Texas newspaper death watch: Houston Chronicle

Probably the only major Texas daily I haven't written for, the Houston Chronicle, is joining the parade of cuts, stabs and other various injuries to the newspaper business.

The worst news for someone like me who writes fiction is the loss of the Chronicle's longtime books page editor, Fritz Lanham. Another paper that won't be reviewing my future books...

Statesman death watch: Ben Sargent takes buyout

This is unfortunately what I expected to hear when word trickled out about the Austin American-Statesman's early buyout offer for older, long-term employees: Pulitzer-winning cartoonist Ben Sargent and his wife Diane Holloway have taken the buyout and are gone almost immediately. Both are major losses and the beginning of the end for the Stateman's institutional memory. Sargent has been with the paper for 35 years. Holloway at least 25 years.

Here's more on the story with one more early retirement taker in the Austin Chronicle.

Austin American-Statesman sharpens ax

I predicted this a while back, but just now heard of the announcement from a friend who works there: The Austin American-Statesman is offering buyouts to early retirees who are over age 55 and have been at the paper for at least 10 years. They say 130 people fit the bill. Let me list some of the writers you're likely to see flee: John Kelso, Diane Holloway, Michael Corcoran, Kirk Bohls, Brad Buchholz, Denise Gamino... Those last two may not be quite old enough, but you get the idea. Voluntary buyouts are the first step before the bloodletting at newspapers. And they often take away the best writers and the established voices that keep readers coming back for more (see my list).

The Statesman has been largely immune to the staff cuts that have been common elsewhere, but plans by the Cox chain to sell it off apparently have them wanting to get lean and mean in advance. Once the sale goes through, look for larger staffs cuts. It's the same story everywhere as newspapers contribute to their own demises by chopping off their arms and legs. It's a sad story that seems to be unstoppable. The Statesman is a case study in contraction: kill the weekly TV section, nix a separate Sunday classified section for jobs (thanks, Craigslist!), fold the business section more often into the metro section, permanently fold the weekly film section into lifestyles. Slow new hires to a trickle. You get the idea.

I've been saying we'll see major daily newspapers begin to drop their print editions within the next five years. I think that figure may be too generous.

The oddest thing I've notice from the Statesman camp has to do with circulation. They now give away a handful of papers at Austin Community College, where I teach, and have removed the sales rack completely. The free ones are gone by 8 a.m. So they don't want people to buy their paper and are limiting their readers say 10 people? Out of sight; out of mind.

Newspaper suicide; book "souvenirs"

I got an email from Jenny yesterday. We had been having an email exchange recently about how newspapers are committing suicide in anticipation of their own demises in the transition to an electronic world. Our discussion began when news was released of the cutting of 150 editorial department positions at the Los Angeles Times where she and her husband both work. She wrote me yesterday to tell me that her husband is among the 150.

What do I mean by suicide? Newspapers are largely run by corporations these days that are not satisfied with the small profit margin that newspapers have traditionally offered. So they cut in the only place that really saves money: staff. It's so far centered on incentives for early retirement, but also includes forced retirements and layoffs. Who goes? In most cases it's the names you'd recognize--the longterm book critic or film reviewer, the editorial cartoonist, the guy who writes about television or sports. These, of course, are the names your dwindling readership identifies with. Once you've set those big names adrift, your readers increasingly lose loyalty and feel fine dropping that subscription.

I'm an Austin native and I've worked for the Austin American-Statesman three times, first as a general copy editor for news, features and (now defunct) neighborhood sections, then as an assistant entertainment editor and last as a free-lance film industry columnist. Oh, my actual first job there was as a paperboy way back when. Recently I cut my subscription to weekends only. Why? To save money, and because I, a guy who writes for two newspapers, get more and more of my news online. I also figure to check out the newspaper at work on someone else's dime.

The Statesman is luckier than most major metropolitan newspapers. The Dallas Morning News, where I'm a free-lance film industry columnist, announced a third wave of staff reductions recently. Over at the Poynter Institute, Romenesko's regular column reads like an obituary: staff cuts, cuts cuts. The Lexington Dispatch is going so far as to chop off its own toes by deleting its entire Monday newspaper.

The Statesman's Cox chain has yet to slash into its staff, but just you wait. The signs of decay are already there. Show World, the weekly listing of television shows was dropped. I guess it was assumed only old people kept it near their rabbit-eared televisions as a guide to programming. The rest of us watch the guide channels offered by cable and satellite providers. The classified ads, once considered a reliable indicator of the state of the economy, are another goner. Craig's List stole it all. Another buggy whip for the museums. Like the phone books that keep piling up at my house untouched when the Internet is so much easier.

Why all the melancholy navel-gazing? Part of it is that email from Jenny. Another part comes from reading this article about the future of the printed word, primarily books. One person interviewed in the article suggests books will become souvenirs given out for free when authors talk. That's not too far fetched. Will all our reading soon be multimedia? Maybe so. I know I'm not ready to give up on newspapers just yet. And I'll keep on writing novels with paper and ink in mind, thank you very much. I just hope the publishers are not giving up on themselves too soon.

When the competition gives up

OK, this is that odd, delicate subject I can't avoid any longer. You see I'm an old beat newspaper reporter. I used to cover city hall, schools, the county courthouse, etc. in a myriad of small to mid-sized towns. A best reporter's job (in my mind) is to put a blanket over the area in question and strive to capture its essence for the reading public.

When I started writing about the Texas film industry 10 years ago, it was mainly about getting to see movies for free. One day I decided to write a column, thinking Texans would like to know what's going on in their burgeoning film scene. I, of course, was such an idiot that I didn't realize Jane Sumner had been doing just such a column at the Dallas Morning News for a couple of decades. Jane creamed me. She was a beat reporter who knew her beat up and down. Over time I slowly started to catch up. Sometimes I beat her to the scoop.

My column was picked up by the Austin American-Statesman in 2000 and ran there until 2004, when I jumped ship because of disagreements over the column's future form as it moved to the paper's XL entertainment section. Shortly after it was picked up by The Austin Chronicle. About the same time Jane Sumner left the Morning News and a year later my column debuted there as well.

Meanwhile my old pals at the Statesman had their own form of the film industry column in the XL as planned. That is until the tabloid shrank so much that the column dropped. Their solution was to move film news to a Web blog, where it appears to mainly consist of press releases and links, you know bloggy stuff like you see here.

That's all well and good, but I can't help but be amazed that they have yet to mention anywhere either online or in print the TV pilot I told my readers about a month ago or the indie film starring Julia Roberts that I confirmed last week (after noting the film a few weeks before that). All this at a time when many in the film industry are fighting for state incentives to stay competitive.

The old beat reporter in my misses my own perception of competition (slap me around if I'm sounding pompous here. Ouch!)I also miss the two-newspaper cities we not too long ago had in Dallas, Houston and San Antonio (Austin, too, if you go back to the Austin Citizen). I can't help believing we'd all be better off with more, not less.