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U-T to Stay in Mission Valley for Now; Vows Return to Profitability
Regarding hits vs users: The lacks of industry-wide standards for measuring unique visitors (or hits or any other web metric) is a big reason why advertisers are shy about paying big bucks for web site ads. No one know exactly how many readers are out there, or exactly what they're looking at. In some cases newspapers web sites fudge the numbers, and in other cases they cherry-pick the best of many possible numbers. It depends on how your web site is set up and even which web server software is used. We can slam the U-T for all sorts of disingenuous readership math, trying the measure web site readership while running web servers on Windows 95 will inevitably lead to fuzzy numbers. Perhaps they've upgraded their servers recently, but in any case web readership are very pliable. Of course, now that they have gutted most of their experienced web hands -- including Gregory Gross, who brought 30 years of breaking hard news and wire service experience to the site -- the readership may fall to the point where determining exact numbers will be the least of U-T's problems.— August 18, 2009 7:30 a.m.
U-T to Stay in Mission Valley for Now; Vows Return to Profitability
Through all of this, there has been nothing about any strategic news (or marketing) partnerships. No tie-ins with any local TV or radio stations, no resource sharing -- except sharing local stories with The Associated Press, of course. Not even a casual news sharing partnership with any Baja California papers. In other words, the U-T is still trying to go it alone. I just find that interesting, given the hemorrhaging of money and talent at the U-T. I wonder if local broadcasters just think it not worthwhile to pursue. Have you heard of anything brewing, Don?— August 17, 2009 9 a.m.
Union-Tribune Axe Falls Again. Kittle Reportedly Out
The story was that on his deathbed, James made Helen promise to never fold the Trib. Probably apocryphal (perhaps you know?), but there was no doubt that the Trib was James's baby. The editors routinely disobeyed hiring freezes and lesser diktats from La Jolla, apparently at times with impunity. Poor Jerry Warren at The Union was too buttoned-up to understand what they were doing, and why it worked. Sure, afternoon papers were doomed. The Trib lasted longer that I expected, especially in a county with so many long-distance commuters. In the mid-1980s the Trib's newsstand circulation in Vista was far fewer than a dozen papers a day. (It averaged seven a day, I think, in 1987. Not seven bundles; seven papers.)— August 15, 2009 9:08 p.m.
Union-Tribune Axe Falls Again. Kittle Reportedly Out
To #68: The Trib did prep sports right -- they hired five reporters and assigned an editor (Bud Maloney) who knew SD high school sports inside and out. They establishes a telephone hotline with local results that were updated every 15 minutes or so on Friday nights. They were allocated space liberally in the sports section, and of course they had the luxury of very late deadlines. Although the Trib's circulation in North County was minuscule, they nevertheless staffed games there because so many of the schools played city schools, thanks to San Diego's gerrymandered city limits. Alas, the Union tried to tie its coverage to its zones. That doesn't work in a rapidly expanding county, because too many of the newer high schools played games in far-flung corners of the county, not fitting neatly into Helen Copley's carefully crafted zones. While older schools have long-established games and local rivalries such as Hoover-Lincoln, newer schools often have ad hoc schedules that include cross-county travel, such as Rancho Bernardo vs. Otay Ranch (to name two schools at random). The Union had other problems, including inconvenient zone deadlines and a few columnists and senior reporters who couldn't be bothered with prep sports -- a well known sub-genre that still sells a lot of newspapers. Preps flourished at the Trib and withered at The Union.— August 15, 2009 6:14 a.m.
Union-Tribune Axe Falls Again. Kittle Reportedly Out
Don, I don't want to be coy with the names of those who I thought were either incompetent or well past their prime, but there are too many good names at the U-T to be remembered: Nick Canepa, whose column about his son's T-ball debut was one of the best sports columns I've ever read, anywhere; Rob Hanley, who tried his darndest to run an objective business section despite the toadyism of those above him; the reporters who toiled on the Tailhook scandal despite the obstructionism of some (but certainly not all) of their own bosses; Lynne Walker, the longtime Mexico City bureau chief whose bosses never understood Mexico; or the many web site editors and reporters who struggled with mid-1990s technology to put out a 21st century product during the fires. The U-T was filled with many good, hard-working and talented people who persevered despite a publisher who was never really more than an owner-operator, and who never learned to spot journalistic talent either inside or outside her organization. Blaming the senior editors misses the point; the tune comes not from the monkeys, but from the organ grinder.— August 14, 2009 5:03 p.m.
Union-Tribune Axe Falls Again. Kittle Reportedly Out
At the 1992 Democratic Convention (where Clinton was first nominated) a longtime SD Union political editor -- long since relegated to a ceremonial glass cubicle in the newsroom -- insisted on ousting the Copley News Service correspondent from Copley's only seat in Madison Square Garden. The occasion was Clinton's acceptance speech. The editor promptly fell asleep and did not wake up until the balloons fell. Meanwhile the poor CNS correspondent fumed in the press room downstairs and wrote the story from the TV. Such was political coverage under Helen Copley. Enough incidents like that will catch up to any news organization, eventually.— August 14, 2009 3:28 p.m.
Union-Tribune Axe Falls Again. Kittle Reportedly Out
I was never able to fathom how parts of the Copley empire could excel even when compared to the best papers in the country (Trib sports, for example) and at the same time sink below mediocrity in so many ways (such as city hall coverage and the parking ticket scandal). How could Copley News Service implode after earning a Pulitzer is so spectacular a fashion? Depressing.— August 14, 2009 2:04 p.m.
Copley Building Sold for $4.75 Million Advertised for $6.5 Million
Don, Methinks the Camino de la Reina property lost value because of the newspaper, which has a minimal book value. It'll take big bucks to turn that property into anything but a printing plant. (Aside from the presses and such, newspapers typically leave behind contaminants such as lead dust, solvents, diesel fuel, et cetera.) If the Copley were selling because of pending tax bill or other debts, they might have just written the newspaper down to zero and figured it was just a real state transaction. The fact that their consulting partner is Black Publications, another distressed company, indicates that they just want anybody to take the papers to greener pastures. At least these are my guesses.— June 8, 2009 5:10 p.m.