Hearst vs Alden: The Snooze between the devil and the deep blue sea

 With Hearst, already owning Houston, San Antonio, Austin (I forgot that they bought the Stateless earlier this year, somehow) Laredo, Beaumont and Midland, along with a few yet-smaller properties, is its purchase of the Dallas Snooze good for journalism in Texas? Michael Hardy discussed that a little while back at Texas Monthly.

My thoughts?

It is the tough issue above, tougher for the Snooze's employees yet, and I'll get more below.

I can say that, at a minimum, it's better than vulture capitalist Alden owning the Snooze, Michael. On the other hand, especially seeing how the SA Express-News is treated as not much more than an appendage of the Chronic, and suspecting that's started happening at the Stateless, and knowing that it's surely happened to Beaumont, which is otherwise in the crapper, I can understand worries about how other papers outside Houston will lose, or have already lost, individual identities.

But, that's a lesser issue than the future of journalism. Even if the Chronic itself hasn't been gutted, the Stateless acquisition shows Hearst is no white knight overall:

Some journalists at Hearst’s Texas papers have a less rosy view of their employer. When Hearst bought the Statesman this spring, it declined to ratify the contract that the paper’s union had signed with Gannett just a few months earlier. Hearst and the union are in negotiations over a new contract; in the meantime, the company has laid off the paper’s copy editors, eliminated job protections, and cut some employee benefits. In May, the Austin News Guild filed an unfair labor practices charge against Hearst with the National Labor Relations Board.

I mean, yes, with more and more of a truly digital first world? Those copy editing positions are dead in the water. Do you want to pick up a reporter's notebook or microcasette player?

But? Some are still needed, and laying them ALL off sure as hell looks like union-busting. It does so to the unionized in Dallas, and at Hearst papers elsewhere:

In July, the union issued a statement on X expressing alarm at the paper’s sale: “The experiences of our colleagues at other Hearst papers have left us with concerns that we look forward to addressing with Hearst leadership.” This was followed by an open letter to Hearst from unionized journalists in California, Connecticut, New York, and Texas urging the company to refrain from “intimidation tactics and inappropriate discipline meant to scare journalists into silence or complacency.”

Ugh.

An additional problem is that Hearst is privately owned, so it can say it needs to bust unions for the bottom line, but, unless somebody leaks some financials, who can tell, and there's no shareholder pressure anyway.

As an additional note, online personal friend Chris Tomlinson, author of "Tomlinson Hill" and other books, is at the Chronic — and by extension, at the Expressed-News. And maybe at the Stateless now. His social media doesn't comment on the acquisition. 

==

As for where we stand?

Per D Mag's Brian Reinhart, Sept. 23 has been called for a shareholder vote. Bob Decherd may need to do some uphill sledding to round up two-thirds of both classes of shareholders, but Alden has much more of such sledding to do.  Reinhart explains details here, including how the vultures at Alden sneakly bought just under 10 percent of Class A shares before making their bid.

At Nieman Lab, Josh Benton, who used to work in this part of the world, including at the Snooze weighs in on other things, including why Decherd does NOT have a "fiduciary duty" to accept Alden's higher offer. He can, like a local government looking at the big picture on bids for products or services, go with a different offer if he believes it's in the best interests of the company, since the Snooze / Belo are NOT a Delaware company. 

He also notes that the Snooze, no longer A.H. Belo, but now DallasNews Corporation while it's been gutted enough, has been gutted less than Alden's franchise. Look at the Denver Post as the prime example.

==

More on my personal thoughts? For Decherd and other Dealey family remnants owning any part of the Snooze? Schadenfreude.

This is a paper that got luck dropped into its hands twice at the tail end of the previous century. 

The first was, three years after MediaSnooze Group, eventually acquired by Digitally Fucked-Up Media, both of which had their own bankruptcy problems later, spun off the Dallas Times Herald to a friend of MediaSnooze founder Deano Singleton. The Snooze bought that carcass three years later.

The other was when the Fort Worth StartleGram, under its then owners, ended circulation west of Abilene about the same time, and the Snooze filled in that void. In the middle 1990s, you could still get it in the "little Texas" part of New Mexico, at least at stores or racks; I don't know about home delivery.

Anyway, beyond that, by the time I was in the Metromess, it long had the attitude that its shit didn't stink. 

And, it made dumb, dumb biz decisions. Like the CueCat — which was basically ripped off by MediaSnooze! Or selling off its portion of Cars.com (or so I thought at the time). And, during these years, it kept selling off other papers, like in Providence, Rhode Island, or Riverside, California, in California's Inland Empire. 

Side note on the Cars.com link? I have never understood why Decherd didn't go further down the road toward a full JOA with the StartleGram, especially before McLatchKey entered bankruptcy during COVID. I explicitly wondered about this in 2017.

==

Now, how does this play out in the longer term?

Beyond Hearst? Craphouse (sic), the half of the post-merger company that is the tail wagging the dog of the new Gannett, owns El Paso, Amarillo, Lubbock, San Angelo, Abilene and Corpus Christi, and continues to implode. In other words, outside of Odessa, two chains own all dailies in West and West Central Texas, and Hearst making a bid for Odessa and a consolidation with Midland wouldn't surprise me. CNHI, a chain that's the crappiest one not owned by a hedge fund, owns many newspapers in Texas that were dailies before COVID. It's not quite imploding, but just falling apart more and more. 

The StartleGram is owned by hedge-fund controlled McClatchy, or McLatchKey, which also continues to implode.

Papers inside or near the Triangle, since, setting aside Cowtown, Hearst will now pretty much control all points? Temple remains privately owned by the Mayborn family and won't be sold. Waco and Bryan-College Station are both part of Lee Enterprises, whose flagship is the St. Louis Post-Dispatch. They might sell.

In the Valley? Hearst, if the price is right, might look to move further south from Laredo. It wouldn't need to buy everything, just one or another of Brownsville, Harlingen etc, and then use its growing clout. (The partial carcass of FreeDumb Communications owns both those plus McAllen, and also Laredo.)

That leaves East Texas, east of where CNHI trails off, as more competitive for now.

Also, a side note to journalism union hater Jim Schutze? STFU.

Publishers' Auxiliary fellates the Roswell (Daily) Record

Not the one in Georgia. 

The one in New Mexico, beloved by conspiracy theorists.

Lead story in Pub Aux's July issue? 

Touts local news production with "Roswell UFO controversy was a local story."

Well, today, there is no controversy.

There IS a lot of grifting by the Beck family ownership.

Re both of those issues? 

Per the "about" on its website, the Record is like Jill Stein trying to pretend to not be an antivaxxer while actually being one. In this case, it's trying to pretend not to push 1947 UFO conspiracy theory while actually doing so.

In July 1947, something streaked out of the sky, hitting the ground outside of Roswell, New Mexico, beginning years of ongoing speculation as to what the object was. According to initial information provided to the Roswell Daily Record by the Roswell Army Air Field, the startling headlines claimed that the military had recovered a flying saucer from a nearby ranch.

Overnight, the story changed from a flying saucer to a weather balloon, and over the ensuing years, that explanation morphed into a military high-altitude surveillance program. Over decades of conspiracy theories that the U.S. government has covered up the possibility that an alien spacecraft and its otherworldly crew were responsible for the 1947 crash. Through it all, and continuing to this day, the Roswell Daily Record was there to report the news and to spark the public interest and fascination with this story.

Wrong. 

And, Beck daughter has a reason to peddle this, as did daddy, assuming he did, too.

The paper owns its own UFO store.

Of course, here's the reality.

And, I knew that reality long ago. I also know that, 25 years ago, Roswell boosters were talking about when the city would hit 50,000. Never happened. Population's been basically flat since 1990 and Farmington has just about caught it, while the Farmington metro area is much bigger.

Not that Teri Saylor at PubAux will tell you that. About halfway through:

In 2022, on the 75th anniversary of the crash event, CBS News reported the debate is far from settled, and “for decades, journalists, authors, documentary film crews and others fascinated by the incident have unearthed and publicized countless bits of information and artifacts o that time.”

Ugh. No skeptical organizations or individuals are quoted anywhere. 

But wait, it gets worse:

On the newspaper’s website, Beck wrote that “over decades of conspiracy theories, the U.S. government has covered up the possibility that an alien spacecraft and its otherworldly crew were responsible for the 1947 crash. Through it all, and continuing to this day, the Roswell Daily Record was there to report the news and to spark the public’s interest and fascination with this story.”

Saylor doesn't question that, nor does she mention the grifting involved. Well, she did mention that above two paragraphs:

Both the Roswell Daily Record and the Morning Dispatch are trademarked, and their UFO crash stories and images cannot be reproduced without permission or by paying royalties to Record Publishing, the parent company.

To be more accurate, she doesn't mention the ethics of a newspaper promoting an untrue conspiracy theory off of which it's grifting.

She and PubAux should be ashamed of themselves. 

But they won't be. 

Why were politicos speaking at the Texas Press Association convention?

Specifically, per page 6 of the July Texas Press Messenger, I'm talking about state Sen. Charles Perry, who was given the unchallenged open mic time to promote the water plan constitutional amendment he authored.

Beyond the actual problems with Perry's amendment (and it has them, and I'll be voting against), is the ethics problem. NO politico should get free, unchallenged airtime at ANY state's — or national — newspaper convention on a specific political issue.

Period. 

Time to dog on CNHI again

 Because it's so fun.

I thought that, about 2 years ago, it had consolidated its North/North Central/East/East Central Texas (but NOT Deep East Texas) printing at Palestine, as in Gainesville, Greenville and Weatherford were all there.

Well, either I heard wrong, or else the UnitedHealth of newspaper chains has done something stupider yet.

Gainesville now prints in Norman, which CNHI doesn't even own. Weatherford prints way down in Huntsville!

Per terms of mileage in today's newspaper printing world, Norman is only 120 miles from Gainesville. It's about a flat 200 from Weatherford, a bit less, but not tremendously less, than Huntsville.

The main thing is a blown economies of scale issue.

Both are semiweekly, but Gainesville is Tues/Sat while Weatherford is Wed/Sat. Change the midweek print day of one of them, maybe? 

Then I thought maybe they're partnering Weatherford with their Cleburne paper?

Nope, it's still triweekly, at Tues/Thu/Sat. So is Greenville. Neither one should be, arguably, in today's world. But, if you are doing that, still fix Weatherford or Gainesville.

This comes to mind because all four have the same publisher, without, I think, local "general managers" for each (don't get me started), and they have a different policy on inserts, at least new ones.

Weatherford wants a prepay; Gainesville didn't ask. 

Yes, Facebook IS a publisher

At least it is in Brazil, where that country's Supreme Court ruled recently that social media companies are legally liable for user posts if they don't take them down, even if they don't have a court order.

In other words? Facebook IS a publisher. Just like at newspapers I run.

I've argued in this space and elsewhere more than once with blanket defenders of Section 230 of the Communications Decency Act. I have said that it needs to be updated, not junked, but they still don't accept that, nor the media principle behind it. 

Oh, and related to that? Zuckerberg aka Hucksterman will surely try to gut or end-run this ruling, based on his past US history on broadly similar issues. 

TPA contest awards thoughts

 First, I apparently, contra an old post, misunderstood the configuration of current divisions of semiweekly and weekly papers. I have no complaints about anybody I was running against.

Now, the actual awards? 

Yes, and not just in my division, as far as observations on judging, which I have long questioned. (I did it for another state's newspaper association contest once, long ago, and I'll admit it's not fun.) I also have a non-judging observation about one winner in another division, in one category.

I entered more categories than I have at any time previous, at my current position, and still just took one first and one fourth.

I didn't even place, not even fourth, in sports coverage, despite one of my two entries being the the issue of the local public school winning a state football title. (With the other paper I run, I won that category two years ago with a volleyball team finishing state runner-up.) Since I didn't even finish fourth, I won't have any judges' comments on why.

SMH.

Now, the other division and judging? Two levels above me, in sports photography, the picture TPA highlighted on its slideshow? It was simply of a high school pitcher, on the mound, pitching. It wasn't even as creative as one of my shots, or one of my stringers, to get the ball 2-3, or 5-6, inches out of his hand. Really?

Then, because I love dogging on CNHI?

Gainesville won the news writing award in its circulation class, even though one of its two entries, and the one displayed, had less than the full story.

That was about the Black Lives Matter-related organization, PRO Gainesville. At its last march, it did NOT have a parade permit, walked in a street that's also a state highway, and got its three leaders arrested.

After losing in county court at law, it appealed. ACLU of Texas then got involved and made it a political issue. The Gainesville Register never reported then one big issue, nor after they lost that appeal and appealed again to the Texas Court of Criminal Appeals, nor after THAT, when, with ACLU national now involved, they did a Hail Mary to the US Supreme Court. That "big issue," which I noted more than once in news stories and in columns, is that the ACLU's own pamphlet, available as a PDF online, says you can't march in a street, without possibility of arrest, if you don't have a permit.

I tweeted both state and national ACLU about that as well. No response.

(Any civil liberties organization donations I've made in the last 15 years have gone to the Center for Constitutional Rights, and this only confirms that.)

Sigh. 

There IS NO First Amendment right to media funding

That's why, per Axios, the Public Broadcasting System and a Minnesota PBS station, and per Corey Hutchins, National Public Radio and member stations in Colorado, are suing over Trump's executive order cutting of public broadcast media funding.

Now, per the Axios story, and Hutchins', cobbling together the details on both, Trump's executive order does reference my header, near the start of the order, before going on to call both organizations, and the funding parent, the Corporation for Public Broadcasting, biased.

The question is, what burden of proof, beyond my caveat and Trump's, lies with the plaintiffs?

If the suits have breach of contract and/or executive arrogation of legislative powers in their language, they're probably in better standing.

As for biased? Public broadcasting has done no better job than MSM broadcast journalism on covering third parties, Gaza, the Russia-Ukraine war and other things, so this non-duopoly leftist says maybe they are biased, just not in the way Trump claims. As for biased? PBS whoring itself to the David H. Koch Fund for Science has led to its pulling punches on things like the climate crisis.

Related? I recently finished Steve Oney's "On Air," a very interesting look at NPR, from the start, and including its Reagan-era funding reduction, and how they tried to handle that, which was less than totally productively, but without suing the government.