What's next for Hearst, 2026 version?

 Nearly a year ago, shortly after Hearst bought the Dallas Snooze, I went one better than Dick Tofel's mild C-suite interview with Hearst's top brass to wonder what would be next for it, at least here in Texas.

Now, with Chatham Asset Management forcing McLatchKey to cut again at many of its newspapers, including seven editorial cuts at the Fort Worth StartleGram, I think this deserves a revisit.

First, would Chatham be in sales mode? Possibly. Fort Worth is nowhere near other papers in its chain, most of those being McClatchy's old California core. 

Hearst might not cut even more. Could you? 

But, it could "backfill" some regional content from Dallas.

Also this would give it total control of all points of the Texas Triangle plus Austin. That's enough to consider setting up a (paid, not free) statewide news service to compete with the Texas Tribune. Keep it low cost, but sell it across East and Central Texas and you're set. And, following up on that old piece, if you could get Lee to sell Waco and Bryan-College Station, on sports, you own not only all the professional sports sites in Texas, but all the Division 1 college sites except Lubbock, and lesser D1 football teams like Stephenville/Tarleton and Nacogdoches/Stephen F. Austin. You could make your syndicated service good for sports as well as news. 

A flip side of newspaper downsizing — printing press downsizing

 As we all know, more and more newspapers are getting rid of their printing presses.

So, what happens when the press you're printing at has problems? Like a plate burner crapping out?

Now, the nearest press may be 100, even 200 or more miles away.

This is a physical object, of course. It can't be emailed.

So, when an old press somewhere else shuts, if another press is buying anything for parts, why aren't you buying the old platemaker as well? 

A new stupidity from CNHI — an out-of-date op-ed column

 Their editor for three regional newspapers in North Texas ran a column about how easy it was to register to vote.

As part of that, it mentioned that Oct. 5 was the cutoff date for doing so.

Just onnnneeee problem.

In the paper closest to me, in Gainesville, it ran Oct. 6.

I'll assume it ran earlier in Weatherford and Cleburne, but wouldn't want to guarantee that.

I'll also assume that Ms. Sexton is the person responsible for telling CNHI's group paginators what to put on what page for a particular issue. 

As I'm not totally unaware of myself, this is what you get when you stretch people too thin. 

And, whether this is an oops on checking or not checking a certain box on a website upload or deliberate, it's "interesting" that the sister paper in Cleburne has a story about the new LSD church temple in Burleson that is NOT paywalled. 

Is CNHI allergic to the words "deficit budget"?

 In its last issue for September, CNHI's Gainesville, Texas, outlet, reported that the city of Gainesville's city council had approved a budget for fiscal 2027 with a deficit of more than $2 million.

But, it never used the word "deficit" or the phrase "deficit budget" or "budget deficit."

No, we had a clunker like "expenditures exceeding revenues."

So, does CNHI have a style manual that prohibits talking about "deficit budgets" or similar? Yikes. How do you report on Congress and the president? 

If their local staff writer wrote that, then their regional editor has officially abandoned her if she didn't correct that, if they don't have a style manual policy. 

StartleGram less than 30 news staff, as McLatchKey's vulture capitalist Chatham swings the meataxe

 I hadn't realized that McLatchKey had done a new round of cuts company-wide at the orders of its vulture capitalist owner, Chatham Asset Management.

Dick Tofel had a piece on it, but somehow overlooked the Fort Worth Star-Telegram, aka the Startlegram, among McLatchKey papers. 

Per a wingnut vulture "newspaper" from Dallas to whom I shall not link, McClatchy laid off more than 90 unionized journalists and media workers company-wide, including Fort Worth Star-Telegram staff. The NewsGuild-CWA said the cuts represented about 30% of the McClatchy workforce it represents.

I will link to D Mag, which links to the Fort Worth union chapter's Instagram. Down to less than 30 in the newsroom, as it notes. The guild blames McLatchKey pivoting to AI.

That said, Tofel is good for snarking on the vultures, who, he notes, essentially admitted now that less is not more:

Now, McClatchy continues, “we cannot continue investing [in the sense of spending at all, rather than increasing spending] where subscriber interest does not support the investment.” In other words, it’s the readers’ fault. “We need to listen to subscribers,” they say, so they’re going to degrade the products further. The plan is to focus on “where journalism can have the greatest impact” and on what “subscribers value.”

There you are. (And, they're right; in Cowtown, they're down to less than 25K circ, maybe 20K. This year's TPA annual says the Snooze is still nearly 120K, so, it's a 5-1 circulation ratio.)

He also picks up on the union, linking to a CJR piece from early this year talking about McLatchKey and AI.

Not linked by Dick is CJR's own post-layoffs piece, which looks much more at the AI black hole, and boy, this sure looks like union-busting. That's especially because the Miami Herald, which had been taking the lead in negotiating at least minimal protections on AI and staff, got hit the hardest.

No, scratch that. 

By percentage, the Idaho Statesman, which lost 13 of 22, got crushed. That's Boise's paper, in case you wondered. How the hell do you run a paper in a city and metro that big with nine staff?