Media Watch

Nantucket Independent names new Editor

Margaret Carroll-Bergman takes over job from newspaper's founder
Was Publisher of Provincetown Arts

By Peter A. Sutters Jr., Nantucket Independent Writer

The Nantucket Independent, one of two weekly newspapers on this storied island, today named Margaret Carroll-Bergman the newspaper's editor.

"MS. Carroll-Bergman brings years of experience as both a print and television journalist" said an item on their website.

She was publisher at the award-winning Provincetown Arts from 1999 to 2005 where she was married to the former Town Manager Keith Bergman.

Most recently she has been with the other island weekly The Inquirer and Mirror which is owned by Ottaway Newspapers.  The Inky's long-time Editor and Publisher, Marianne R. Stanton, said " I am happy for this new opportunity for Margaret" who had been on the island about a year she said.

"We are delighted that Margaret is bringing her journalism experience and her knowledge to The Independent," said Publisher Dan Drake who took over that job a month ago himself when the newspaper was sold to GateHouse Media..

"I look forward to working with Publisher Dan Drake and The Independent's staff of veteran writers to bring the community the latest news," said Carroll-Bergman, who will join the paper before the end of May.

It is both unusal and a credit to MS Carrol-Bergman that her present publisher wants her to remain on staff that long after giving notice.

Margaret Carroll-Bergman is succeeding Don Costanzo, the founder of The Nantucket Independent which is a part of GateHouse Media.

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The first print daily newspaper switches to web exclusive

90-year-old daily Capital Times gives up on newsprint

The staff members leaving Capital Times as it ends its print version last Saturday. Grouped around Kim Sunderlage are (from left) Henry Koshollek, Mark Meadows, Raymond Johnson, Mary Yeater Rathbun, Linda Brazill, David Callender, Ron McCrea, Steve Ray, Doug Moe, Rob Zaleski (in front of Moe), Kevin Lynch, David Sandell, Phil Haslanger, Mary Bergin, Jacob Stockinger, and Rich Rygh. Not able to be present for the photo were Roger Daleiden, Bill Dunn, Brent Engh, Joe Hart, Molly McLean, Sarah Mueller and Shauna Rhone.

Or is it just the mating sound of dinosaurs?

By Walter Brooks, editor, capecodtoday.com

A decade ago when I was writing an online column for the newspaper trade publication Editor & Publisher I wrote one called "The Mating Sounds of Dinosaurs" for which I was criticized by my peers at the time.  That was a year or two after we launched Cape Cod TODAY.

Once upon a time the afternoon newspaper was the Internet of its day. It provided afternoon baseball scores and stock market reports in a quick turnaround. But that day began its descent into oblivion as soon at browsers were available which the non-tech readers were able to use.

Speaking truth to power

I don't feel at all good about saying "I told you so" because newspapers have always been the place where American journalists spoke truth to power. But that is continuing on the web in a much more powerful manner with millions of citizens blogging and available to the masses as never before in history.

When I wrote that column in 1998 only 1 in 10 Americans got their news online.  Last year that was 1 in 3 and growing fast.  Still, spend a moment o read about the first daily newspaper to follow us down this internet-only path;

Link by Link
Reluctantly, a Daily Stops Its Presses, Living Online

With print revenue down and online revenue growing, newspaper executives are anticipating the day when big city dailies and national papers will abandon their print versions.

That day has arrived in Madison, Wis.

On Saturday, The Capital Times, the city's fabled 90-year-old daily newspaper founded in response to the jingoist fervor of World War I, stopped printing to devote itself to publishing its daily report on the Web...

An avowedly progressive paper that carried the banner of its founder, William T. Evjue, The Capital Times is wrapped up with the history of two larger-than-life Wisconsin senators, the elder Robert La Follette (whom it favored) and Joseph R. McCarthy (whom it opposed). But in recent years, the paper's circulation dropped to about 18,000 from a high in the 1960s of more than 40,000.

"We felt our audience was shrinking so that we were not relevant," Clayton Frink, the publisher of The Capital Times, said in an interview two days before the final daily press run. "We are going a little farther, a little faster, but the general trend is happening everywhere"... New York Times.

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CC Times new owner to buy Newsday, maybe NY Times too

Rupert Murdoch near purchase of Newsday, challeges FCC
Poor Cliff Schectman can't escape "The Rupert"

By Walter Brook

Former Cape Cod Times editor Cliff Schectman came to our local daily from Newsday on Long Island with a stop-over at Pottsville PA.  After spending a decade undoing the good work of his predecessors, Cliff hied back to Long Island and escaped the change of ownership which gave the Ottaway Newspaper chain to Rupert Murdock of the the New York Post, London Sun, and many other tawdry tabloids.

Not far enough, Cliffy

Now it seems that Mr. Murdoch will add Long Island Newsday, the tenth largest daily in America and and largest one in any suburban market, to his giant News Corp. as is also tries to buy the venerable New York Times.

Not to be limited by such modest goal, Murdoch is also challenging the already weakened Federal Communications Commission rules on how many news media one company own in a single marketplace.  You know, like the monopolies of the 19th century.

You can read it all in gory detail in the excepts below from other media.

Murdoch Taking on F.C.C. Media Rule

As he nears completion of a deal to acquire Newsday from the Tribune Company, Rupert Murdoch appears likely to pose the first significant challenge to the media ownership rule that the Federal Communications Commission recently adopted.

Even without Newsday, Mr. Murdoch was in the process of seeking waivers to continue to control two newspapers (The Wall Street Journal and The New York Post) and two television stations (WNYW and WWOR) in the New York area.

With those waiver requests pending at the F.C.C., the Newsday deal means that Mr. Murdoch must now apply for a waiver to own the two television stations and three newspapers in the same market.

The new rule, approved by a deeply divided commission in December, permits a company to own just one paper and one television station in the same city in the top 20 markets so long as there are at least eight other independent sources of news and the station is not in the top four. (The stations controlled by News Corporation are the fourth- and sixth-largest in the New York market)...  NY Times.

 And Rupert tries for NY Times and buys Newsday for $580 million

New York Times is not for sale, chair insists TheStar.com - Business - New York Times is not for sale, chair insists  New York Times Co. chair Arthur Sulzberger Jr. says the company is not for sale.

Media reports on speculation suggesting otherwise are "ill-informed," he said at the annual shareholders meeting yesterday.

Media interest in the idea has been resurrected as Times shares plunged almost 20 per cent in the last year and the company's flagship and namesake newspaper has faced new competition in United States political news from Rupert Murdoch's focus shift at The Wall Street Journal.

New York City Mayor Michael Bloomberg, founder of the Bloomberg LLC financial news and data service, has been cited as a potential suitor.  Newsweek reported this week that his close associates have urged him to consider a bid, but Bloomberg shot down that idea on Monday... Toronto Star.

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Free commuter daily BostonNOW closes

Free commuter daily BostonNOW shuts down after less than year
52 full-time & 100 part-time staffers lose their jobs

Former TAB founder was C.E.O.

Russel Pergament, chief executive of the commuter paper, said he was notified late last week that its foreign investor, the Baugur Group of Iceland, was pulling the plug. He blamed the move on financial problems in Iceland, not on the troubled US newspaper industry.
   "Economic conditions in Iceland have become catastrophic," Pergament on right said, citing interest rates of 15.5 percent, an inflation rate of 8.7 percent, and a 20 percent decline of the nation's currency, the krona, against the dollar.
   Mr. Pergament had sold the TAB newspapers in the Boston Metro area over a decade ago to Fidelity Newspapers which later sold to Herald Media and last year again to GateHouse Media which owns most of the Cape's weeklies.  After selling the TABs he launched a free daily in New York City before moving back here last year to launch BostonNow.A weekly newspaper in Boston owned by Iceland-based Baugur Group announced Monday it was shutting down due to tough economic conditions faced by its primary investors in Iceland.

Newspaper executives said Monday's edition would be the last for BostonNow after a year of competition with a rival five-day-a-week free newspaper geared toward subway and rail commuters.

Last week, Baugur Group announced plans to sell its media and other holdings including BostonNOW to focus on retail investments. Baugur Group faces sharply rising interest rates and inflation in Iceland, as well as the devaluation of that nation's currency, the krona.

"The downturn in the economy and the reduction in newspaper advertising nationally at the local retail level hurt us, but the upheaval in the international market, particularly in Iceland, really did us in," BostonNOW publisher Michael Schroeder said.

BostonNOW had 52 full-time and 100 part-time staffers, who will all be losing their jobs... IHT.

Below is the complete statement by the publisher:

This healthy, growing 119,000-circulation daily is suddenly compelled to halt operations due to rapidly deteriorating economic conditions in Iceland where interest rates reached 15.5% Thursday, the krona, their currency, has declined over 20% against the dollar since January, and inflation is now at 8.7%.

"The death of any newspaper is a sad thing," stated CEO Russel Pergament, "but the death of a vibrant, flourishing newspaper because of economic turmoil thousands of miles away is beyond sad and is something we never anticipated and for which we were totally unprepared."

" Our overseas investors are honorable people who have endeavored to fulfill all obligations to this newspaper," he continued, "but the tumult in foreign credit markets has forced a change in our original understanding and their focus now appears to be primarily upon their core retail holdings. North American media is not even a distant second."

"This newspaper, not even a year old, is right on track for profits in Year Three, just as the business plan called for," says Publisher Mike Schroeder, "so this decision by our overseas investors, while perhaps understandable, is deeply troubling."

BostonNOW's editorial content, especially its strong local reporting, has been picked up dozens of times by Boston's paid dailies and TV outlets. The Economist magazine lauded BostonNOW in January as one of the finest free dailies in the United States.

Since launching April 17th last year, BostonNOW has grown from 59,000 daily circulation to a CAC audited daily circulation of 119,000. America's top retailers have found a good partner in BostonNOW and become loyal advertisers. Bloomingdale's, Macy's, TJX, H&M, Lord & Taylor, along with national telco and airline advertisers have been pleased by BostonNOW's ability to connect with a dynamic young readership.

Management's primary concern right now is to help its suddenly displaced employees, who from scratch have created one of the most respected new dailies in the USA, find good newspaper and media work as soon as possible. A series of interviews, both on premises and off, are being set up with local media companies.

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Ex-Cape newsman predicts the future... and he's right, or at least right of center

Former local editor building the print newspaper your grandkids read
ex-Falmouth Enterprise editor Michael Phelps now publisher of DC daily

By Walter Brooks, capecodtoday.com

I met Mike Phelps in the 1970s when I was putting together a network of Cape Cod weeklies to compete with the daily of that era. I was at The Cape Codder and Mike worked for the Falmouth Enterprise, and we created a media group which also included The Register and the Provincetown Advocate.

"Make the newspaper free so it could be targeted by demographic & operate on a level playing field with other free media" The four independent weeklies agreed to sell a joint ad buy, but after a year I saw that my staff at The Cape Codder had sold 90% of the space, and the other newspapers simply were unwilling to sell ad dollars for anything other than their own mastheads despite the threat for the daily competition.

So it goes, as Kurt Vonnegut would say, and today only The Enterprise is still privately owned by Cape Codders.  Free enterprise is a wonderfully but merciless master.

Mike was on the editorial side then as now, so he had no blame in that failure, but he learned from it and has gone on to an illustrious career.

His latest adventure has been to help the Examiner newspapers launch two huge circulation dailies free newspapers in Washington and Baltimore.  As always, Mike is ahead of the curve as his recent remarks to the National Press Club this month below demonstrate.

Too bad whatever privately owned newspapers around here will never listen to him.

Washington Examiner CEO: Free Content Key to Newspaper Success
Michael Phelps advocates editorial posture 'slightly right of center' and 'pro-business.'

By Jeff Poor
Business & Media Institute
4/9/2008 8:28:12 AM

The old-school legacy newspapers are having a hard time making it today as the Internet has brought fierce competition and advertising dollars are drying up.

But Michael Phelps, CEO of the Washington-Baltimore Examiner Newspaper Group, has a different approach. Phelps's newspapers, The Washington Examiner and The Baltimore Examiner and their sister newspaper, The San Francisco Examiner, are attempting to do all the right things the legacy newspapers are doing wrong. Their goal is to make a profit in a difficult print media climate struggling with job cuts.

Phelps spoke at the National Press Club in Washington, D.C., on April 8 - part of the club's "Newsmaker Program."

Free content with an emphasis on local news is the key to a paper's success, Phelps said. He said a newspaper in a portable package - a tabloid format - gives his advertisers maximum exposure. But the Examiners also take a different approach on the editorial pages than a lot of older metropolitan newspapers.

"Our editorial posture is what we like to think of as common-sensical centrist, slightly right of center and that our newspapers are pro-business on the editorial pages," Phelps said. "The business model is simply adapted from what we in legacy newspapers were doing that didn't work. Once again, make the newspaper free so it could be targeted by demographic and operate on a level playing field with other free media."

Competing in a 24-hour news cycle provides challenges to Phelps's papers, but he said it isn't completely a new concept.

"We try as hard as we can," Phelps said. "The whole notion of all news, all the time is not a new one. It's been tried by radio stations in Chicago, New York, L.A. and also over here [Washington]. Sometimes it works, sometimes it doesn't."

The editorial staff integrates its print content with its Web content to ensure they don't get beat on stories they're working on, according to Phelps.

"Sometimes you have to decide if you want to hold this story and really rub the nose of the competition tomorrow morning, or if that is too big of a risk, should we post it on our Web site?" Phelps said. "We have very smart editors."

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GateHouse Media acquires The Nantucket Independent

Island weekly said it would never sell to a chain
Publisher to handle changeover for two months

By Walter Brooks

The five-year-old Nantucket Independent weekly newspaper, which had risen to a prominent position in  that storied and wealthy island, was sold yesterday afternoon to the giant newspaper group, GateHouse Media, which already owns most of the weeklies on Cape Cod including The Cape Codder, The Register, Harwich Oracle, Sandwich Broadsider, Falmouth Bulletin, Bourne Courier and the Provincetown Banner which GateHouse bought last month.

Nantucket and Martha's Vineyard may be the last Massachusetts towns besides Boston with two, competing  newspapers.The Independent's publisher Don Costanzo had created an attractive, modern alternative to the 187 year-old Nantucket Inquirer & Mirror.  Media insiders even suggest the new weekly had passed the older island newspaper in ad revenues after it went to free, saturation circulation last summer of 14,000 a weekly vs. the 9,000 paid circulation of the Inky.

Both weeklies now owned by a newspaper chain

When reached for a comment this afternoon, Inquirer & Mirror publisher Marianne R. Stanton said "I am shocked since the Independent's publisher had repeatedly told islanders he would never sell to a chain and also claimed that the paper would always remain 'island owned'".  Mr. Costanzo denied ever making at least part of that promise and pointed out that MS. Stanton's family had sold the Inquirer & Mirror to a chain called Ottaway Newspapers a generation ago. Ottaway newspapers also owns the Cape Cod Times, the Barnstable Patriot in Hyannis and the Standard-Times in New Bedford.

The man who orchestrated the purchase over the past two weeks, Kirk Davis, President and CEO, GateHouse Media New England, said "The preservation of The Independent and its vitality will be rooted in local autonomy, an island-centric focus and additional resources."  The Ottaway Newspaper group had also entered the bidding at one point a week ago but dropped out reportedly due to its indecions concerning its own sale to an even larger newspaper group rumored to be the Garnett newspapers who have a reputation as among the most predatory of all newspaper organizations.

The Inky disses the Indie sale
Independent acquired by off-island media conglomerate

GateHouse Media, which owns 101 daily and 282 weekly newspapers nationwide, has acquired the Nantucket Independent... The Independent was founded in 2003 by Don Costanzo, former editor of the now-defunct Nantucket Beacon; Drake, a recent retiree; and seasonal-resident investors Chuck Geschke, Wade Greene and Curt Livingston... It will be run under GateHouse's New England umbrella, whose president and publisher is Kirk Davis, former CEO of Enterprise NewsMedia in Quincy. GateHouse, a publicly-held company based in Fairport, N.Y., was trading on the New York Stock Exchange Friday at $5.90 a share, down significantly from the 52-week high of $22.18 a share last April 17, but up from the 52-week low of $4.80 March 13.  Inquier & Mirror.  There will be blood

But apparently what the Independent's owners had in abundance in editorial and ad sence, they lacked completely on the business side since the newspaper was sold at what has been described as a "fire sale" price.

This sale places enormous pressure on the remaining Ottaway-owned Inquirer & Mirror since GateHouse already was printing the Independent and has almost unlimited capital to battle the other island newspaper.

Nantucket islanders can look forward to a newspaper battle-royal right out of those old pot-boilers about the newspaper wars of the distant past. 

Still a lot of life left in the old girl

For a supposedly dying industry, newspapers seem to be pretty frisky these days.  This purchase by GateHouse media is their second here in a month, and the group has bought several dozen others since the start of the year. They also launched two new weeklies in the past year on Cape Cod, the Falmouth Bulletin and the Sandwich Broadsider.

The Blogfather column on the front page today makes fun of over a dozen newspapers, but one, the new 260,000 free circulation Washington Examiner is one of two which that company has launched in the past year. Both the DC edition and the Baltimore Examiner are headed by Group Publisher Michael Phelps who begain his career here on Cape Cod at the Falmouth Enterprise in the 1970's.

Below is the announcement from this afternoon's online edition of the Independent:

GateHouse acquires The Nantucket Independent

The Nantucket Independent, the largest circulation newspaper on the island, is pleased to announce it has been acquired by GateHouse Media New England.

The Independent was founded in 2003 by Editor and Publisher Don Costanzo, and since its inception has compiled an impressive record of editorial accomplishments and business growth. Year-round circulation is approximately 10,000 copies; that increases to 14,000 during the peak summer months.

Don Costanzo will remain with the paper for a transition period, while current Associate Publisher Dan Drake will assume the role of Publisher.

"This acquisition will provide The Independent with the resources it needs to take it to the next level," said Costanzo. "Our readers can be assured that GateHouse will sustain and enhance a tradition that began not more than five years ago with little more than an idea and a passion."

"The Nantucket community has given The Independent a wonderful reception over the past five years," said Dan Drake. "With GateHouse's involvement, we are assured of the resources to become the island's most important print and online source of news and information. Also, we are now in the position to provide a broader range of capabilities and reach to our advertisers. We look to the future with great excitement."

The acquisition expands the reach of Gatehouse's family of newspapers beyond Cape Cod to the islands.

"The preservation of The Independent and its vitality will be rooted in local autonomy, an island-centric focus and additional resources," said Kirk Davis, President and CEOr, GateHouse Media New England. "We are nothing less than honored and privileged to be here."

The Independent has earned numerous awards for editorial excellence, including four-time finalist for "Newspaper of the Year" honors from the New England Press Association. It has also won NEPA's 2006 and 2007 Advertising General Excellence.  Terms of the transaction were not disclosed.

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Cape Cod Voice's staggering self-absorption

Omphalóskepsis reaches new levels at magazine
An entire issue devoted to writing about itself

Mind-boggling in its naiveté, brain-numbing in its execution, the belles-lettres, bi-weekly Cape Cod Voice managed to devote its entire March 22's editorial content to articles about itself.

This is NOT an April Fool's joke. The dictionary word for it is omphaloskepsis or the obsessive contemplation of one's navel.

Members of the Voice editorial staff protest their journalism credentials loudly, and yet a cardinal rule of that profession is to never be part of the story.  This time out they manage to be the story, the whole story and nothing but the story.

 The stories, a half dozen separate articles each up to three pages in length, extol the virtues of the authors, and fairly swoon over the beauty and wisdom they bring to us promising more (rather than less) by cutting the magazine's frequency in half. 

Literary legerdemain

At 5-cents a page, this 40-page literary jewel, which the Oracle founder Ed Smith descibes as "precious", will charge the same to its subscribers starting in April and give them half as much.

No matter what you think about Cape Cod Voice journalistic worth, that business plan is pure genius, and so what if Cape Cod already has a dozen other magazine clawing each other for the few scraps the local daily and the weekly mega chain leave for them.

Good luck, Seth. You are going to need it. 

• See the CCVoice contents here.

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More troubles for newspapers; Devastating article in New Yorker; Local media gurus stumble

Devastating article in New Yorker
The death and life of the American newspaper.
by Eric Alterman
The American newspaper has been around for approximately three hundred years. Benjamin Harris’s spirited Publick Occurrences, Both Forreign and Domestick managed just one issue, in 1690, before the Massachusetts authorities closed it down. Harris had suggested a politically incorrect hard line on Indian removal and shocked local sensibilities by reporting that the King of France had been taking liberties with the Prince’s wife.
   It really was not until 1721, when the printer James Franklin launched the New England Courant, that any of Britain’s North American colonies saw what we might recognize today as a real newspaper. Franklin, Benjamin’s older brother, refused to adhere to customary licensing arrangements and constantly attacked the ruling powers of New England, thereby achieving both editorial independence and commercial success. He filled his paper with crusades (on everything from pirates to the power of Cotton and Increase Mather), literary essays by Addison and Steele, character sketches, and assorted philosophical ruminations...  New Yorker.

More troubles for newspapers
Worse revenue drop ever
 

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Times Pulling Punches

No news is bad news
Daily promises Alliance expose, then renegs on delivery

Each Friday the Cape Cod Times promos its Sunday edition on the back page of its B section. Last Friday they promo-ed a feature that was suppose to run last Sunday; an expose on ...

"The Alliance to Protect Nantucket Sound: 
Who are they, where do they get their funds..."

Needless to say,  many of us got very excited that the Cape Cod Times was finally going to write the story exposing the Alliance to Save the Sound (ASS) and ... what kind of manna from heaven is this ... they were going to publish it on the eve of the MMS hearings on Cape Wind!

But wouldn't you know it, rushing out to our driveways like children on Christmas morning, to grab the paper, we were utterly disappointed to find .... nothing.  

What happened to the story?  Inquring minds want to know. We can only speculate, and we've gotten pretty good at speculating at all things related to the Alliance and the Cape Cod Times.

My bet is that the Publisher of the Paper (on right), who happens to live at ground zero of the opposition (Wianno Avenue, Osterville) discovered, to his horror, on Friday,  that his supposedly independent editors were going to run a timely and relevent piece affecting the Cape Wind opponents. Apparently, it was too well timed for the swells who live in Osterville and for those whom the Alliance fronts. So Peter Meyer had it pulled.

Maybe we'll get to read the story this Sunday, but only after a very important week for Cape Wind.  Maybe the story will never see the light of day.

Does the Cape Cod Times still have an Ombudsman who can look into this for us? 

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New Blood, Old Problem on Main Street, Hyannis

From the CC Times Ombudsman: "The paper of Friday, Feb. 15, is an interesting case in point. The front page included an interesting array of stories: one about state senators considering a bill that would open the coast to energy projects; another about a plan to use a Navy missile to destroy a disabled U.S. spy satellite; a Cape bus service cutting corners; and a bomb threat at Mashpee High School. The latter story included a teaser for a story inside the paper about one of the big national stories that day: the shootings at Northern Illinois University...

Ombud continued: "There was arguably something for everyone on the Feb. 15 front page."

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