Failing, prospering — same difference
I read the most bizarre thing yesterday, something so absolutely contrary to the known facts that it left my jaw gaped in astonishment. And the most bizarre thing was that it was written by somebody who purports to traffic in trustworthy information.
First, some background: Until a few months ago, Howard Weaver was the top editor at McClatchy Newspapers, the California-based company which owns the News & Observer. Weaver, now retired, has positioned himself as an industry theorist, offering guru-ish insights into journalism on a Web site carrying the awkward name Etaoin Shrdlu. In a post a few weeks ago, Weaver declared … well, it’s hard to figure out what exactly he wanted to say, frankly. As a writer, Weaver’s not exactly light on his feet. His post can be found here. Feel free to take a whack at a 25-word summary.
In any event, Weaver’s post prompted an impassioned response from former N&O columnist Dennis Rogers, who asserted McClatchy had “ruined” the Raleigh newspaper. In a reply to Rogers, Weaver said:
We didn’t ruin you. (The News & Observer was a failing business when McClatchy bought it. The Daniels didn’t believe in its future and it wasn’t doing well.) And no matter who owned that paper, the loss of advertising and revenue crash would have screwed them.
I know a little about this matter, since I was the N&O’s business editor in 1995 and co-authored the article announcing its sale. McClatchy paid a quarter-billion dollars for the paper — top dollar at the time — and additionally agreed to take on approximately $120 million of N&O debt. The Daniels family sold the paper for three reasons: (1) There was no clear successor within the family to take over the company, a common fate among family-owned enterprises; (2) the N&O needed to launch an expensive circulation-building campaign to keep up with the Triangle’s growth, but preferred to use cash flow to pay down debt; and (3) as a well-regarded newspaper in a flourishing market, the family could command a premium price for the company. In short, it was the right time for the Daniels family to cash out.
The N&O was by no means “a failing business.” In fact, I’d be willing to bet that even today, in the midst of this historic economic downturn, it still posts an operating profit. What’s dragging it down is the $2 billion debt McClatchy has heaped upon its newspapers — a debt Weaver helped create.
Then again, there’s a precedent for this kind of mangling of reality by Weaver. Last year, I wrote about how Weaver had stayed in the Triangle’s most expensive hotel while visiting Raleigh, and gotten called out by an N&O reporter for living large at a time when the paper was cutting back. In my account of Weaver’s confrontation with the reporter, I said:
His only defense was that he’d gotten a good discount from the Umstead’s normal rate, which is something in the neighborhood of $400 a night.
Weaver later wrote that I’d “implied” he’d spent $400 for his room — even though I’d clearly stated he’d gotten a discount. It seems Weaver has a habit of sidestepping facts which get in the way of his point.
March 4th, 2009 at 2:04 am
Howard Weaver is a pompous asshole. Apparently since he helped ruin McClatchy he now fondly thinks of himself as an “expert” on newspapering. He continually sticks by the misguided notion that putting a company, what was it originally $6 billion? in debt was a good move when everyone knew there was trouble on the horizon. Sure the N&O would be suffering along with every other business but we sure as hell wouldn’t be going down the tubes if Weaver and the boy blunder Gary Pruitt had not tied the anchor called “McClatchy” around our necks. The main reason I now hope there is an afterlife is only so Weaver and Pruitt will burn in hell holding hands.
March 4th, 2009 at 8:42 am
With people like Mr. Weaver running McClatchy we should never wonder why the company is going bankrupt. Like you GD I was working at The N&O at the time and had some access to internal financials and I know that The N&O was making a nice profit at the time of purchase. By the way Mr. Weaver YOUR company is the one who submitted an offer to buy the paper, if it was so bad why did you even consider the purchase?
March 4th, 2009 at 11:37 am
This is so interesting for those of us who do not follow the details of the newspaper business.
Dan is a mountain of knowledge!
I would also add that Orage Quarles has helped a lot in the
destruction of the News and Observer.
So much of the coverage is editorializing in places that should be reporting facts.
Quarles is the one who got Tim Tyson to do so much race-baiting, thinking that sensationalized coverage would sell more papers.
Wow, did that bit of pandering come back to bite them.
For harming people before evidence of guilt, they are now
experiencing the BAD KARMA that they deserve!
March 4th, 2009 at 12:27 pm
Mr. Question, you use the word “we”.
Are you an owner or somehow associated with the News and Observer?
March 4th, 2009 at 12:27 pm
MIT-The good people at the N&O don’t deserve bad karma. The problem with this country right now (and not just in the news business) is that corporations run EVERYTHING. And the people at the top could give a rat’s ass about the minions doing the work. I find it somewhat reprehensible across the web blogosphere that so many people take joy in the gutting of newspapers. Where in the world do you people think MOST of the news you read comes from? It’s gathered, for the most part, by newspapers. So you actually think the stuff you see on TV was researched and actually discovered by TV? Wake up. They read it in the newspaper or got it off the wire. The sad thing is when newspapers die, if they do, there will be an enormous amount of misinformation out there…yeah I know all about the “citizen journalism” thing. But the general public has no idea what’s ethical and for the most part how to actually gather news and report it. Just like I don’t know how to repair an ACL after someone tears it. But you are right on about “Dandy Don Quarles”. This is a guy who rubs his wealth in the employees face everyday as he used to drive a different vehicle everyday of the week and park it in his private space right at the employees entrance in the garage. Another cute little fact, until recently, like one month ago he NEVER sent out an email…it always came from his secretary’s account. That stopped when a blogger that puts out a lot of dirt on the company McClatchyWatch noted that several publishers in the chain had no idea how to use email because they made their secretary’s send out their messages. It was quite comical because three days later everyone got the FIRST message from his Highness himself. And Bob, that’s my point. Weaver says crap like that all the time on his blog. And the fact of the matter is, IF buying the N&O was a bad choice it turns out there is a pattern to the way those idiots in Sacramento do business. Because the Knight-Ridder purchase was the Mother Lode of bad mistakes. But, even though business consultants around the country questioned the buying of a chain with more than 10 failing properties they forged ahead. An now what you have is a pretty damn good local newspaper struggling under the debt od a failed corporation.
March 4th, 2009 at 12:29 pm
“It seems Weaver has a habit of sidestepping facts which get in the way of his point. ”
That is not a habit. Jhat is “Journalism”
Many universities have a department that teach it under the guise that learning to do this constitutes a profession.
March 4th, 2009 at 1:21 pm
Mr. Question,
All of that is well and good, but you just give a lecture and hand over cloudy details.
Those details are very one-sided and only from your point of view which I think most can see is coming from someone who has been associated with the paper.
Quarles is the first black newspaper publisher in the south, if I remember correctly. I guess he just likes to flaunt that. I don’t care what kind of car he drives. That’s for petty people to talk about.
Most of us are concerned when a newspaper allows the reporters to editorialize and when they use race against people because it will be a sensational story.
I hate people who talk about race all the time and use it for advancement.
You are TOTALLY WRONG about the blogosphere. The real reporting comes from there now.
Hell, what are you smoking? The blogs might be more freewheeling, but they are faster and more accurate and fair.
Sorry, pal. The blogosphere is what you will be seeing as your FUTURE!
March 4th, 2009 at 1:34 pm
I’m so glad that I heard about GD’s blog. Saw a link in The Diva World or at DiW a while back. There’s so much history about the local paper that I would not have known. There are good people who work at the N&O like John Drescher, but why do all the employees just sit back and not protest the way the paper has been run for the last several years? They work hard. They have a stake in it.
March 4th, 2009 at 2:29 pm
You complain….you’re showed the door. Plain and simple. Maybe not right away. It’s the newspaper version of the “death by a thousand cuts”. You’re taken off your beat and re-assigned for no good reason except for the whim of a vindictive untalented editor who wishes to push her own agenda. The same editor who launched a water bottle at a reporter during a meeting about beat changes because he questioned her “judgement”. You watch people who are obviously unqualified for their position moved up because for the most part in this climate managers feel “safer” when they surround themselves with drones who won’t question their bad decisions or heavy handed tactics. MIT, I agree and disagree with your points, which are very good. Blogs are freewheeling and fast but most of us have to admit there is a LOT of misinformation out there that is purported as fact by bloggers, not that the same thing doesn’t happen with the regular media. Smoking? No, but I wish I was.
March 4th, 2009 at 2:53 pm
You said that Weaver was an Editor in the newspaper business and that he has a habit of sidestepping the facts. It’s not like you to be so redundant?
March 4th, 2009 at 3:03 pm
Mr. Question:
“I find it somewhat reprehensible across the web blogosphere that so many people take joy in the gutting of newspapers.”
Its not about the newspapers exactly. It’s always been about the one sided forced propaganda. Why do you think talk radio and the internet blogs are so popular?
I take no joy from the future demise of the N&O. I do, however, take great pleasure in seeing an end to biased political speech served up as “news”.
March 4th, 2009 at 3:04 pm
Mr. Question,
I agree that some bloggers are only interested in getting attention as they run with stories, but so many are serious with the bloggers working their tails off for good reporting.
I shudder to think what might have happened if Professor KC Johnson had not taken it upon himself to expose the runaway Duke faculty the way he has. Everything was explained so that the average Joe on the street could get a personal view inside how university politics work….
With Vaden receiving a salary for teaching some class there it’s almost a criminal act for the N&O to have had him as a public editor. They need to be sued! You are bitter and need to get over how someone at the N&O treated you. That must be why you have posted such nasty things here in the past. It’s eating you up. Why not lighten up and start a blog!
March 4th, 2009 at 4:29 pm
Great idea! Thanks….I think. (insert smiley face)
March 4th, 2009 at 5:47 pm
I’ll have to agree with Mr. Question on one thing. I’ve heard that some who are in the higher positions at the N&O can be very vindictive. Some of their employees were not comfortable with a lot of the coverage of the Duke boys a few years ago.It all goes back to the publisher though. A friend of mine was out drinking in Raleigh one night. I won’t mention which bar. He said there was en employee of the N&O talking about how many people there felt they had to tow a line regarding coverage of blacks. There’s so much crime and it’s mostly blacks on the police blotter. What could they do? I bet they loved the fantasy that some white boys at Duke had raped a black prostitute. Did anyone see how that woman looks? What a joke! Anyway, when the subject of blacks like Linda Williams comes up and how racist she is, people who work there just say no comment.That’s what a friend told me. I’m sure it’s not a comfortable atmosphere. Seems they enjoy the idea of reverse racism.
March 4th, 2009 at 9:15 pm
Mr. Question, I’m so happy to see you referenced the water-bottle throwing incident. I cannot believe LW still has a job. She is an incredibly rude woman who has such a myopic world view that she couldn’t care less about any human being who is not within her own race. She has harmed people in that community, and former employees as well. She’s done so much harm, in fact, that she has caused formerly non-racist coworkers and community members to reconsider their own POVs.
I am incredibly hopeful that she does not survive the cuts. It’s against my nature to wish ill on any person, but in this case, I’m actually wishing good on the rest of the Triangle. It also would be a shame for two good, hard working, talented, caring human beings to lose jobs when she could be cut instead.
March 5th, 2009 at 8:13 pm
Anyone notice the latest news today, that Linda has been promoted, once again, to chief of the combined features sections of Raleigh and Charlotte? This is a terrible decision. Had I not quit subscribing a long time ago, I would right now.
Of course, the good thing is that she does practically nothing, so no one now working under her has to worry much. But I hate to see bad people promoted when good people get laid off.