the Chicago-based Tribune Co]. That system is at the core of my disagreements with David. I think the current system relies too heavily on voodoo economics and not enough on the creativity and resourcefulness of journalists. We journalists have our faults, but we also have a lot to offer. Too often we’ve been dismissed as budgetary adolescents who can’t be trusted to conserve our resources. That is wrong. Journalists and not accountants should seize responsibility for the financial health of our newspapers so journalists can make decisions about the size of our staffs and how much news remains in our papers and web sites.
The biggest challenge we face — journalists and dedicated newspaper folks alike – is to overcome this pervasive culture of defeat, the psychology of surrender that accepts decline as inevitable. This mindset plagues our business and threatens our newspapers and livelihoods. I believe that when Sam Zell [principal owner of the Tribune Co.] understands how asinine the current budgetary system is, he will change it for the better, because he is a smart businessman and he understands the value of wise investment. A dollar’s worth of smart investment is worth far more than a barrel of budget cuts.
This company, indeed, this industry, must invest more in solid, relevant journalism. We must integrate the speed and agility of the Internet with the news judgment and editorial values of the newsroom, values that are more important than ever as the hunger for news continues to surge and gossip pollutes the information atmosphere. Even in hard times, wise investment — not retraction – is the long-term answer to the industry’s troubles. We must build on our core strength, which is good, accurate reporting, the backbone of solid journalism, the public service that helps people make the right decisions about their increasingly complex lives. We must tell people what they want to know and – even more important — what they might not want to know, about war, politics, economics, schools, corruption and the thoughts and deeds of those who lead us. We need to tell readers more about Barack Obama and less about Britney Spears. We must give a voice to those who can’t afford a megaphone. And we must become more than a marketing slogan. I know I can rely on this newsroom to do this.
Lastly I want to make it clear that I didn’t quit. Anyone in a top newsroom management job during tough times always wrestles with a crucial question: Where is the line? At what point do you go from ‘I can deal with this’ to ‘this is simply wrong.’
…So when I got here, I wondered anew: Where’s my line: Would it be a newsroom of 800 people? 700? But then I realized the folly of that kind of thinking. I’d been around the accountants and their “metrics” too long. The line you draw is this: Do I believe in the course we’ve set for the future? If the answer is Yes, if I thought the LA Times could resolve its problems by getting smaller and smaller, by being gradually diminished, then I would stay. If not, (and I don’t) then I told myself to take a stand and say enough is enough. If you have to consider closing foreign bureaus and cutting back in other parts of the paper to free up the money needed to cover the Olympics and the most historic political campaign in modern times, well to me that’s no plan for the future, that is not serving the interest of readers. It is simply stupid. Even though we face tough and demanding times and I sympathize with those who face daunting revenue challenges, I don’t believe that we will succeed long term by giving up; by taking steps that I think will gradually diminish newspapers. I decided to take my stand and say: Change the way we do things. I made that decision and I will live with the consequences. And when I walk through the Globe Lobby for the last time, I can guarantee you that I won’t regret taking that stand. I believe history will prove me right. When this industry stops relying so much on cuts and starts investing in Journalism, it will prosper because it will be serving the best interests of our readers. That’s when we will prosper. I wish you all the best and with that its time to say of my tenure here:Dash 30 Dash.”
(In case you’re wondering about the ending, -30- is old-fashioned journalistic code to signal the end of a story.
Loud cheers. I assume your choice to post this had something to do with your experience at the strib. The aggressive stupidity and triviality of our tv led media is beyond dispiriting; would Jefferson, Madison and the others bothered with a first amendment if they could have foreseen the worthlessness of the current product.
Very noble but ….
If in fact more readers care about Britney Spears and less about Barack Obama, then he has to present some specifics on how he will either increase the number of readers who care about Barack Obama (without reducing Obama to the level of Spears) or rescale his operation to fit the smaller market he is targeting.
O’Shea appears to be rejecting the latter without offering anything other than more of the same to accomplish the former.
Personally, I’d be delighted if newspapers stayed the way they were (or better, the way they were ten or twenty years ago), but I don’t seem to be in enough company to make it fly unless someone at some level is willing and able to subsidize it.
Great post, Eric. I thought I recognized this guy from a PBS “Frontline” series last year. So he is. Here’s the link to an interview he had after he was just hired.
http://www.pbs.org/wgbh/pages/frontline/newswar/interviews/oshea.html
I have to say that for a business journalist, this O’Shea fellow seems either clueless or very discreet to not upset chances at future employment. The Frontline series has some good background about the nes industry and a good article about how the Chicago Tribune has staked its future on the repeal of FCC bans on media cross-ownership of radio and TV stations. Not that these bans have stopped a fair amount of media financial concentration. What’s taking place in the newspaper industry I think has a lot more to do with deregulation of radio, television and telecommunications, concentration of ownership of these industries and a lot less than just internal business decisions as O’Shea suggests. And I think this is a deliberate attempt to conceal the truth from the American public about the shenanigans these concentrated holders of wealth using our government.
I can understand the frustration that O’Shea feels but his reasoning leaves me cold. He seems to think that platitudes can solve actual economic problems. The internet has upset the newspaper applecart and the (necessary) reorginization is going to be messy. Nice sounding words won’t change that.
I feel for the guy. My industry (travel) is going through much the same thing. The worst part was late 2001 but the changes aren’t done yet. No one knows where or when (of if) it will stabilize. The same thing holds for newspapers.
People do have heroes, like Horatio at the Bridge in Roman times. And newsmen who try to stand up against the tide today.
But it seems to me that this and other blogs point to the direction of the future sources of news. Dialogue is much preferred over quietly listening as an audience today.
Our subscription to the Sunday Strib just ended, and will probably not be renewed: we can get the news, the ads, AND the TV listings for $6.50 a YEAR from the Pioneer Press.
And we can even comment on the news stories if we choose, without the certainty that if we disagree intelligently with the editors our comments will never see the light of day.
I attribute the current stress in the print media to a number of factors.
One is the economics of an obsolete method of production and distribution. Like the firm that has only land based stores, huge warehouses, and its own delivery trucks, frantic printing on paper and pushing it out the door plays poor second to going on-line minutes after something happens.
Another is a deeply divided public, which means a newspaper — in choosing to espouse one point of view in things political, ethical, religious, and social — must necessarily pay the price of driving away a significant portion of its possible readers in a geographic community, and so also its advertisers.
Another is the difficulty in presenting balanced views on anything, given the unison chorus of the schools that train its potential employees.
Another is the advent of a generation that prefers not to read except on the glowing screen, and the fading of the generations which traditionally supported print media.
I fear Mr. O’Shea is simply pointing out clearly that the day of the great newspapers is coming to an end, and that he prefers not to go down with the ship.