Continued cost cutting meant the departure of seven talented journalists and one outstanding advertising sales assistant.

As McClatchy seeks to retire a mound of debt during this extremely troubled economic environment, we have to meet the bottom line. Sadly meeting the bottom line also means lowering the journalistic bar, which in my book is a recipe for becoming obsolete.
Leaving The Bee were: Copy editors Rick Nelson and Paul Clegg; page designers Lisa Williams and Shawn Barcoft; assistant sports editors Ahmed Ortiz and Bob Rudy.
Photographer Anne Williams will be departing in a matter of weeks.
While they range in age and experience, they were all top-notch journalists that The Bee will miss.
Journalism is the heart of the operation so it’s always troubling to have to cut off part of it to meet financial goals. But if journalism is the heart of the paper, advertising is our spine.
Cindi Taylor, who left the advertising department via buyout, was vital vertebra – not only to the company, but to the guild as well.
People often say, “Don’t sweat the small stuff.” But people often inaccurately categorize “small stuff.”
Cindi, who served as our vice chair for advertising, sweat the small stuff for all of us. Through her work with the guild she made sure sales people were paid what they were owed, that people got their required breaks and that vacation time was counted correctly. Mistakes by the company that could cost people dearly didn’t go over looked by Cindi. It’s not that she needed every penny to make her mortgage; she just felt strongly that the company should stand by its commitments.
I’m sorry to Cindi go, but I wish her the best in her future endeavors.

Ed Fletcher

McClatchy CEO Gary Pruitt said today that a ‘paywall’ will be tried at one of the company’s newspaper Web sites. Pruitt didn’t say which one. But sources indicate it will be a daily paper south of Sacramento and north of Fresno.

If you haven’t been paying attention to all the speculation about Apple’s new tablet computer/e-book reader, it may be time to start. The company has invited journalists to a new product announcement on Wednesday, and speculation is that the new device will be unveiled soon after.

The reason this matters is that Apple has already been talking to newspaper companies about selling their content for this new device, probably via its iTunes store. If Apple can monetize online newspaper content the way it revolutionized digital music sales, this could be a big deal.

It’s been reported that the New York Times and Wall Street Journal have been approached to provide content, and that Apple is said to be offering favorable terms (i.e. newspapers keep the vast majority of sales revenue).

Is McClatchy involved? The name hasn’t come up so far. But I hope we’re in the game.

This is a worthy read from the Wall Street Journal about the situation.

UPDATE: Here’s another excellent review of the situation, specifically relevant to newspapers, from PC World. It says, among other insights:

Only when people pay for news can we have quality reporting.

By Walt Yost

After a day spent reaching agreement on less contentious contract matters, Guild and Bee representatives set the stage for upcoming negotiations on major job security issues.

Bargaining will resume Feb. 8-9 to discuss such proposals as reducing the cap on severance pay; giving the company the ability to cut the hours of full-time employees; and allowing The Bee to use part-timers and freelancers to do the work of full-time employees.

In other words, now comes the tough part.

But as in any bargaining process, the underbrush needs to be cleared before serious negotiations take place.

“I think we moved the ball along today,” Bob Ford, the company’s attorney, said during Wednesday’s bargaining session at the Radisson Hotel.

Guild representatives also noted progress in the contract process. Darren Carroll, who is heading the Guild’s negotiating team, hopes management will return to the table next month with a revised proposal “reflecting their realistic intentions.”

The company has made it clear it needs more flexibility to respond to the economic climate and deteriorating state of newspapers nationwide.

The Guild acknowledged the need for change, as long as our members aren’t harmed.

On Wednesday, The Guild tenatively agreed to grant the company the right to evaluate new Bee employees who have been hired to do both reporting and photography on their performance in both areas. The existing contract allows for evaluations on one area or the other.

Tentative agreement was also reached on several noncontroversial provisions dealing with national emergencies and military services. The changes were needed to bring the provisions in line with federal law.

In addition, both sides moved closer to agreement on proposals giving the company more flexibility in assigning Guild employees to do work for any McClatchy news publication and in assigning advertising employees to sell non-McClatchy products.

The company still wants greater flexibility to use part-time and freelance workers to perform the work of full-time Guild employees. But the Guild is concerned that will jeopardize job security for its members.

During Wednesday’s bargaining session, Guild unit chair Ed Fletcher asked to know more about how employee evaluations are done –particularly when evaluations are used to determine buyouts and layoffs, as was done just recently at The Bee.

Linda Brooks, the Bee’s vice-president for human resources, said the process is very straightforward for advertising employees. She said she would need to talk with Bee editor Melanie Sill to better understand how evaluations are done in the newsroom.

Bargaining for the Guild Wednesday were Carroll, Fletcher, Cindi Taylor, Ed Fishbein and Walter Yost. The management team included Ford, Brooks, Gary Strong, Anna Buchmann and Linda Stovall.

By Ed Fishbein

Our Guild negotiators had a fruitful discussion with management on Tuesday, Jan. 19, at the Radisson Hotel. While the differences between the two sides narrowed significantly on some issues, it is apparent there is still some distance to go in other areas. Talks continue Wednesday, Jan. 20.

The Bee’s negotiators made it clear that the company still insists on reducing the cap on severance pay from 40 weeks to 26 and will not restore pay cuts or thaw the pension freeze imposed in 2009.  

The company also made clear that it will aggressively pursue the flexibility it believes is needed to respond to the harsh economic climate and to better position the paper for the digital age.

The Guild’s representatives acknowledged the economic challenges The Bee faces. But if the negotiations are to proceed swiftly and successfully, our representatives said, the company will have to be more forthcoming on job security and protections, including to agreeing to limits on freelancers.  

Responding to The Guild’s request for an elaboration of its priorities, McClatchy attorney Bob Ford spelled out the company’s key concerns. He categorized the company’s priorities as “economic” and “non-economic.”

On the non-economic side, Ford said it’s critical for the company to have more flexibility and enhanced efficiencies. In practice, he said, that meant changes in several areas:

– McClatchy wants the right to assign Sacramento Bee Guild member to to perform work for another McClatchy product.  He gave an example of the Kings beat reporter doing a feature on a player for another McClatchy paper, even though the work won’t appear in The Sacramento Bee.

– McClatchy also wants to be free to consolidate functions currently performed at several papers at one site. The example given was to combine the copy desk functions of the three Bee newspapers – in Sacramento, Modesto and Fresno – at a single site, although Ford insisted there were no current plans to do so.

“We recognize that there is a concern about protecting people who are already here,” Ford said. He subsequently sought to assure Guild negotiators that McClatchy was not seeking “an unlimited right to take bargaining unit work wherever we want.”

However, in later discussions both at the bargaining table and away from it, Guild negotiators said that if the company continued to seek changes in this area, they would have to be combined with significantly enhanced severance protections for people who might face layoffs.

Ford also said that any consolidation could lead to increased use of part-timers. He said the company did not foresee a “massive change in the use of part-timers. But there could be a change.”

– McClatchy also wants the right to evaluate new Bee employees who have been hired to do both reporting and photography on their performance in both areas. Currently, the evaluations focus on one area or the other.

– Ford said that McClatchy also wants contract language giving the company the right to solicit volunteers for any staff reductions – “with the caveat that we don’t have to accept” those who volunteer. Currently, the company needs Guild approval for such actions.

Ford then moved on to the company’s economic priorities.

– He addressed the issue of “retroactivity” – the possible denial of pay raises to Guild employees if contract negotiations fail to progress. Saying that “we understand the process has to play itself out,” Ford said that retroactivity won’t be an issue if the negotiations “proceed in a normal amount of time.”

– Ford said “severance is a big issue. We want to go to 26 weeks” from the current 40.

– The company wants the right to impose furloughs without Guild approval. “We have no plans to institute furloughs,” Ford said, “but we want the right to do it.”

– The company wants all employees to take all the vacation they accrue within a year in that same year.  The only carry-overs allowed would be existing vacation banked from previous years. If employees do not schedule their accrued vacation within the year they earn them, managers would schedule vacation for them.

– On issues of particular concern to advertising, Linda Brooks, The Bee’s vice president for human resources, said the company is committed to standardizing advertising computer systems across all McClatchy newspapers and transferring advertising and editorial copy directly from computer to plate. These changes could lead to reductions in staff or hours.

After a lunch break, the talks turned to several subjects, and Newspaper Guild international representative Darren Carroll, who is heading The Guild’s negotiating team, offered a preliminary response to the company’s stance.

Before doing so, however, Guild officer Ed Fletcher told McClatchy’s representatives that The Guild accepted the terms of the current buyout plan. “This is better than the way it’s been done in the past,” he said, although “we would have liked more consultation and notice.”

Linda Brooks contended that while there had been some improvement in The Bee’s revenues, they were still significantly below the previous year, and the newspaper’s outlook remained precarious.

Fletcher then turned to the issue of the newsroom’s use of freelance writers.  He contended that “the terms of the existing contract were being violated by current use of freelancers.” He felt that the increased use of freelancers last year by the Features Department’s “amounted to freelance work taking the place of staff writers.”

The company’s representatives denied this, with Ford contending that the only contractual limit on the use of freelancers is that “it doesn’t result in the layoff of an employee who was employed at the time the contract was signed.”

The issue is certain to be revisited in future negotiations.

Tuesday’s session concluded with Carroll offering a preliminary response to the day’s developments. “Our intent is not to give you a detailed response,” he told McClatchy’s representatives. “But to give you a sense of what our issues were.”

He said that The Guild recognized “where the business is” and “appreciated the information you gave us earlier” on The Bee’s finances. But he added that The Guild helping the company address these very real concerns would require The Bee’s “recognition of some of the issues we’ll bring.”

These issues include The Bee’s push for a severance reduction, which Carroll called “a big problem for us.”  He also said that giving the company more freedom to mandate staff reductions would require “some minimum baselines that these will be buyouts.”

Assuming the company’s good faith, he said, “we don’t see much reason these talks should go beyond the beginning of March.”

Richard Perez-Pena, a media reporter at the New York Times, provides a sobering and thoughtful take on relying too heavily on freelancers and outside sources for news.

Here’s a quote from the story, which can be read here.

There are going to be some newsrooms, I can guarantee you, they’re going to get garbage and they’re going to print it,” said Kelly McBride, ethics group leader at the Poynter Institute, a school for journalists in St. Petersburg, Fla.

The following letter was delivered to company executives today by longtime Sacramento Bee copy editor Paul Clegg. I think it sums up what a lot of us are feeling. We share it here, unedited, with his permission.

* * *

“I recognize the sacrifices our employees are making to help us get though this difficult time and I appreciate their loyalty to McClatchy.”

– McClatchy CEO Gary Pruitt, Feb. 5, 2009

Win-win for the team

An appeal to Bee and McClatchy executives to rethink a self-defeating buyout and layoff plan

To: Cheryl Dell, Melanie Sill, Gary Pruitt

Date: Jan. 15, 2010

Dear Cheryl, Melanie and Gary:

I think you have made an unwise decision in unilaterally demanding another round of buyouts and layoffs without bothering to talk to the hired help.

The surprise e-mail announcement on Jan. 11 was a slap in the face.

It is mystifying coming on the heels of your announcement the company’s pay freeze will be lifted.

It is shortsighted in light of the editorial department workers’ vote last year to sacrifice pay to save the jobs of their co-workers. The vote was motivated by both altruism and the knowledge that we can’t put out a good newspaper and retain readers without sufficient staffing.

It is hypocritical in view of your calls for team play to get us through this unprecedented downturn in the industry.

Management’s attempts in the newsroom to justify these cutbacks have generated bafflement and anger, fueled cynicism and a sense of betrayal, further lowered morale and weakened company loyalty. We have yet to hear any plausible explanation for your plan to give out hundreds of pay raises while cutting 25 positions. Does someone really believe a minuscule pay hike will prevent a “brain drain,” even if there were other jobs out there?

We have repeatedly heard reference to your painful decisions, decisions that kept you awake at night. Such assertions are falling on cynical ears. You decide, and we pay the price. What apparently is hard and painful on the executive level is to deal openly with workers and involve us in the decision-making process. You are defeating your purported team-building goals by excluding half the team.

Full inclusion is a win-win deal, and it’s simple to do: Put this plan on hold and lay out your cost-saving requirements to all employees. Let us consider the hard decisions and what sacrifices we are willing to make. Let us vote on what steps to take. The company would still get the savings it needs, and all of us could feel that we are on the same team.

Company loyalty is a two-way street.

Paul Clegg

Sacramento Bee copy editor

32-year employee

apparently the minneapolis star-tribune is proposing eliminating their copy editing staff, according to minnesota guild sources.

will the bee and mcclatchy follow suit? check out the romenesko website and stay tuned.

By Matt Weiser

Sacramento Bee management this week announced a plan to eliminate 25 more positions. Buyouts have been offered to copy editors, photographers, assistant sports editors, and advertising coordinators and production staff.

If the company doesn’t get enough buyouts, it says layoffs will follow.

This appears to be the fallout from McClatchy CEO Gary Pruitt’s announcement one month ago that there would be more cost-cutting in 2010, even though the company remains profitable and profits are trending upward.

Many of the positions to be eliminated are in areas already suffering from cost-cutting. Outsourcing of advertising work has resulted in many complaints from advertisers about delays and poor quality. On some nights, part-timers dominate the copy desk.

The Guild worries these changes are not just about cost-cutting, but creating a more pliable workforce that is less stable and secure and for which quality journalism becomes more elusive.

“Employees who are loyal, full-time and local produce snappier ads and compelling, accurate journalism,” said Sacramento Guild Chairman Ed Fletcher. “It appears that what McClatchy wants from its newspapers in 2010, above all else, is a cheaper journalism.”

We are working to address these concerns in ongoing negotiations for a new three-year contract.

But for now, after mulling the details of the buyout offer and consulting with our union staff, we believe the company’s buyout offer is the best choice for the affected employees. It’s a choice none of us like, but the terms of the buyout appear better than the hammer of a layoff later.

However, the company’s mixed messages do not inspire confidence. Only a month ago, McClatchy announced it would end a wage freeze that dates to 2008. McClatchy CEO Gary Pruitt crowed to Wall Street that every newspaper in the company was profitable and growing more so.

We understand the company needs to be financially prudent. But pushing devoted employees out the door when newspapers are fighting to remain relevant may not be the best move.

“This great newspaper company can’t remain strong if it gives up on its loyal employees,” Fletcher said. “Quality will suffer as these experienced newspaper people are forced out. That’s a high price to pay.”

LA Times media columnist James Rainey provides a sobering take on freelancing.

The crumbling pay scales have not only hollowed out household budgets but accompanied a pervasive shift in journalism toward shorter stories, frothier subjects and an increasing emphasis on fast, rather than thorough.

Read the rest of his column.

With lower compensation rates, will the quality of freelance articles correspondingly suffer – and will the overall quality of the publications that rely (too much) on such work also suffer? In the end, how is the reader served?