Until this week, few people outside southwestern Minnesota had ever heard of the Free Press in Mankato, a prize-winning daily with a circulation of about 22,000. Then, on Monday, the newspaper itself made news. Editor Deb Flemming told her staff she would eliminate herself from the roster rather than cut two reporting jobs in the newsroom to meet a new, more draconian budget imposed from above. “By eliminating my position, it allows more reporters on the street,” she said.
On April 9, she walks.
Flemming, 50, is just the latest newspaper editor to feel the heat to cut costs, as corporate owners squeeze hard to improve the bottom line. Flemming’s bosses decided her staff of 30 (which includes 13 full-time reporters) was too large, in excess of what some in the industry — those folks who have reduced journalism to formulas — say is necessary to do the job: 1 to 1.2 full-time employees for each 1,000 newspapers in circulation.
That kind of cookie-cutter approach, said Flemming, ignores the fact that the Free Press covers eight counties, three colleges and a rapidly growing community with a vibrant economy and arts scene.
“Every market is different,” Flemming told CJR Daily. “And whether you’re talking newspapers, or some other profession, industry standards are just that, standards. There’s higher [standards] and lower [standards].”
The Free Press once had 27,000 subscribers. That has fallen in recent years. Despite the decline, the newspaper earns high marks from readers for its enterprise stories and good writing. “With few exceptions, the paper is willing to embrace and explore difficult issues,” says John Gaterud, a journalism professor at Minnesota State University in Mankato. “Its government reporters have written some exceptional stories about local and state officials and issues, as well as kept tabs on Minnesota’s congressional delegation — a domain usually reserved for the Twin Cities dailies.” The paper recently won three first-place and five second-place awards from the Minnesota Newspaper Association.
But that apparently wasn’t enough for Community Newspaper Holdings, Inc. (CNHI), the Birmingham Ala., company that owns the Free Press and more than 200 daily, weekly and semi-weekly publications in 20 states.
“Deborah is in a monetary noose,” said retired Free Press editor Ken Berg.
Founded in 1997, CNHI is a privately-held company whose largest investor is the Alabama state pension system, which holds a billion-dollar-plus stake in the papers. Though largely under the radar until now, CNHI has become one of the nation’s largest — and most aggressive — players in what is a booming market for buying and selling small newspapers. In recent years, private equity firms have invested hundreds of millions of dollars in community newspaper groups because the papers’ large cash flows require less up-front money, and they generate steady income.
“CNHI has to focus on short-term results, from quarter to quarter,” says Sam Gett, who left his job as publisher of the Free Press a year ago to become publisher of the Pocono Record in Stroudsburg, Pa. And that, he adds, is not conducive to long-range planning.
Gett says he’s not surprised that Flemming resigned. “Even while I was there, she was becoming increasingly frustrated with the cost-cutting efforts,” he recalls.
According to Gett, CNHI’s use of industry “benchmarks” to set staffing is simply a deft way of saying the bottom line is driving decisions. “This is all about operating income,” he says.
Flemming, who has been in the newspaper business for half her life, became editor of the Free Press in 1995, when the paper was owned by Ottaway Newspapers, Inc., a subsidiary of Dow Jones & Co. Three years ago, Ottaway sold the paper and three other small dailies to CNHI for $182 million.
CNHI’s acquisition of the paper made many in the newsroom apprehensive, says Joe Tougas, a staffer who covered arts and entertainment and who left the paper recently after 17 years. The new owners weren’t journalists, said Tougas, they were “investors.”
“We all know the reality of making the stockholders happy, but we wish stockholders would get a clue somehow about the value of a good newspaper and what it takes to run one.”
Tougas says Flemming’s decision to leave was greeted in the newsroom with that sinking “What are we going to do now?” feeling.
That was certainly on everyone’s mind yesterday, Tougas said. Each Wednesday morning for the past several years, staffers have met for coffee before heading to work in what has become an informal writers’ workshop, says Tougas, who currently edits Static, one of two arts magazines published in Mankato, and who continues to participate in the weekly sessions even though he has left the newspaper.
“These are people willing to go above and beyond what’s expected of them to improve themselves and the product,” says Tougas. “That’s getting to be a tougher chore.”
Publisher Ken Lingen says such concerns are groundless. Lingen, who arrived at the Free Press seven months ago from another small CNHI paper, says “The cut in upper management [Flemming’s job] will not affect our day-to-day operation.”
Tougas is not so sure. “Deb was very well-liked in the community. She was a good PR agent for the mission of the news room,” explaining to people the value of aggressive reporting for the public good, he says. “A lot of people would get it when Deb explained it.”
Staff cuts have been postponed, and Flemming’s departure will also allow the paper to proceed with its plan to hire more part-timers, “people who live in the communities we cover, who have jobs and go to church there,” said Lingen. “We are very committed to local journalism.”
Ken Berg, the retired editor, says the mood of the newsroom has changed, something he senses on his occasional visits. “The readership is still saying this is not a bad paper,” says Berg. “But when you say that to the employees, they just sort of walk away.”
One thing’s certain: The Mankato Free Press is the kind of newspaper that, if it does things right, can act as the town square for a thriving but diverse community with far-flung geographic boundaries. Conversely, to use a particularly cynical metaphor currently common in the newspaper industry, its owners can choose to “harvest the assets” — i.e., goose up the paper’s cash flow at the expense of its readers and its employees.
It shouldn’t take too long to determine which way things go in Mankato — or whether Community Newspaper Holdings Inc. deserves its first name at all.
–Susan Q. Stranahan
Postscript, March 23: Michael Reed, President and CEO of Community Newspaper Holdings, Inc., writes to object to the above posting:
Your readers do not know that we added a Sunday [edition] after we bought the paper. Your readers do not know that we expanded the editorial budget there by 25 percent after acquisition. Your readers do not know that we have added editorial staff since we bought the paper.
CJR Daily correspondent Susan Q. Stranahan responds:
When the Sunday edition of the Mankato Free Press was launched in May, 2003, CNHI did indeed increase the overall newsroom budget, allowing the addition of two reporters and an editor.
However, according to both past and present managers, a few months after the Sunday launch, new budget cuts imposed across-the-board resulted in job losses — although none of the initial cutbacks involved full-time staff in the newsroom.
Since that time, vacancies have not been filled as they occurred. As a consequence, the editorial staff of the paper is currently at the same level as it was before the newspaper became a seven-day-a-week operation.
Susan Q. Stranahan wrote for CJR.
