Agenda for Wednesday's Press Club board meeting

Wednesday, Feb. 10, 2010 6:30 p.m. San Mateo Daily Journal 800 S. Claremont St., Ste. 210, San Mateo AGENDA 1-Approval of Minutes 2-Finance and Membership Reports 3-Confirmation of date for annual awards contest, discussion of any details including guest speaker 4-Professional development workshop for members-upcoming 5-Discussion of ad purchases in school publications 6-Other business as needed

Former newspaper offices to be subdivided

The old Santa Cruz Sentinel building might soon become home of an Internet service provider and environmental group. The Silicon Valley/San Jose Business Journal reports that the new owners of the 44-year-old, 55,000-square-foot building at 207 Church St. are submitting plans to the city to subdivide the building into spaces for at least four tenants. The Sentinel vacated the downtown building in 2007 for an office park in Scotts Valley. Two years later, top management wished they were back downtown again.

KTVU's mobile pageviews jump 300% in a year

KTVU is out with its report on its ratings in January, and perhaps the biggest headline doesn't deal with TV viewership at all. Channel 2 reports that pageviews for Mobile KTVU.com have increased by more than 300% to 1.6 million in January compared to the same month last year.

January's rain storms resulted in 641,000 pageviews for Channel 2's weather radar page.

When it comes to TV news ratings, we posted the grid above that Channel 2 provided for the January 2010 ratings (adults 25-54) and below the same demo for March 2009.

Looking at both charts, it shows that NBC KNTV has lost viewership in the morning, KTVU is doing better at 5 and 6 p.m., and everybody is down at 10 and 11 p.m.

When other stations put out their announcements about ratings, we'll post them. Usually we get more following the February sweeps.

MediaNews describes pay wall

MediaNews, which is making post-bankruptcy plans, tells Bloomberg News that it will give users access to as many as 25 "premium" articles monthly, after which they'll have to pay an undetermined fee unless they subscribe to a MediaNews print publication.

MediaNews is calling the "metered pay wall" similar to one at the Financial Times.

MediaNews plans to test the concept at its papers in Chico and York, Pa., in the next few months. Then the pay wall might be extended to the company's 52 other daily newspapers including those in the Bay Area.

MediaNews will use Steven Brill and Gordon Crovitz's Journalism Online to process payments for its sites.

Jerry Roberts awarded $915,538

Former Chronicle political reporter and managing editor Jerry Roberts (pictured) has been awarded $915,538 in legal fees and arbitration costs in his dispute with the owner of the Santa Barbara News-Press, multi-millionaire Wendy McCaw, the LA Times reported today.

Arbitrator Deborah Rothman rejected all claims by McCaw's company and, in a 68-page ruling, ordered it to pay her $748,022 in legal fees and $167,516 in arbitration costs.

Rothman said McCaw (below) used her wealth to engage in a "scorched-earth, take-no-prisoners, go-for-broke, leave-no stone-unturned" campaign to punish Roberts for speaking out against what he saw as improper meddling in the news gathering process, according to the LA Times report.

"Mrs. McCaw is capable of great vindictiveness and appears to relish the opportunity to wield her considerable wealth and power in furtherance of what she believes to be righteous causes," Rothman wrote.

Roberts left the Chronicle in 2002 after 25 years to become managing editor of the Santa Barbara paper, but resigned in 2006, saying McCaw was meddling in the newsroom. She then sued him, saying his criticism of her violated his employment contract.

Among the allegations against McCaw is that she had a reporter and three editors disciplined for printing the address of a home "West Wing" actor Rob Lowe was planning to build -- a project that had spurred protests from neighbors and had been the subject of numerous public hearings.

McCaw became rich through marriage. She got $460 million when she divorced Cingular cell phone pioneer Craig McCaw in 1997. In 2000, she bought the News-Press from The New York Times Co. and, critics claim, used it to trumpet her own causes, such as animal rights, abolishing the Coastal Commission and barring public access to beaches -- at least those near her property.

When Roberts resigned, seven top newsroom staffers followed him. As public sympathy settled on the side of the departing newsroom staffers, McCaw's Ampersand Publishing announced that they had found pornography on Roberts' old computer. The smear fell apart, however, when it was revealed that several other people in the company had used the same computer, and that there was no way of telling who downloaded the pornography. Since the computer was purchased second-hand, it might have even been the previous owner. Roberts denied the allegations, and the matter has been dropped.

Roberts now writes a political blog, CalBuzz, with Phil Trounstine.

(Photo credits: Roberts photo, Chronicle; Wendy McCaw, Santa Barbara Independent)

Oakland residents invited to become journalists

E&P reports that the Oakland Tribune and the Maynard Institute for Journalism Eduction are launching on a citizen journalist program in west Oakland that will open a media center in a branch library, and train residents in reporting, writing and photographing for the newspaper's community correspondents program. The six-month training program comes with a $1,000 stipend to residents who complete the entire course.

Book review: "Deadlines"

Pete Carey of the Merc says Paul McHugh's "Deadlines" is an entertaining tale that concisely captures life in a big-city newsroom. In fact, this amusing novel is more than a murder mystery. It's a portrait of metropolitan journalism amid its time of troubles. [More]

No local broadcasters going to Super Bowl

Bay Area media blogger Rich Lieberman checked around and discovered that not one local TV or radio station has sent anyone to Miami to cover Sunday's Super Bowl. Some newspaper people are going like David White of the Chron, but in far fewer numbers than in the past.

KGO-AM's Gil Gross now does show on KSFO 560

Gil Gross, who holds down the 2-4 p.m. weekday shift at KGO-AM, can now be heard on Saturdays on conservative "Hot Talk" KSFO-AM from 1-3, talking about real estate.

No, Gross isn't pretending to be a Rush Limbaugh wannabe one day a week. KSFO is simply picking up Gross' nationally syndicated "Real Estate Today" program which is heard on other big-market stations like WABC New York. In fact, WABC booted Bob Brinker and replaced him with Gross. KSFO, KGO-AM and WABC are owned by Citadel.

Gross' real estate program is heavy on interviews from experts. The KSFO version also includes a two-minute report Gross does on the Bay Area market.

The program is owned by the National Association of Realtors, but that hasn't stopped Gross from asking probing questions about the meltdown of the housing industry.

Gross, who replaced the late Pete Wilson at KGO in 2007, has been on national network radio for years, hosting a talk show on CBS Radio and doing hourly news on ABC. In fact, he became the youngest radio anchor at ABC at age 23.

Just say 'no' to giving it away for free

Alan Mutter, media venture capitalist and blogger, journalists need to stand together and stop giving away their services for free. In a blog posting that seems to be directed at the F. Warren Hellman-funded Bay Area News Project (which will use the free work of UC-Berkeley journalism students), Mutter says journalists should reject those who want to use their work for free:

Instead of simply declining, I tell them something like this:

Quality journalism takes training, time and tenacity. Although it’s easy to fill space with words, pictures and videos that are produced quickly and on the cheap, down-and-dirty “journalism” is the intellectual equivalent of empty calories.

The more empty calories you consume, the unhealthier you get. It won’t be good for our democracy – let alone our self-esteem as journalists – if we attempt to nourish vital local, state and national conversations with the journalistic equivalent of Ding Dongs and McNuggets.

The dangerous devaluation of journalism is the direct result of the contraction of the traditional media, which have idled tens of thousands of experienced journalists in the hopes of approximating their exceptional historic profitability.

The market is flooded not only with sidelined veterans but also with hungry, young journalists trying to land their first gigs (see also "Journicide: A Looming Lost Generation of Scribes").

This makes it easy for countless new media ventures, and even some of the older ones, to pick off writers, photographers and videographers on the cheap. Such was the case last year when a freelancer got a measly $31.50 for a photo that ran on the cover of a Time magazine issue ironically devoted to “the new frugality.”

The only way for journalists to fight back is to demand to be paid what they’re worth.

Here's a link to Mutter's posting.

Jon Miller to enter Hall of Fame

The National Baseball Hall of Fame announced Monday that longtime Giants broadcaster Jon Miller was selected as the winner of the Ford C. Frick Award, given annually to recognize excellence in baseball broadcasting. Miller grew up in the Bay Area and spent hundreds of days and nights listening to Russ Hodges and Lon Simmons call Giants games.

"The first people I actually thought of were Russ Hodges and Lon Simmons," Miller said in a conference call, according to the Chronicle. "It really is kind of astounding to me, that I'm the recipient of the award, because Russ and Lon were larger-than-life people to me. They were as big as the biggest movie stars to me."

It's been 13 years since Herb Caen died

In this retrospective, the Chron's Carl Nolte said Caen had a special way of spinning items: "He called an L.A. cop 'an equal opportunity bigot — he hates everyone' ... he said the Catholic archbishop had closed so many churches he made an unholy mess ... he found a guy who played two saxophones at the same time and wondered if he was bisaxual ... he called a bus driver with a perfect attendance record the Cal Ripken of the Muniserable railway ... he gave Beaucaens, and sent Caengrats. He invented words. Beatnik was one."

Time to enter the Press Club's journalism contest

The entry period for the Press Club's 32nd annual Greater Bay Area Journalism Awards has begun. You can download the entry form and rules here.

The contest is open to all journalists and public relations professionals in the Bay Area. The fee per entry for non-members is $55, but if you become a member for $35, then the entry fee is $15 — a $5 savings.

As always, the entries are judged by press clubs or Society of Professional Journalists chapters outside the Bay Area. No San Francisco Peninsula Press Club member will be involved in the judging.
Plaques for first, second and third place will be presented during an awards banquet in June.

Last year, the Press Club received 424 entries and presented 165 awards in 67 categories. Pictured above are three of last year's winners, Julia Scott (left), Christine Morente and Neil Gonzales.

The deadline to enter is Feb. 26. For more information, e-mail Darryl Compton.

Major paper's pay service attracts 35 customers

As newspapers in the Bay Area consider putting their stories behind pay walls, they might consider the experience of Newsday on Long Island. According to the New York Observer, after three months, only 35 people signed up to pay $5 a week for access to all of Newsday's stories.

Newsday's Web site redesign cost $4 million. The 35 subscribers will provide $9,000 in revenue over a year's time. The paper's free Web site is losing readers and advertisers now that content is being withheld.

Meanwhile in San Francisco, the Chronicle is withholding columnists such as Matier & Ross from its free SFGate site, but making them available to e-edition subscribers. Certain stories are also being treated the same way.

MediaNews Group, owner of the San Jose Mercury News and Contra Costa Times, plans this year to experiment with a pay wall at its papers in Chico and York, Pa.

Pleasanton Weekly celebrates 10th birthday

With all of the reports we've had on newspapers closing or cutting back, it's refreshing to note the anniversary of a local newspaper. The Plesanton Weekly is celebrating 10 years of serving up news about local politics, government, schools and neighborhoods. Here's a link to the anniversary story. Publisher Janet Pelletier notes that one of the paper's favorite features began accidentally.

Former Pleasanton Police Chief Tim Neal, who retired in 2006, thought it would be funny to email a photo of himself at the Statue of Liberty, holding a copy of the paper. After the photo was published, the Weekly began receiving a barrage of vacation photos from residents. Thus, Take Us Along was born. Nine years later, Take Us Along is going strong with thousands of photos sent and emailed.

In the photo above Gina Channell-Allen, president, and Jeb Bing, editor/publisher of the Pleasanton Weekly, are flanked by the rest of the staff at the newspaper, including Trina Cannon, Kristin Herman, Karen Klein, Mary Hantos, Kathy Martin, Lisa Oefelein, Barbara Lindsey, Dolores Ciardelli, Paul Crawford, Sandy Lee, Manuel Valenzuela, Lili Cao, Janet Pelletier, Andrea Heggelund and Emily West. (Photo credit: Pleasanton Weekly)

KGO-AM falls to No. 3 over holidays

People love Christmas music. A lot of people do. Because KOIT-FM jumped from third to first during the holiday season (from 4.3% in November to 8.1%) when it switched to all Christmas music. KGO-AM 810, which has been No. 1 since the Marconi era, fell to third. Remaining at No. 2 in both surveys was KCBS, which was likely bolstered by its FM signal (now just a year old). Here's a link to the Arbitron ratings at Radio-Info.com. And here's the usual disclaimer. Cumes are only beauty contest figures and they don't matter to advertisers. Advertisers buy time based on listenership in key demos, like women 18-49, etc.

Almost forgot the South Bay. KBAY-FM, which also switched to Christmas music, was No. 1 with 9.8%. But KBAY is often No. 1 in the South Bay. No surprise there. KOIT surged, going from 3.1 to 6.0. When it comes to News and News/Talk in the South Bay, KCBS is tops (No. 3 overall) and next is KSFO (No. 7). No. 8 is KQED and ninth is KGO. KLIV 1590, San Jose's all news station, is 29th.

MediaNews bankruptcy hearing March 4

The date has been set. U.S. District Judge Kevin J. Carey (left) of the bankruptcy court in Wilmington, Delaware, on Tuesday set a date of March 4 to hear the MediaNews Chapter 11 case.

The deadline to file objections is Feb. 4. To object, go to PDF page 139 (numbered in the document as page 124) in the MNG disclosure notice for instructions.

Appearing before Judge Carey was Kathryn A. Coleman of Hughes Hubbard and Reed, the Manhattan law firm representing MNG.

She briefly recited the situation — that the bankruptcy plan would reduce the company's debt from $930 million to $178 million.

Judge Carey seems to get a lot of media bankruptcy cases. Recently he approved $45.6 million in Tribune Company bonuses. Here's a link to a union site where he was criticized.

Contrary to earlier reports, Hearst will remain a shareholder in MediaNews, and will probably do better than other creditors. Hearst's share of MNG's non-Bay Area assets will go from 31% to 14%. While that sounds like a haircut, Hearst will retain more of its $317 million investment in MNG than other shareholders, who will only get 19 cents on the dollar.

Nothing in the bankruptcy papers filed so far rules out the idea that MNG and Hearst might try to swing a deal to sell the Chron to Singleton, as was discussed a couple of years ago.

In fact, media venture capitalist and "Reflections of a Newsosaur" blogger Alan Mutter says this scenario might go down:

The most likely path in San Francisco would be to add the San Francisco Chronicle, where Hearst has sunk more than a $1 billion since 2000 without seeing much profit, to the chain of newspapers Singleton operates in the Bay Area.

The long-running losses at the Chronicle, plus the MediaNews bankruptcy, may be sufficient to persuade regulators that an antitrust waiver is necessary to sustain journalism in Northern California. As an added argument in support of a waiver, Hearst could threaten – as it did early in 2009 — to shut the Chronicle, which would make San Francisco the largest American city without a daily newspaper.

Adding the Chronicle to his Bay Area juggernaut would enable Singleton to eliminate most ad sales, administrative and back-office positions. At the same time, a consolidation would provide ample opportunities to streamlining production and circulation.

This also would result in potentially the deepest cuts yet in the Chronicle newsroom. The Chronicle editorial staff, which has been halved over the years to a couple of hundred traumatized souls, could be thinned yet again to perhaps a couple of dozen individuals. Further insight into Singleton’s operating approach in the Bay Area is offered here.

MNG execs to get big salaries despite bankruptcy

While most creditors have accepted 19 cents on the dollar, documents MediaNews Group has filed in bankruptcy court show the company's chief executive, Dean Singleton (right), could get as much as $1.49 million in annual compensation while his heir apparent, Jody Lodovic (left), could get up to $2.25 million.

Lodovic will receive:

• a base salary of $1,006,000,
• 3% of the new stock of MediaNews,
• is eligible for a bonus of as much as $500,000,
• has already been paid $250,000 this fiscal year for work related to The Denver Post.
• and will get possibly $500,000 depending on how the bankruptcy goes.

Read about it here. Turn to PDF pages 69 and 70 (which are numbered 54 and 55 on the document itself).

Related articles:

• LA Observed points out that Singleton's newspapers aren't printing his salaries.

• The Seattle Times rails against the idea that banks will own 88% of MediaNews. The Seattle paper discusses Singleton's latest business model: 

If there ever was a way to kill the American people's appetite for newspapers, it is this. Make the paper non-local. Make it the same everywhere.

Treat it as a "property," like a telephone-company bond or a share of stock. Don't sweat the long run because in the long run, as the economist said, we are all dead.

That is not the way to save newspapers.

Newspapers need to be in the hands of people who care about them. Those are almost always investors with a strong local connection.

The San Jose Mercury News ought to be owned by people from San Jose — not by a company in Denver owned by another company in Denver owned by a bank in Charlotte, N.C. The banks taking over MediaNews should dismember the chain and sell the newspapers to local owners who will do right by them.

• The Denver Daily News reports that MediaNews has filed a motion with the bankruptcy court to prevent its phones from being shut off.

'Pimp' in Acorn videos slated to speak in SF

James O'Keefe, who posed as a pimp with Hannah Giles in videos they shot in Acorn offices, is scheduled to appear Monday (Feb. 1) at the Commonwealth Club in San Francisco to discuss undercover journalism in a conversation with Josh Wolf.

There's only one problem. O'Keefe and three others were arrested Monday for trying to tap the phones of Senator Mary Landrieu, D-Louisiana. (Link to AP story.)

O'Keefe is out on bond, but there's no word about whether he can leave Louisiana to participate in Monday's Commonwealth Club talk with Wolf.

Here's a bit of the club's description of the talk on Monday:

"Join our discussion with O'Keefe and Wolf as they talk about the future of journalism and the benefits (and pitfalls) of undercover reporting. Is independent, undercover journalism an emerging trend, or will it continue to be the exception to the rule?"

(Photo credit: New York Post)

NYT gets 1,000 new Bay Area subscribers

The New York Times, which had 40,080 daily subscribers in the Bay Area and 57,514 on Sunday, has picked up 1,000 more after introducing its Bay Area section, NYT Editor of Digital Initiatives Jim Schacter told a group of local journos on Tuesday.

Schacter also spoke about the concern raised on blogs that the NYT is looking to turn Berkeley j-school students into unpaid reporters. He said the NYT's deal will be with the Bay Area News Project (the nonprofit funded by Wells Fargo heir F. Warren Hellman), and the project will decide how contributors are paid.

Michael Savage returns to local radio Feb. 1

Michael Savage, who was dumped by KNEW-AM 910 in September, has landed at KTRB-AM 860, which has an all-sports format. Savage, who lives in Marin County, will continue to a political show, however.

"Sports fans are generally tuned out of politics, and I want to tune them in to what is happening in this great country," he said, according to World Net Daily. "Hopefully, with this new demographic, I will attain the high ratings numbers I once had and even exceed that in time."

Savage is still heard on 400 stations nationwide. He returns to the air here on Feb. 1.

Palo Alto Weekly blasts MNG bankruptcy

The Chapter 11 filing of MediaNews holding company Allied Media has launched the newsroom of the Palo Alto Weekly into operation. The Weekly competes with the Mercury News and the Daily News (formerly based in Palo Alto but now located in Menlo Park), both owned by MediaNews.

... MediaNews CEO Dean Singleton told the Wall Street Journal that the banks assuming an 80 percent interest in the company will insist on further consolidations and improved profitability. He thus signaled that continued cost-cutting is likely, but declined to be more specific about consolidations other than to tell people to "look at the map." 

... While it is likely that the banks taking over MediaNews will seek to sell their interest to others as soon as they can, the low current values of publicly traded media companies suggest that will be difficult. 

Federal law gives banks up to five years to divest themselves of companies acquired through bankruptcy or due to collateral provisions in loan agreements. 

Unfortunately, the Mercury News did its readers a disservice by its buried and incomplete coverage of its own restructuring. In doing so, it ironically demonstrated the hazards of media organizations being owned by large corporate parents.

Other stories in the Palo Alto Weekly about the MediaNews Chapter 11 filing include:

• Banks take over MediaNews

• Singleton predicted that banks will become 'accidental' owners of newspapers

MNG bankruptcy lists pension guarantee agency

MediaNews Group, which officially filed its Chapter 11 bankruptcy petition in federal court today, listed the federal Pension Benefit Guaranty Corp. as a potential creditor that may claim a $70 million debt.

The papers filed by MediaNews today didn't elaborate on the pension debt, but the PBGC guarantees pension benefits when businesses close or enter into bankruptcy. It secures the pensions with premiums paid by other employers.

A letter MediaNews CEO Dean Singleton sent to employees last week said, "Pension plans will not be affected as the company intends to continue its sponsorships of all current plans."

The papers listed The Bank of New York Mellon as the largest creditor in the bankruptcy case, with a debt of $326 million.

The Denver-based chain of 54 daily newspapers listed debt of $500 million to $1 billion and assets of $100 million to $500 million. A press release issued today said the company hopes to emerge from Chapter 11 in two months.

The filing was done under the name Affiliated Media Inc., which is described as the holding company of MediaNews Group. The case number is 10-10202, U.S. Bankruptcy Court, District of Delaware (Wilmington).

Brian Bothun pleads guilty to porn charge

Former mid-Peninsula journalist Brian Bothun pleaded guilty today to a misdemeanor charge of possession of pornography, the Menlo Park Almanac reports.

Bothun has worked at all three Palo Alto newspapers: as an intern at the Palo Alto Weekly in the early 1990s, a reporter and editor at the Palo Alto Daily News from 1996-2005, and as a reporter for one month at the Daily Post in 2008.

Sentencing is set for April 6, said San Mateo County Chief Deputy District Attorney Steve Wagstaffe.

Bothun faces a sentence of up to 204 days in county jail -- the 180-day maximum jail sentence, plus an additional day for each of the 24 pornographic images on his computer, Wagstaffe said.

Bothun was arrested on child pornography charges in March 2008, when his partner called Atherton police to report domestic violence. When police officers showed up, he told them about pornographic material on Bothun's computer, according to Wagstaffe.

Bothun was also charged at the time with possession of a glass pipe, which is considered drug paraphernalia. He has been out of jail on $100,000 bail, but has been arrested twice since on drug-related charges: once in July 2008 in Menlo Park, and again on April 5, 2009, in Santa Clara.

BA News Project CEO to make $400,000 a year

The SF Weekly is reporting that Lisa Frazier, the CEO of the new F. Warren Hellman-financed Bay Area News Project, will make $400,000 a year. Not bad for somebody who has no journalistic experience. She's a business and media consultant.

By comparison, former Wall Street Journal managing editor Paul Steiger, who heads the Herbert and Marion Sandler news nonprofit Pro Publica, was paid $570,000 in 2008, according to IRS documents.

The SF Weekly also reports:

Newsroom sources at KQED, meanwhile, told SF Weekly that unease over Frazier taking the CEO spot may have led to the station quitting the Bay Area News Project. Frazier had been initially tasked with searching for the person to fill the position she has now assumed.

Read more about the project's new editor below.