Media reports bad news, hides its own

Today's front pages and newscasts are full of bad economic news while most of us in the serious news business are successfully ignoring or under reporting our own. Collectively, after decades of practice, we've become good at it.

To the credit of the daily paper, only the Richmond Times-Dispatch (RTD) has given a hint of the internal angst locally as the saga continues with the downsizing of its employees, circulation, stock price and the size of its overall printed product. The RTD is still where the big news salaries are, but there are fewer of those positions now.

Parent company Media General here in Richmond, which owns 24 daily papers, 275 weekly papers and 19 television stations, reported a loss of $632 million last year. Its stock is hovering around $2 a share - the price of a cup of coffee - down from a peak of $72 five years ago.

The Virginian Pilot in the Tidewater area and the Free Lance-Star in Fredericksburg are just two other daily newspapers that have suffered layoffs recently. No one in the daily newspaper business knows where the bottom is. The National Newspaper Association reported that nationwide through the first nine months of last year advertising sales sank 18 percent - before news of the economic crisis really hit.

Some newspapers have reduced their printing schedules, opting instead not to deliver a print version on certain days and drive readers to their online versions on non-print days. In Detroit, both daily papers have selected Thursdays, Fridays and Sundays as the days to continue home delivery, presumably the days they are profitable.

Landmark Communications, which owns Style Weekly, the Virginian Pilot, the Roanoke Times and numerous other publications, recently pulled in its "for sale" sign when there was inadequate interest, no viable offers, financing problems or all the above.

On the television news front, WWBT Channel 12 bid goodbye last December to long-time Sports Director Ben Hamlin and two of its most experienced reporters (Gene Lepley and Rob Richardson) just before Christmas. Those departures didn't make the 6 o'clock news. Like other television stations, the top-rated news operation is experiencing declining revenue thanks primarily to sluggish auto advertising. The NBC affiliate normally produces a hefty profit margin, so the impact may be greater at the other stations. Young Broadcasting, the parent company of WRICTV8, has debts of $400 million more than assets and has declared bankruptcy while it reorganizes.

Weekly newspapers appear to be fairing somewhat better than their media counterparts. Suburban Newspapers of America - where weekly newspapers report their sales - says advertising revenue dropped just 2 percent for weeklies during the first nine months of last year.

But even free weekly papers have reduced circulation to cut expenses. According to the annual 2009 Directory of Virginia Newspapers, Style Weekly suffered a 17 percent decline from a year ago, now down to 33,053. Typically, about one-fourth of its circulation is in Chesterfield.

The free pick-up Village News in Chester reports a smaller circulation down from 11,000 to 9,500, according to the 2009 and 2008 Virginia Press Association (VPA) directories.

Late last year, the Midlothian Exchange, another free weekly publication owned by Media General, reported an increase of 4,000 in circulation to 29,006 to the VPA. But Publisher Joy Monopoli said recently the Midlothian Exchange would no longer mail copies of the paper. It will continue to be distributed at free pick-up locations and inserted into the RTD in limited zip codes on Thursdays. Asked about the decision during a Western Chesterfield Business Alliance meeting, Monopoli reported the Midlothian Exchange's circulation declined to 22,000. "Business models are changing because of the economy," she said. In 2007, Media General pulled the plug on another Chesterfield weekly, the Western Chesterfield Exchange.

So far, the Chesterfield Observer has been able to buck the trend. Last September, this newspaper increased its circulation by 12 percent to 54,278.