Posted by chicagomedia.org on January 09, 2009 at 20:01:36:
Stop the presses
After just 3 months, the Tribune issues a retraction on its much-ballyhooed redesign
January 9, 2009
BY LEWIS LAZARE Sun-Times Columnist
First there was Red Eye, the cutesy free rag aimed at, uh, a younger demographic. Now comes the black eye -- a very blunt and public admission by Chicago Tribune Editor Gerould Kern that the newspaper's massive redesign last September has come up short -- very short -- with more than a few readers.
In the latest move in a chaotic six months for the troubled publishing giant, Kern used a wrapper around the Trib's front page Thursday to try to explain what apparently had angered a lot of readers about the new look and what the paper was doing to rectify the problems. Kern also -- perhaps inadvertently-- appeared to concede that all of the newspaper's pre-redesign research wasn't worth much.
"Before the launch, we listened carefully to what you said you wanted in your Tribune, and the new format was created to meet those needs," wrote Kern. But as Kern's report made all too obvious, a lot of reader needs weren't being met.
Kern's letter was done up with big headlines and graphics that made his remarks seem more emphatic and potentially more embarrassing than they needed to be. Among other things, Kern said in his letter that readers were upset because the paper had become "too loud."
Yet there Kern was Thursday, still seeming to yell at his unhappy readers.
In a news item posted online Thursday, Mark Fitzgerald, the Chicago-based editor-at-large for trade publication Editor and Publisher, called the Trib's very visible announcement it was rethinking the redesign an "extraordinary" turn of events and characterized it as a "mea culpa."
Kern begs to differ. In an e-mail, Kern insisted Thursday's letter is simply part of an "ongoing conversation" with readers. One of those unfortunate "you say potato, I say potahto" situations, we suppose.
Fitzgerald also told us he isn't surprised the Trib was forced to concede it had erred. "I don't know anyone that liked the redesign," Fitzgerald said. Kern insists most Trib readers were happy with the initial phase of the redesign. "We lost relatively few subscribers," he claimed.
But as we fully digest news of the redesign of the Trib redesign that is beginning, we must not forget who is really responsible for all the egg that now has landed squarely on the faces of Trib management. Yes, that would be Sam Zell, the loud, proudly foul-mouthed owner who grossly overpaid for a giant media conglomerate called Tribune Co. and then promptly drove it into bankruptcy even as he was demanding change -- and wreaking havoc -- everywhere within the company.
So should we be overly surprised the Trib now is starting to backtrack from its attempt to look hipper, feel fresher and connect more readily with an audience that still is -- by and large -- suburban, older and hugely conservative? Of course not.
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For newspapers, time's the enemy
Phil Rosenthal | Chicago Tribune
January 9, 2009
The most significant thing newspapers once could afford and now cannot as the economy assaults an industry already battered by changing technology and consumer habits doesn't show up in their increasingly strained ledgers.
It's time.
Readers want information faster than any printing press could ever deliver it. Revenue streams at money-losers such as the Chicago Sun-Times and still-profitable titles such as the Chicago Tribune, alike, are shrinking so quickly that initiatives demand results in months rather than years because the cash will only last so long.
With speed comes a certain crude brutishness. Finesse and reflectiveness are now luxuries.
Breaking news gets pounded out soon and simply online, telegraph-wire style, more typing than writing. There are even fewer moments to reflect on business decisions, mainly because so much opportunity to change was wasted before years of steady decline lurched to near-nose dive.
Out comes the ax for layoffs and buyouts. Ailing titles that might have been able to heal themselves had they sought treatment sooner are in hospice care.
Sun-Times Media Group, which last year cut $50 million in costs, now is trying to find another $45 million to $55 million to slash.
That's evocative less of this city's great newspaper heritage than its reputation as hog butcher for the world.
On Thursday, a day after it told its unions it needs employees to take a 7 percent cut in compensation, word broke of its plan to kill a dozen of its Pioneer Press weekly newspapers next week, followed by layoffs to match.
Other publications more or less cover the same territories as the targeted titles, which is probably why Sun-Times Media wasn't getting the return it wanted. But it's never pleasant to watch a watchdog keel over.
Chicago Tribune parent Tribune Co. filed to reorganize under Chapter 11 bankruptcy protection last month because the debt it took on in going private a year earlier became unmanageable when bad business conditions turned worse.
Things here at the flagship paper have changed faster than the ability of many inside and out of Tribune Tower to process. Layoffs and buyouts shrunk a staff that might have benefited from earlier, more gradual reductions as circulation declined. An effort to save money by reducing the size of the paper in a hurry came with a fast-tracked redesign.
Thursday's edition had a message from Tribune Editor Gerould Kern out front highlighting tweaks to the original redesign in response to consumer feedback. One's interpretation of the splashy notice depends on a reading of the recurrent line, "You told us." Is it to be read as welcoming or with grudging resentment?
Less ambiguous would be something like the "You were right and we were wrong ... we listened, and TV Prevue will return," which the Sun-Times ran more than once back in 2007 after realizing its readers weren't ready to rely on Internet listings.
These days papers must move as fast they can, adjusting as best as they are able, to get somewhere they should have been much closer to by now.
The ones that think there's time to lose -- or stubbornly believe they can wait out change without responding to the market or market conditions -- have already lost.