Abrams and the Kool-Aid

Lee Abrams has taken a beating recently in the newspaper-watching blog-o-sphere. A few Tribune watchers, like Tell Zell, are particularly angry (rightfully so, no doubt) with the leveraged buyout that has left the company saddled with massive debt amid declining revenues.

But Abrams seems like a decent guy. And I think he's trying. His MEMOS with random CAPITALIZATION, misspellings, and talk of 2x4s have made for comic relief in a time when the ax is hanging over our heads.

That being said, and maybe I'm drinking the corporate Kool-Aid, but it's tough not to agree with this.

"Trying something different, even if it seems nutty, is far preferable to stubbornly going down with the ship."

This blogger points toward another blogger, Bob Lefsetz, "a former industry executive who delights in pointing out how record companies, led by ossified management, have been totally eclipsed by the Internet and changing technology to the point where they're in danger of going out of business."

This guy's entry turns toward the newspaper industry.

"In other words, you can’t find the stories online. Steve Jobs’ mantra? Usability? It’s absent from each and every newspaper site except for the Wall Street Journal’s."

By the way, this has been a complaint of mine for a long time: I hate newspaper Web sites. I can't find anything. Ever. They're clouded with all kinds of nonsense. Sites make it miserably hard to find anything.

On that note, has anyone seen the redesigned Moonie Washington Times? Kind of an interesting approach.

I digress.

Anyways, this guy goes on:

"If those running the newspapers were so damn smart, they wouldn’t be in this predicament. Lee Abrams is looking to save their business. Whereas the Netizens are looking to kill it."

I think there's some valid points in what this guy has to say. But where I relate is how newspaper owners completely failed to adapt or change. For that matter, I think it sometimes applies to newsroom management, as well.

I can remember proposing blogs to a newsroom manager at another employer back in 2002, 2003 --- sometime in that era. I was laughed off with a variety of excuses of how it would blur the lines between news and opinion, etc.

"No one cares about blogs," an editor once told me.

Now I'm not proposing blogs were the end-all, be-all, by any means. Heck, half the blogs out there are just regurgitation of facts spilled out from a reporter's notebook with no personality. Doesn't make me want to read.

But my point?

We. Were. A. Monopoly. Who. Got. Our. Ass. Kicked. By. Sitting. Still. And. Pretending. Things. Would. Always. Be. The. Same.

And now, here are we. We're canning people left and right. And while it sucks that reporters are getting punished for the misdeeds of their owners (isn't it always the worker bees who get pummeled while the failed CEO trots off with millions?), maybe the owners are getting what they've long deserved --- welcome to competing.

It's time to sack up and innovate or go home, owners. What will you do?

I have already broken my promise...

Not too long ago, I decided it was time to post more often here. Maybe I'd post some random thoughts about something new I was learning...you know, self-indulgent stuff.

But I've broken my promise.

It's been a couple weeks since our editor told us to expect layoffs in the newsroom. In fact, it was the week after IRE. A lot of numbers have floated around, but it's safe to say we're talking significant layoffs from a newsroom of 300 or so reporters and editors.

It's real tough to stay motivated about journalism when the ax is falling all around you. Mr. Hartnett up in swanky Palm Beach Co. has a picture that illustrates things perfectly.

I realize THIS is the time we have to stay motivated. This is when we have to innovate, kick ass and take names. But it's almost like you need that period to catch your breath, to take account of what's happening and what's going to happen.

I need a new shrine...or offering...human sacrifice, maybe?

For those who don't know, our friends down south at the Miami Herald had an idea to save their jobs: Make offerings to the Santeria chicken brought in by some priest. Or that's how I understand the story.

So I made a little electronic shrine to the chicken over at a site I set up for just this reason.

But either the chicken didn't like being mocked, or the Santeria chicken didn't work, bringing to mind scenes from the movie Major League:

Pedro Cerrano: Bats, they are sick. I cannot hit curveball. Straightball I hit it very much. Curveball, bats are afraid. I ask Jobu to come, take fear from bats. I offer him cigar, rum. He will come.
Eddie Harris: You know you might think about taking Jesus Christ as your savior instead of fooling around with all this stuff.
Roger Dorn: Shit, Harris.
Pedro Cerrano: Jesus, I like him very much, but he no help with curveball.
Eddie Harris: You trying to say Jesus Christ can't hit a curveball?

Anyone have an idea of a new shrine to make offerings? Human sacrifice? It's all in the name of not being canned. Judging from this article, we could use all the help we can get.

Case for a JOA?

Interesting idea in this article here....don't know what to think about it.

"Any form of collaboration in south Florida would unhinge the proud staffs of the Herald and Sun-Sentinel, who have competed fiercely against each another forever. But things are getting so grim that there may be no other choice."

Talk about depressing...

So props to Danny Sanchez up in Orlando for giving us this great list of newspaper-related blogs.

But it's like a death watch. Especially here at Tribune Co.

One article is particularly scary.

It's tough to work when you're thinking about whether your company is going to pay its bills.

So it makes me wonder what's next? It's no secret the Sun-Sentinel is having layoffs, along with all our other Tribune papers. But what happens if we default on our loans? I'm no business lawyer, so it'd be nice to know what happens. Does that mean bankruptcy? Does it means we get the bankers to restructure the debt? What?

So could this only get worse?

Kind of weird situation....

So I get back from IRE all fired up. Especially after the Django boot camp, which gets a big thumbs up from me to all the people who worked so hard to put it on.

But at the same time, the Tribune stuff is no secret. Now I know how the French aristocracy must've felt when the Bastille was stormed. It's a little weird when you know there's an ax waiting to fall, you just don't know when or where.

That being said, I'm still excited about the future of journalism, thanks to great speeches by the legendary Phil Meyer and people like Aron Pilhofer.

Aron left us with what I think is the quote of the conference:

"You can't outsource the future."

So what did I like most? It'd have to be the Django boot camp. Maybe that's because I'm a sucker for anything hands-on.

First great revelation about Django (or Ruby on Rails) for me is this: It really forces you to think about relationships and good database design.

As a user of Caspio, a lot of times you want to take the easy way and just create a single table. Yes, I know you can use views and lookups and all that jazz, but it's kind of a pain in the tail for me.

A frameworks like Rails or Django forces you to think about not only what you want now, but what you might want in the future. That's a good thing.

Again, more to come.

What I'm reading today...

"Left-leaning" or "non-partisan"?

"Why would a Times article call the American Enterprise Institute "conservative-leaning," but not refer in the same article to the politics of the Mike Mansfield Foundation? Why do stories refer to the Brookings Institution variously as "centrist," "conservative" and "nonpartisan"?"

Who Will Tell Us?

"The steady drip of buyouts and layoffs has consumed an estimated four thousand newsroom jobs in print alone since the turn of the century, according to the much-chewed-over annual State of the News Media report released in March by the Project for Excellence in Journalism. As to whether the Web is replenishing this reportorial firepower, the authors are blunt: “In print, broadcast and elsewhere, more effort is moving to packaging and repurposing material….But less is being devoted to original newsgathering, especially the bearing witness and monitoring of basic news.”'

Cablevision Chief: Deal will 'bolster' Newsday

"In the News12 interview, James Dolan promised a "renewed invigoration of the newspaper here on Long Island." He said cable executives feel "that we can make this paper at least what it was before," referring to circulation declines experienced under Tribune."

Sam Zell and Me....

I've never been part of a newspaper ownership change.

My previous job was a family-owned newspaper that had stayed in the Gaylord family hands since statehood (1907, for you non-Okies). Interesting enough, the other major metro in Oklahoma --- the Tulsa World --- is also a long-time family owned broadsheet.

And until not too long ago, Oklahoma also had the Tulsa Tribune, a family owned newspaper that traced family links to Frank Lloyd Wright.

So when I came to the Sun-Sentinel, it was my first time working for a publicly traded company. Now we're part of a private ownership group that is owned by employees. Oh yeah, and a guy named Sam Zell.

I'm normally a cynic. At my old shop, I heard executives say words like "communications vehicle," "solutions-based," and "multiplatform communications company." It seemed like there was always promise of reasons to be optimistic.

I usually felt like Office Space, just like most of you.

But this time I'm optimistic. After the Zell press conference, which was beamed into our auditorium, many employees clapped. I am excited.

I can imagine what they're thinking at the LA Times, which seems to be dancing a jig in print:

"There's no need to belabor the multiple reasons for that failure, but suffice to say that, as of Wednesday, there were only three places in the world where you still could find people who believed in the efficacy of Brezhnev-style bureaucracy and central planning: North Korea, Cuba and Tribune Tower in Chicago."

So this could be a wild and fun ride. Count me among the optimists for a change.