Tronc if you want to save journalism
November 2, 2016 4:26 PM Subscribe
Busy year for Michael Ferro. Bought Tribune Publishing. Renamed it tronc. Endured ridicule. Tried to sell to Gannett. Failed. Up next: Figure out how to make money in newspapers.
Previously
"The consensus seems to be that Ferro is ridiculous—a model-train-loving, celebrity-obsessed, self-described technologist who’s semi-fluent in Silicon Valley disrupter-speak. On HBO, John Oliver skewered him. On CNBC, Jim Cramer placed him on his Wall of Shame. His corporate renaming ignited extended spasms of #tronc mockery on social media. Sample tweet: “WHAT YOU GONNA DO WITH ALL THAT JONC ALL THAT JONC INSIDE YOUR TRONC.”
And yet, until recently, Ferro was on the verge of laughing all the way to the bonc, as it were. In October, Ferro reached a handshake agreement to sell tronc to Gannett for about $18.75 a share. Ferro and his investors were about to make more than $50 million in profit. But the deal fell apart, a source told Bloomberg News, when the banks financing the takeover backed out over concerns that the price was too high."
Previously
I was really hoping I'd would make tronc tronc again.
posted by GenjiandProust at 4:57 PM on November 2, 2016 [4 favorites]
posted by GenjiandProust at 4:57 PM on November 2, 2016 [4 favorites]
My local paper (nwi.com) wouldn't give me the one thing I wanted from their electronic edition... a single PDF of the entire paper... which would allow me to read it offline, on the train.
It would be nice if they had an electronic edition which was a single big PDF, delivered automatically, like a Podcast.
posted by MikeWarot at 5:17 PM on November 2, 2016 [3 favorites]
It would be nice if they had an electronic edition which was a single big PDF, delivered automatically, like a Podcast.
posted by MikeWarot at 5:17 PM on November 2, 2016 [3 favorites]
I was really hoping I'd would make tronc tronc again.
This is your fortnightly reminder that tronc tronc is the Law & Order sound.
posted by Celsius1414 at 5:35 PM on November 2, 2016 [7 favorites]
This is your fortnightly reminder that tronc tronc is the Law & Order sound.
posted by Celsius1414 at 5:35 PM on November 2, 2016 [7 favorites]
Oddly enough, and I am being quite serious when I say this, just this past Sunday I was thinking that I needed to see someone make fun of tronc, as it had been entirely too long.
So, thank you for this, and please make a few more tronc jokes everyone.
posted by aramaic at 5:53 PM on November 2, 2016 [3 favorites]
So, thank you for this, and please make a few more tronc jokes everyone.
posted by aramaic at 5:53 PM on November 2, 2016 [3 favorites]
MikeWarot, back when my local paper was owned by the former owners of the Las Vegas paper whose name I can't presently recall (this was before Adelson bought and ruined it, which was after they sold their small-market papers), they published each day's paper in PDF, available from both the web site and the FTP(!) site. At no charge. And they kept the PDFs from every day from the time they started doing that. It was around 5 or 6 years worth before they got sold.
Of course, the first thing the new owners did was take down both the daily PDF and the archive, with no way of even paying for access. From what I heard, the new management actually forced the outgoing IT people to delete the entire archive.
Some years later the new owners did add a subscribers-only PDF edition, but they were only available that one day and required you to take the dead-tree version. A few months later they canned the PDF and implemented some shitty web viewer if you wanted to see the print layout online. I moved not long after that, so who knows what the morons have done by now.
I swear it seems like newspaper owners are deliberately hostile to their customers. It's completely stupid because when they originally started doing the PDFs they (legitimately) counted the downloads in their circulation numbers and charged advertisers accordingly. Given the damn-near-free distribution, I can't imagine it was a money losing proposition for anybody but the route carriers.
posted by wierdo at 6:00 PM on November 2, 2016 [9 favorites]
Of course, the first thing the new owners did was take down both the daily PDF and the archive, with no way of even paying for access. From what I heard, the new management actually forced the outgoing IT people to delete the entire archive.
Some years later the new owners did add a subscribers-only PDF edition, but they were only available that one day and required you to take the dead-tree version. A few months later they canned the PDF and implemented some shitty web viewer if you wanted to see the print layout online. I moved not long after that, so who knows what the morons have done by now.
I swear it seems like newspaper owners are deliberately hostile to their customers. It's completely stupid because when they originally started doing the PDFs they (legitimately) counted the downloads in their circulation numbers and charged advertisers accordingly. Given the damn-near-free distribution, I can't imagine it was a money losing proposition for anybody but the route carriers.
posted by wierdo at 6:00 PM on November 2, 2016 [9 favorites]
Did Ferro even do anything other than rename it Tronc? Maybe if he had done something more meaningful than rearranging the deck chairs he could've gotten a buyer for his Titanic.
posted by Mr.Encyclopedia at 6:12 PM on November 2, 2016 [1 favorite]
posted by Mr.Encyclopedia at 6:12 PM on November 2, 2016 [1 favorite]
From what I heard, the new management actually forced the outgoing IT people to delete the entire archive.
Hah, the campus paper at my alma mater deletes their entire archive every damn time they upgrade. And they make it even less accessible and usable every time.
It's really sad to see newspapers flush down the drain, but this guy was treating a newspaper like Entertainment 720. Come on.
The problem is: how do we provide people with someone they want to pay for? Except the media has the problem of wanting people to pay for something online that they can't share with others, and to some degree can find substitutes for if they want to read up on the subject without paying. They need to somehow change what they're offering, but so far nobody on earth can figure out how to do this.
sigh. I'm glad I got out of the business when I did, but I wish I hadn't had to.
posted by jenfullmoon at 6:37 PM on November 2, 2016 [5 favorites]
Hah, the campus paper at my alma mater deletes their entire archive every damn time they upgrade. And they make it even less accessible and usable every time.
It's really sad to see newspapers flush down the drain, but this guy was treating a newspaper like Entertainment 720. Come on.
The problem is: how do we provide people with someone they want to pay for? Except the media has the problem of wanting people to pay for something online that they can't share with others, and to some degree can find substitutes for if they want to read up on the subject without paying. They need to somehow change what they're offering, but so far nobody on earth can figure out how to do this.
sigh. I'm glad I got out of the business when I did, but I wish I hadn't had to.
posted by jenfullmoon at 6:37 PM on November 2, 2016 [5 favorites]
It's funny, because newspapers are an incredibly valuable source of information about events of the last few hundred years. It will be much harder for someone in 2145 to see what happened on June 5, 2021 than what happened on June 5, 1921. Even more so when you consider that today social media is both a more important and more ephemeral source of news than traditional newspapers.
posted by Mr.Encyclopedia at 6:53 PM on November 2, 2016 [2 favorites]
posted by Mr.Encyclopedia at 6:53 PM on November 2, 2016 [2 favorites]
I swear it seems like newspaper owners are deliberately hostile to their customers.
I've said it before and I'll say it again, there is only one thing newspapers (corporate america) hates more than their employees and that's their customers.
posted by valkane at 7:36 PM on November 2, 2016 [7 favorites]
I've said it before and I'll say it again, there is only one thing newspapers (corporate america) hates more than their employees and that's their customers.
posted by valkane at 7:36 PM on November 2, 2016 [7 favorites]
Obligatory "unless you are paying for your subscription you are not the customer but the product" statement.
posted by warriorqueen at 8:43 PM on November 2, 2016 [2 favorites]
posted by warriorqueen at 8:43 PM on November 2, 2016 [2 favorites]
If you can parse out how the obligatory quote actually applies to newspapers in 2016, you'll have made a bigger dent in solving the problem than most people in the business.
posted by wotsac at 11:01 PM on November 2, 2016 [2 favorites]
posted by wotsac at 11:01 PM on November 2, 2016 [2 favorites]
"Dear Baltimore Sun readers,
This spring, the parent company of The Sun cited our powerful, Pulitzer-recognized journalism of the last year in announcing a raise for journalists throughout the company of 2.5 percent of their annual salaries. The only catch? The gesture was not extended to unionized employees — including the vast majority of the journalists in the Sun newsroom. . . .
Justin Dearborn, CEO of our corporate parent, tronc, announced in May that he was handing out raises to newsroom employees throughout the company to reward them for the quality journalism they produce. The work, he noted, was worthy of Pulitzer recognition, and merited pay increases — but only to non-union journalists. The company said we’d need to negotiate the raises that were given unconditionally at other newspapers in our chain (most of which are not unionized) and even to our managers at the Sun.
After we asked for our own share, the company made us an offer that would require deep concessions — ones that would do away with salary standards we have spent years fighting for and that would penalize the most junior and lowest-paid members of our staff. Even if we made those concessions, the raises wouldn’t go to everyone in the union. Even if we made those concessions, the company would refuse to extend the raises to our union colleagues outside the newsroom, in the Sun’s advertising department and at its printing facility."
posted by sallybrown at 11:27 PM on November 2, 2016 [4 favorites]
This spring, the parent company of The Sun cited our powerful, Pulitzer-recognized journalism of the last year in announcing a raise for journalists throughout the company of 2.5 percent of their annual salaries. The only catch? The gesture was not extended to unionized employees — including the vast majority of the journalists in the Sun newsroom. . . .
Justin Dearborn, CEO of our corporate parent, tronc, announced in May that he was handing out raises to newsroom employees throughout the company to reward them for the quality journalism they produce. The work, he noted, was worthy of Pulitzer recognition, and merited pay increases — but only to non-union journalists. The company said we’d need to negotiate the raises that were given unconditionally at other newspapers in our chain (most of which are not unionized) and even to our managers at the Sun.
After we asked for our own share, the company made us an offer that would require deep concessions — ones that would do away with salary standards we have spent years fighting for and that would penalize the most junior and lowest-paid members of our staff. Even if we made those concessions, the raises wouldn’t go to everyone in the union. Even if we made those concessions, the company would refuse to extend the raises to our union colleagues outside the newsroom, in the Sun’s advertising department and at its printing facility."
posted by sallybrown at 11:27 PM on November 2, 2016 [4 favorites]
Did Ferro even do anything other than rename it Tronc?
Yeah, sold the iconic, entirely unlandmarked Los Angeles Times compound to a developer.
posted by Scram at 2:29 AM on November 3, 2016
Yeah, sold the iconic, entirely unlandmarked Los Angeles Times compound to a developer.
posted by Scram at 2:29 AM on November 3, 2016
Ferro is the poster child of the rich failing upward, isn't he?
I'd forgotten about the episode where he and his execs stole all 6 of the LA Times' Academy Award tickets, leaving no journalists to cover the event. A truly classic revealing tidbit.
posted by mediareport at 2:34 AM on November 3, 2016 [3 favorites]
I'd forgotten about the episode where he and his execs stole all 6 of the LA Times' Academy Award tickets, leaving no journalists to cover the event. A truly classic revealing tidbit.
posted by mediareport at 2:34 AM on November 3, 2016 [3 favorites]
I swear it seems like newspaper owners are deliberately hostile to their customers.
They are just oblivious to the changing technology and times. Still. They understand that newspapers were king, people believed the media, people had no access to getting their opinions/stories out there, or access to information other than the press.
Times changed, but it is hard to adopt when you always held all the power and the cards.
It is a case of denial.
So what you have is a group of people who know how to gather information, but have no pulse on reality, making them useless. As well, you have the new breed who have a pulse on the new reality, but have no idea how to gather and properly diseminate information, making them screw up an already screwed up industry.
Journalism is in shambles because you have two clashing kinds of owners who see the business through two different distorted lenses and cannot see the obvious because they don't get it and they don't know what they are doing.
It is a miserable time right now and I don't see the situation improving any time soon.
posted by Alexandra Kitty at 6:50 AM on November 3, 2016 [2 favorites]
They are just oblivious to the changing technology and times. Still. They understand that newspapers were king, people believed the media, people had no access to getting their opinions/stories out there, or access to information other than the press.
Times changed, but it is hard to adopt when you always held all the power and the cards.
It is a case of denial.
So what you have is a group of people who know how to gather information, but have no pulse on reality, making them useless. As well, you have the new breed who have a pulse on the new reality, but have no idea how to gather and properly diseminate information, making them screw up an already screwed up industry.
Journalism is in shambles because you have two clashing kinds of owners who see the business through two different distorted lenses and cannot see the obvious because they don't get it and they don't know what they are doing.
It is a miserable time right now and I don't see the situation improving any time soon.
posted by Alexandra Kitty at 6:50 AM on November 3, 2016 [2 favorites]
If they were just oblivious, they wouldn't even realize there were hostile changes to be made. It seems like it goes deeper than that, but that's from the outside looking in.
Seriously, give me back PDFs and I'll look at a lot more ads, since they aren't running video and flashing in my face and literally covering the content, forcing me to click more shit to read the damn article. And pay for the privilege! I was perfectly happy paying them $4 or $5 a month for a digital copy of the dead tree edition. Hell, I'd even pay for the web edition if it removed the user-hostile ads and replaced them with static ads and (preferably, but not required) reasonable layout.
There seem to be zero papers that put any thought into how the whole page goes together on the web. It makes it infuriating to read, so I just don't unless Google highlights a specific story of interest.
Yes, I realize that a large part of the reason why their web pages suck so badly is that they use terrible CMSes, but maybe if they put a bit of money into improving the tools, they could get people like me to start paying them money again?
posted by wierdo at 12:31 PM on November 3, 2016 [1 favorite]
Seriously, give me back PDFs and I'll look at a lot more ads, since they aren't running video and flashing in my face and literally covering the content, forcing me to click more shit to read the damn article. And pay for the privilege! I was perfectly happy paying them $4 or $5 a month for a digital copy of the dead tree edition. Hell, I'd even pay for the web edition if it removed the user-hostile ads and replaced them with static ads and (preferably, but not required) reasonable layout.
There seem to be zero papers that put any thought into how the whole page goes together on the web. It makes it infuriating to read, so I just don't unless Google highlights a specific story of interest.
Yes, I realize that a large part of the reason why their web pages suck so badly is that they use terrible CMSes, but maybe if they put a bit of money into improving the tools, they could get people like me to start paying them money again?
posted by wierdo at 12:31 PM on November 3, 2016 [1 favorite]
Yes, I subscribe to two local newspapers in print form. Every so often I try to read them online, and the experience is horrible. Ads that freeze up my browser, terrible website design, ugly interfaces that seem designed to make reading an article as difficult as possible. I love local newspapers and think they're important, but I can't believe that in 2016 I still pay for a print version to be delivered to my door literally every day, and this is somehow easier for both the customer and the distributor than creating a decent online product.
Not only that, most local newspapers seem to be written for someone living 40 years ago. Everything - from the inane local commentary column full of small-town stereotypes, to the outdated comics section, to the fact that an entire page is still used for TV listings and another for weather forecasts - is like something out of a pre-Internet time capsule. I think local news is important, but the idea of a newspaper acting as the vessel for local news and national news and sports scores and recipes and horoscopes and whatever the hell Charles Krauthammer is bloviating about seems outdated to me.
I'm not so selfish that I only want to pay for articles I read - some stuff will never appeal to me, and that's okay. But I wish these local news publications would stop trying to be everything and double down on local and community stuff. I need my newspaper to tell me what my city council is doing, what the residents in my town are thinking, and what events are going on in the area. I don't need it to reprint Associated Press articles of events that are sometimes 36 hours old by the time it reaches by doorstep, let alone TV listings.
posted by kingoftonga86 at 5:48 PM on November 3, 2016 [2 favorites]
Not only that, most local newspapers seem to be written for someone living 40 years ago. Everything - from the inane local commentary column full of small-town stereotypes, to the outdated comics section, to the fact that an entire page is still used for TV listings and another for weather forecasts - is like something out of a pre-Internet time capsule. I think local news is important, but the idea of a newspaper acting as the vessel for local news and national news and sports scores and recipes and horoscopes and whatever the hell Charles Krauthammer is bloviating about seems outdated to me.
I'm not so selfish that I only want to pay for articles I read - some stuff will never appeal to me, and that's okay. But I wish these local news publications would stop trying to be everything and double down on local and community stuff. I need my newspaper to tell me what my city council is doing, what the residents in my town are thinking, and what events are going on in the area. I don't need it to reprint Associated Press articles of events that are sometimes 36 hours old by the time it reaches by doorstep, let alone TV listings.
posted by kingoftonga86 at 5:48 PM on November 3, 2016 [2 favorites]
« Older ♪♫ Ev'ry day you fight, like you’re running out of... | Afrofuturism 419 Newer »
This thread has been archived and is closed to new comments
posted by parmanparman at 4:53 PM on November 2, 2016