Local newspapers stopping the presses; Virus hastens outlets' collapse in time of greatest need for news coverage James, Meg . Los Angeles Times ; Los Angeles, Calif. [Los Angeles, Calif]18 Apr 2020: A.1.

ProQuest document link

FULL TEXT Jeff vonKaenel has weathered wildfires, recessions and getting sued by a mayor in his nearly 50 years running

weekly newspapers.

But the Sacramento newsman met his gravest challenge yet last month when public health officials urged

cancellations of large gatherings to slow the novel coronavirus' spread.

Four days after the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention's advisory, the 69-year-old owner of the

Sacramento News &Review and sister publications in Chico and Reno made the "brutal" call to stop the presses

and lay off 40 staffers.

"This could be the death knell, not only for us but for the dailies that we compete with," VonKaenel said in an

interview.

He hopes the closure is temporary because he doesn't want to let down employees or readers of his free

alternative weeklies, which have fearlessly covered deadly police shootings, casinos' dark side and Sacramento's

vibrant arts scene.

But the advertisers he depends on — restaurants, breweries, small museums and concert venues — were swept up

in the economic shutdown, and without their support, VonKaenel can't cover the $45,000 a week it takes to run his

Sacramento paper.

"I think I'm a pretty good salesman, but to convince businesses to buy ads for events they are not having, well, it's

pretty tough," VonKaenel said.

Even before COVID-19, America's newspaper industry was on life support.

More than 1,800 newspapers have folded since the internet became a prime source for news. In 2000, at least 55

million American homes subscribed to a daily paper, about double what it is today, according to Pew Research

Center.

During the last two decades, newspaper chains, including McClatchy, which owns the Sacramento Bee and Miami

Herald, and the former Tribune Co., owner of the Chicago Tribune, have tumbled into bankruptcy. Leveraged

buyouts and consolidations have left companies mired in debt. The nation's largest chain, Gannett Co., which owns

USA Today and 250 daily newspapers, including the Arizona Republic in Phoenix and the Desert Sun in Palm

Springs, merged with another large company in November. It now reaches 1 in 4 daily newspaper subscribers, but

its stock has dropped 85% this year.

Newsrooms have been hollowed, print pages slashed. The Pittsburgh Post-Gazette, for example, prints just three

days a week. Billionaire Warren Buffett, who had owned the Buffalo News since 1977 and was hailed as a savior of

local journalism, in January unloaded his chain, which includes the Omaha World-Herald, to Lee Enterprises, which

owns the St. Louis Post-Dispatch. Buffett previously conceded that newspapers were "toast."

Since the Great Recession, nearly half of U.S. newspaper journalism jobs have disappeared, leaving fewer than

38,000 reporters, photographers and editors.

"It's bad and it's going to get worse," news industry analyst Ken Doctor said, predicting the COVID-19 crisis will

further strain local news: "It's going to be the 2009 recession on steroids."

A time of need

In response to the pandemic, local governments and institutions — health departments, hospitals, schools and

businesses — are making vital decisions that affect lives and livelihoods, highlighting how useful local newspapers

can be.

The print industry's demise has larger implications, Doctor and others say. Without reporters keeping tabs on city

halls, state agencies and community organizations, there would be little accountability. Researchers have found

that newspapers remain the nation's most comprehensive, fact-based source of information.

The industry's collapse has been driven by the exodus of longtime advertisers, who have shifted their money to

internet giants Facebook and Google, leading to a precipitous revenue decline. Ad revenue to U.S. newspapers

peaked in 2005 at $49.4 billion; it's now less than a third of that amount, according to Pew Research Center.

Responding to the crisis, Facebook in late March announced $25 million in emergency funding for local news

through its Facebook Journalism Project. "The news industry is working under extraordinary conditions to keep

people informed during the COVID-19 pandemic. At a time when journalism is needed more than ever, ad revenues

are declining," Facebook said, adding that it would also spend $75 million to buy newspaper ads.

On Wednesday, Google Inc. announced its own $100-million journalism fund "to deliver urgent aid to thousands of

small, medium and local news publishers globally."

The need is great. Small dailies and alternative weeklies are among the most threatened. They rely on local

businesses for advertising, rather than big-dollar national advertisers.

In Southern California, the alternative OC Weekly shut down in December and the LA Weekly has absorbed deep

cuts and management turmoil. The Orange County Register's parent, Southern California News Group, furloughed

newsroom employees. And the Feather River Bulletin in Quincy, Calif., stopped printing this month — after 153

years.

The Los Angeles Times, which was thrown a lifeline in 2018 when biomedical billionaire Dr. Patrick Soon-Shiong

purchased the paper along with the San Diego Union-Tribune, also is feeling financial pain. The paper has spent 18

months rebuilding its newsroom and expanding its online offering only to be walloped by the virus.

"Advertising revenue has nearly been eliminated," California Times President Chris Argentieri wrote in a memo to

the newspaper's staff this week, outlining initial cost-cutting measures, including furloughs and trimming salaries

of high-level managers during the crisis, including the eight top editors.

On Thursday, the company folded three of its community newspapers — the Burbank Leader, the Glendale News-

Press and the La Canada Valley Sun — because they were losing money. The Glendale paper was a pioneer,

publishing since 1905. The Valley Sun popped up in 1946 as the postwar building and population boom began to

reshape California.

Pandemic paradox

The widespread financial woes come even as traffic to newspaper websites has doubled, Doctor said, and

subscriptions to digital sites have dramatically increased as readers rally to support trusted news outlets.

"This [coronavirus] story has been transformational: It has shown the absolute uniqueness and value of local

news," Doctor said.

It's a grim paradox, said Kevin Cody, who owns the 45,000-circulation Easy Reader News in Hermosa Beach.

"The irony is that interest in the product is skyrocketing," Cody said. He laid off his staff, and they're now collecting

unemployment checks, but they continue to put the paper out. "There is an urgency to the situation, but the

financial basis for the newspaper has just evaporated."

Last week, 19 Democrats in the U.S. Senate urged their colleagues to provide coronavirus stimulus funding to

news organizations.

"Local news plays an indispensable role in American civic life as a trusted source for critical information," the

senators wrote. Since the pandemic was declared, they said, local news outlets have been "providing communities

answers to critical questions, including information on where to get locally tested, hospital capacity, road closures,

essential business hours of operation, and shelter-in-place orders."

Sen. Sherrod Brown (D-Ohio), one of the signers, said in an interview that local journalists serve a vital role by

uniting communities and serving as government watchdogs.

"People want good coverage out of local and state government, and that's something that only local media can do,"

Brown said. "While the New York Times is a great paper, and you're a great paper … you can't serve Akron, Ohio,

very well," Brown said.

Crisis in Cleveland

A drama has unfolded in the newsroom where Brown's wife, columnist Connie Schultz, used to work. The billionaire

Newhouse family, through its Advance Local division, has maintained two separate newsrooms in Cleveland since

2013. One is a union shop that has long produced the Plain Dealer. The company established a bigger, nonunion

staff for its website, Cleveland.com. The separate staffs contribute to both platforms.

Two weeks ago, the Plain Dealer axed 18 union journalists and four editors. Last week, an additional 10 journalists

agreed to go. Now, there are just six Plain Dealer journalists, including four reporters who are union members.

That's a stark contrast from 20 years ago, when Cleveland's newsroom teemed with more than 300 journalists.

Award-winning investigative reporter Rachel Dissell, who started as an intern at the paper 18 years ago, was

among those who volunteered for a layoff.

"This wasn't the way I wanted things to end," Dissell, 40, said by phone late last week, trying to hold back tears.

Dissell said she and her colleagues were stunned by the timing of the cuts.

"Even as everything was happening, we were still working — calling people and telling their stories about how the

coronavirus was affecting their lives," Dissell said. "We're journalists; we didn't know what else to do."

Advance Local declined to comment. But editor Tim Warsinskey, one of the six remaining Plain Dealer newsroom

employees, said in an email that the 32 departures were "emblematic of a larger challenge our industry is facing."

He noted that, between the two staffs, Cleveland still has about 70 journalists, on par with other Midwestern cities.

California voices

In Northern California, Bradley Zeve, the founder and chief executive of the Monterey County Weekly, recently laid

off seven members of his close-knit staff, including the managing editor.

"Worst day in my career," Zeve said. "We've had some difficult times, but nothing has come close to this."

His remaining staff has kept the paper going, and they branched out by sending daily email newsletters — an effort

that has quickly grown to 46,000 subscribers.

"The silver lining is that we've done some amazing journalism in the last few weeks," Zeve said. "But so many

businesses that we relied on just closed down, and who knows how many of them will eventually come back. The

future is unknown."

That is what's distressing VonKaenel, owner of the Sacramento News &Review. In a March 19 letter to readers, he

warned: "It could be the end."

Last year, VonKaenel and his wife had borrowed against their home to keep their operation afloat. Now, he's

waiting to learn whether his application for the federal Paycheck Protection Program will be approved. Concerned

readers also have sent more than $40,000 in donations.

"The support has been incredible. We are so connected in all of our communities," said VonKaenel, whose weeklies

top 100,000 in circulation.

Even with the presses idle, VonKaenel has been trying to come up with a new business plan, such as teaming up

with a nonprofit or a public radio station.

He worries about the loss of an alternative voice in communities. "It would just be horrible," he said.

His Chico paper produced more than 300 stories that chronicled the deadly 2018 Camp fire and its aftermath.

This month, a couple of weeks after being laid off because of the COVID-19 pandemic, the staff learned their

coverage had won several prestigious California Journalism Awards.

His Sacramento paper gained surveillance footage and exposed that a deadly police shooting of a black man in

2016 wasn't a "justifiable homicide" as the police chief publicly said. That chief later retired, and the press

coverage led to increased scrutiny of police conduct and other reforms.

"I don't think people fully understand the impact of having accurate information and the watchdog function, and

the changes that can bring," VonKaenel said.

Caption: PHOTO: ROWS OF RACKS were a more common sight in 2006, when the decline in newspapers'

advertising revenue was just beginning. McClatchy, publisher of the Sacramento Bee, filed for bankruptcy in

February.

PHOTOGRAPHER:Justin Sullivan Getty Images

PHOTO:JEFF VONKAENEL has suspended printing of his Sacramento News &Review because ads have stopped in

the pandemic. He told readers: "It could be the end."

PHOTOGRAPHER:Terry Hagz Sacramento News &Review

P: GRAPHIC: U.S. daily newspaper circulation

CREDIT: Los Angeles Times

P: GRAPHIC: Falling newspaper advertising revenue

CREDIT:Thomas Suh Lauder Los Angeles Times DETAILS

Subject: Journalism; Journalists; Coronaviruses; Newspaper industry; COVID-19

Location: California United States–US Sacramento California Southern California Ohio

Company / organization: Name: Pew Research Center; NAICS: 541720

Identifier / keyword: NEWSPAPERS FINANCES BUSINESS CLOSINGS ADVERTISING INTERNET

(COMPUTER NETWORK) COVID 19 (VIRUS) EPIDEMICS PUBLIC HEALTH

Publication title: Los Angeles Times; Los Angeles, Calif.

Pages: A.1

Publication year: 2020

Publication date: Apr 18, 2020

Section: Main News; Part A; Entertainment Desk

Publisher: Los Angeles Times Communications LLC

Place of publication: Los Angeles, Calif.

Country of publication: United States, Los Angeles, Calif.

Publication subject: General Interest Periodicals–United States

ISSN: 04583035

Source type: Newspapers

Language of publication: English

Database copyright  2020 ProQuest LLC. All rights reserved. Terms and Conditions Contact ProQuest

Document type: News

ProQuest document ID: 2391138931

Document URL: http://ezproxy.canyons.edu:2048/login?url=https://search.proquest.com/docview/2

391138931?accountid=38295

Copyright: Copyright Los Angeles Times Apr 18, 2020

Last updated: 2020-04-18

Database: ProQuest Central

Our website has a team of professional writers who can help you write any of your homework. They will write your papers from scratch. We also have a team of editors just to make sure all papers are of HIGH QUALITY & PLAGIARISM FREE. To make an Order you only need to click Ask A Question and we will direct you to our Order Page at WriteDemy. Then fill Our Order Form with all your assignment instructions. Select your deadline and pay for your paper. You will get it few hours before your set deadline.