Month: February 2009

Howard Owens has left the building

Howard Owens, GateHouse Media‘s director of digital publishing, has left the company, according to an internal memo by GateHouse president Kirk Davis that was obtained by Media Nation.

“Beginning today, Brad Dennison, VP News, will assume the additional responsibilities inherent in overseeing our online news operations and support,” Davis wrote in the memo, dated Friday. “Brad will be incorporating Howard Owens’ duties, as Howard has left the company. Howard did volumes to advance our digital strategy and leaves GateHouse with our deep appreciation.”

As you will see, I am missing point #2 of Davis’ memo. [Not anymore. Added at 11:46 a.m.] If anyone would like to pass it along, I will give you a free lifetime subscription to Media Nation.

GateHouse Media is a national chain that owns nearly 400 community newspapers, including 125 in Eastern Massachusetts. Though most of those papers are weeklies, some are among the best-known dailies in the state, including the Patriot Ledger of Quincy, the Enterprise of Brockton and the Framingham-based MetroWest Daily News.

Within journalism new-media circles, Owens is a highly respected thinker. Before joining GateHouse in September 2006, he helped launch pioneering new-media ventures at the Bakersfield Californian and, before that, the Ventura County Star, according to his LinkedIn profile.

At GateHouse, Owens pushed a strategy of Web-first journalism, exhorting reporters and editors to post breaking news stories on the company’s Wicked Local sites before running them in their print editions. He was also a strong advocate of quick-and-dirty video for the Wicked Local sites. In addition, he’s a co-founder of the Wired Journalists social network.

Owens’ blog, HowardOwens.com, appears to have gone dark, although a “whois” search reveals that he’s still the owner. Worth keeping an eye on, I’d say. He continues posting to Twitter.

Owens possesses one of the more interesting minds I know in new-media journalism, combining vision and practical experience. Yet his blunt, occasionally caustic manner has not played well with many of GateHouse’s reporters and editors, who work long hours for short money.

I interviewed Owens for a feature on GateHouse Media last fall for CommonWealth Magazine, a time when finances for GateHouse were perilous, but before the economy had gone off a cliff. Owens was particularly proud of the Batavian, a Web-only “paper” he had launched for GateHouse in Batavia, N.Y. (not far from GateHouse’s corporate headquarters, in Fairport), which he hoped could serve as something of a model.

“The overall revenue would be less than what you would get from a print newspaper,” he said, but added that by eliminating the cost of printing and distribution, he hoped the project could break even relatively quickly.

But Owens put his foot in his mouth when I asked him about complaints within the company that people didn’t have time to devote much energy to executing the company’s online strategy while also putting out quality print editions.

“There are some incredibly talented hardworking people in New England who are asked to do an incredible amount of work,” he said. “There are also slackers, and at some point you have to hold them accountable.” The “slackers” comment reportedly got him in some hot water with his superiors.

More recently, an internal e-mail Owens wrote became an issue in the legal dispute between GateHouse and the New York Times Co. GateHouse sued over Boston.com’s Your Town sites, charging that Boston.com’s practice of automatically “scraping” Wicked Local sites for headlines and ledes violated its copyright. (The suit was settled before it could go to trial.)

But though it might look as though Owens was endorsing the sort of copying and linking practices that Boston.com was engaged in on its Your Town sites, the issues were different in subtle and important ways. If you’re interested in learning more, here’s an overview I wrote for the Guardian.

What could be motivating Owens’ departure? Perhaps he left entirely on his own. If not, my guess is that Davis and chief executive Michael Reed have decided to run as lean an operation as possible in order to get through the recession.

In any case, Media Nation extends its best wishes to Owens, one of the good guys in the ongoing struggle to reinvent journalism. Davis’ memo follows.

DATE: February 20, 2009
TO: GateHouse Media Publishers
Regional Managers
GateHouse Media News Employees
Online Operations Employees
Fairport Employees

FROM: Kirk Davis
RE: GateHouse News Division

As we adjust to the challenges confronting us, it is critically important that we remain positive and determined to emerge from this economic turmoil stronger than ever. As you know, the decisions we make must balance many needs ranging from controlling costs, maximizing our resources, evolving our print and online strategies and demonstrating to our employees that we’ll move swiftly and communicate often as we navigate this recession.

Today, I’d like to outline some important changes with the aforementioned context in mind.

I’m pleased to announce an expansion of the services provided to you and our employees through the GateHouse News Division. Beginning today, Brad Dennison, VP News, will assume the additional responsibilities inherent in overseeing our online news operations and support. Brad will be incorporating Howard Owens’ duties, as Howard has left the company. Howard did volumes to advance our digital strategy and leaves GateHouse with our deep appreciation.

In his expanded role, Brad will oversee and foster a stronger alignment of our print and online strategy, organizational structure, training and support. In turn, this will enable Bill Blevins to focus more on accelerating our online revenue performance, but more importantly, devote more time to strategic planning, identifying new digital opportunities and developing business models to support them. While there are many other benefits we’ll realize, I’m particularly excited due to:

1) The confidence I have in Brad and Bill, working closely with me, to bring greater clarity, responsiveness, support and service from a “field” perspective.

2) The opportunity we have to bring greater continuity to our overall content strategy and product development on all platforms, with a premium on scalability. This will allow us to make big plays when we want, where we want. In other words, we’ll benefit from simplified implementation of next-generation products en masse.

3) Our company’s ability to step back and appreciate what we’ve all accomplished together, but to welcome a fresh approach by bringing our vast corporate talent in online development and support together with our premiere news division and its contagious enthusiasm and culture.

4) Our company’s increased capacity as a result of these changes to make a greater commitment to long-term and strategic planning so that we can all feel increasingly inspired about where our hard work can lead us. The possibilities are endless.

As Brad and Bill meet with staff and focus on this transition, I’ve asked them to be prepared to share their plans with us within the next month, which will no doubt allow them to take into consideration any suggestions they receive from you, our digital staff and our outside consulting firm (FTI).

Thank you!

Update: Owens writes on Twitter, “For those who asked: It’s not quite true that I’m out of a job. I’m just no longer employed by GHM. Details in a week or two.”

Will Hoyt write about the “Note to Readers”?

Here’s part of what New York Times public editor Clark Hoyt wrote about the paper’s report on John McCain’s non-affair last Feb. 24:

A newspaper cannot begin a story about the all-but-certain Republican presidential nominee with the suggestion of an extramarital affair with an attractive lobbyist 31 years his junior and expect readers to focus on anything other than what most of them did. And if a newspaper is going to suggest an improper sexual affair, whether editors think that is the central point or not, it owes readers more proof than The Times was able to provide.

Given that this is a libel settlement we’re talking about, Hoyt is unlikely to call the Times’ “A Note to Readers” for what it is. But unless he’s changed his mind, we know what he’s thinking.

The Times’ unromantic “Note to Readers”

From the New York Times’ “A Note to Readers,” published today as part of its libel-suit settlement with lobbyist Vicki Iseman:

The article did not state, and The Times did not intend to conclude, that Ms. Iseman had engaged in a romantic affair with Senator McCain …

From the Feb. 21 story at issue:

Convinced the relationship [with Iseman] had become romantic, some of his [McCain’s] top advisers intervened to protect the candidate from himself — instructing staff members to block the woman’s access, privately warning her away and repeatedly confronting him, several people involved in the campaign said on the condition of anonymity.

Help me out here.

More possible cuts at the Globe

The Boston Globe may get rid of City Weekly and the twice-weekly Northwest section, according to Michelle Hillman of the Boston Business Journal. She writes that the Globe would “absorb the coverage into other sections of the paper” if managers decide to go ahead with the move.

What does that mean? A fair reading of it is that the Globe is telling us it’s only trying to save on paper and production costs, and that there will be no loss of coverage if the two sections are folded. I guess we’ll find out. (Via Universal Hub.)

The two most successful papers in the U.S. Really.

Let’s take a time-out from the news apocalypse to acknowledge the two most successful newspapers in the United States: the New York Times and the Boston Globe.

What? Isn’t the financially ailing Times selling part of itself off to a shady Mexican billionaire? Isn’t the Globe, owned by the Times Co., losing a reported $1 million a week and eliminating 50 editorial positions?

Yes and yes. This week, though, the Nieman Journalism Lab pulled together a year’s worth of Web site figures — compiled by Nielsen and reported monthly by Editor & Publisher — and found that the Times’ and the Globe’s Web sites are far and away the most successful in their respective weight classes.

Among national papers, the Times has built such a huge lead over its rivals that there’s really no comparison. Look at the chart. With nearly 19.5 million unique visitors every month, the Times’ online readership is nearly double that of its closest competitor, USA Today.

The Globe’s Web site, Boston.com, ranked number six in the country, with 5.2 million unique visitors a month. If you consider the Los Angeles Times to be a national paper, then the Globe is by far the largest regional online newspaper.

One other thing. In December, visitors to the New York Times Web site spent an average of 33 minutes poking around. At the Globe, it was nearly 17 minutes. In other words, a substantial number of people are actually reading the paper on line, not just dipping in quickly from a search engine.

To be sure, there are some extenuating circumstances. According to the Nieman analysis, the Times’ average monthly uniques were driven up by the resignation of Eliot Spitzer as New York’s governor last March. The Globe benefited from Red Sox coverage during their September playoff drive. In fact, the Globe benefits from the Red Sox year-round, as Sox fans from around the country check in on a daily basis.

Still, this is further proof that what ails the newspaper business right now isn’t a lack of readers — it’s the collapse of the old business model, compounded by recession and debt.

If there’s any good news here, it’s that there are enough people who want what newspapers are giving them that there may be some way of figuring out the revenue dilemma.

Taking a pass on the Ted Kennedy series

No, I’m not reading the Boston Globe’s Ted Kennedy series, either. As a 50-something political junkie, I don’t need yet another overview of Kennedy’s life and career, no matter how comprehensive and well-executed it is. And I’ll assume it’s quite good.

For me, the more interesting question is this: Who’s the intended audience? Clearly the timing is based on Kennedy’s terminal illness. Kennedy has been much in the news, and there are probably a lot of younger people out there who don’t know that much about him.

Can the Globe lure the under-30s in with an effort like this? I suspect it’s a tough sell, although anyone who doesn’t know much about Kennedy ought to spend some time with the Globe series.

Not to be morbid, but the Globe has also positioned itself well for Kennedy’s death, both with its online multimedia package and an accompanying book, “Last Lion,” edited by Washington bureau chief Peter Canellos.

But I agree with Mr. Outraged Liberal: Right now, the series isn’t generating any buzz at all.