Los Angeles Times story on "the California newspaper that has no reporters left"

[Mr. X]

The California newspaper that has no reporters left

 

[HanSenSE]

Paywalled. But I"ll just say nothing Gannett does surprises me any more ... or any less.

 

[BTExpress]

The only original content from Salinas comes in the form of paid obituaries, making death virtually the only sign of life at an institution once considered a must-read by many Salinans.

Damn good line.

 

[SixToe]

I read this story last night. As per Gannett's typical MO, the Salinas paper sustained cutbacks, reporters began leaving, rinse-repeat, a few hung on trying their best, and so on and so on. Finally, the last one left for a TV gig. They have no one there, no local news, have some stories from other sister papers. Sunday circ fell from 11,000 to about 2,500.

Of course, the locals are now up in arms about not having anyone watching what's going on with the city-county-issues, covering the sports teams, doing the good stories and so forth.

The story's not new, but it's new for Salinas and I guess the LAT needed something to write about. Probably if Steinbeck hadn't been associated with it they wouldn't have cared.

 

[HanSenSE]

Don't sell Salinas too short, though. Population around 163K in last census, county seat, business center of county and ag center (last three letters of KSBW, the local NBC and ABC affiliate, stand for Salad Bowl of the World). But for Gannett just to let it go to hell like this is remarkable.

 

[Mr._Graybeard]

I've read that the St. Cloud, Mn., paper is in the same condition as Salinas. The last reporter left at the end of January. Final St. Cloud Times reporter leaves newspaper | kare11.com

 

[DanOregon]

I really hope Gannett isn't getting any money from legal notices.

 

[TigerVols]

Don't sell Salinas too short, though. Population around 163K in last census, county seat, business center of county and ag center (last three letters of KSBW, the local NBC and ABC affiliate, stand for Salad Bowl of the World). But for Gannett just to let it go to hell like this is remarkable.

Spent some time there recently; by far the largest employer in town is the massive plant that makes the bagged salads you get under a hundred different brand names at your grocery store.

 

[Shropshire Slasher]

GannettHouse is not in the newspaper business. It's in the newspaper killing business. Remember, this is GateHouse in Gannett polos on casual Fridays. They suck newspapers dry and then claim a tax writeoff. That is their MO.

 

[DanOregon]

There were two points when I knew newspapers were going away 1) when our publisher highlighted an study in E&P that said newspaper quality does not have an impact in determininng whether someone subscribes or doesn't - they were either newspaper readers, or they weren't - and when I saw a Gannett "mission statement" that said the point of the company was to deliver profits to our shareholders, or somesuch. We weren't a newspaper company, just a company that used newspapers as a means to an end. Which is pretty much what 90 percent of newspaper companies are these days.

 

[LanceyHoward]

Don't sell Salinas too short, though. Population around 163K in last census, county seat, business center of county and ag center (last three letters of KSBW, the local NBC and ABC affiliate, stand for Salad Bowl of the World). But for Gannett just to let it go to hell like this is remarkable.

Reid was at a conference where he said many of Gannett's smallest papers were not profitable. If Gannett has stopped staffing the paper locally I don't think the company is making much money in Salinas. I wonder why they don't sell the paper to BANG or another chain in the area. that chain could at least plug in more regional news.

 

[Baron Scicluna]

There were two points when I knew newspapers were going away 1) when our publisher highlighted an study in E&P that said newspaper quality does not have an impact in determininng whether someone subscribes or doesn't - they were either newspaper readers, or they weren't - and when I saw a Gannett "mission statement" that said the point of the company was to deliver profits to our shareholders, or somesuch. We weren't a newspaper company, just a company that used newspapers as a means to an end. Which is pretty much what 90 percent of newspaper companies are these days.

The point that I knew newspapers were going to have a rough road was somewhere around 2004-2005, when the executive editor of the Gannett paper I worked at was touting some new initiative about how we were going to do more things with the website, including regularly putting our stories on there when we were done at night.

She was asked if we were going to start charging to access our stories on the website and she said we weren’t because there wasn’t technology available to make anyone pay and besides, there were “studies” that showed people didn’t want to pay for website-generated news.

Then she was asked why anyone would subscribe to the paper if they could just get the same stories online for free and she just shrugged her shoulders.

 

[MisterCreosote]

The point that I knew newspapers were going to have a rough road was somewhere around 2004-2005, when the executive editor of the Gannett paper I worked at was touting some new initiative about how we were going to do more things with the website, including regularly putting our stories on there when we were done at night.

She was asked if we were going to start charging to access our stories on the website and she said we weren’t because there wasn’t technology available to make anyone pay and besides, there were “studies” that showed people didn’t want to pay for website-generated news.

Then she was asked why anyone would subscribe to the paper if they could just get the same stories online for free and she just shrugged her shoulders.

That sounds like it was during the timeframe in which you had to group all of the stories, headlines, photos, cutlines, breakouts, etc., in a very specific way on the Quark page before uploading it to the web, or else everything would just go live in completely random order and grouping.

 

[Baron Scicluna]

That sounds like it was during the timeframe in which you had to group all of the stories, headlines, photos, cutlines, breakouts, etc., in a very specific way on the Quark page before uploading it to the web, or else everything would just go live in completely random order and grouping.

Yeah, it was something like that. We also had to go in folders and bring out these various tags for different categories (pro football, high school basketball, etc.), put them on the side of the page and group them so that the web page techs would know how to load the stories. Of course, eventually, they figured out a way for us to load the stories.

 

[HanSenSE]

Reid was at a conference where he said many of Gannett's smallest papers were not profitable. If Gannett has stopped staffing the paper locally I don't think the company is making much money in Salinas. I wonder why they don't sell the paper to BANG or another chain in the area. that chain could at least plug in more regional news.

BANG would be best suited to fill the gap since they already own the Monterey Herald. Add, say, one reporter to handle government, cops, etc. and a sports stringer (although John Devine does a great job there). But, like I said, it's BANG.

 

[I Should Coco]

Yeah, it was something like that. We also had to go in folders and bring out these various tags for different categories (pro football, high school basketball, etc.), put them on the side of the page and group them so that the web page techs would know how to load the stories. Of course, eventually, they figured out a way for us to load the stories.

I remember my shop in the mid-2000s getting a system that had a time delay for uploading stories to the homepage. Oooo, fancy!

“Just put the stories in this folder, set the time for 7 a.m. (after subscribers get their paper) and they’ll automatically upload at the right time.”

Except when our system crashed at some point overnight, which it often did, and the clock reset to midnight …

 

[LanceyHoward]

BANG would be best suited to fill the gap since they already own the Monterey Herald. Add, say, one reporter to handle government, cops, etc. and a sports stringer (although John Devine does a great job there). But, like I said, it's BANG.

BANG has done that in Northern Colorado. They bought Greeley a couple years ago and basically combined them with half dozen other papers they owned north of Denver. I wonder why they do not now in Salinas.

 

[HanSenSE]

BANG has done that in Northern Colorado. They bought Greeley a couple years ago and basically combined them with half dozen other papers they owned north of Denver. I wonder why they do not now in Salinas.

The publisher of the Herald and Santa Cruz Sentinel comes through my line occasionally (full disclosure: I string for the Sentinel in sports when time allows), so may ask. Another group that could fill the gap is Weeklys, which is anchored by Good Times, a nice weekly based in Santa Cruz which has added some longform local stories to its comprehensive local entertainment coverage. They've also scooped up a lot of smaller weeklies in the Central Coast area (Santa Cruz, San Benito and Monterey counties) over the last few years, most notably the Register-Pajaronian in Watsonville.