Archive for the 'Meta News' Category

Daily Progress Sold to Berkshire Hathaway

Published by Waldo Jaquith on May 17, 2012 in Business and Meta News. 19 Comments Tags: , .

Warren Buffett’s Berkshire Hathaway is buying Media General’s newspapers, which means that the Daily Progress is changing hands. It was 1995 when Media General Bought the now-120-year-old newspaper from Worrell Enterprises, a local, family-owned business, and by most measures, the newspaper has not fared well since. The entire print journalism industry has been in a slump since advertising dollars began moving online a decade ago. It’s not clear what the future financial model will be for local journalism, and the whole industry seems to be waiting for somebody to swoop in and figure it out. Berkshire Hathaway—technically, BH Media Group—is buying 63 newspapers for $142M.

Buffett already owns a few newspapers, including the Buffalo News and the recently purchased Omaha World-Herald, and owns the largest share of the Washington Post. Buffett has said that he sees newspapers’ value as a community hub, and that their most valuable function is providing information that isn’t available elsewhere, something that many newspapers—including the Progress—have been struggling with. He’s also said that it’s a mistake for newspapers to give away so much material online for free.

What all of this will mean for the Progress remains to be seen, but it’s a fair guess that this is good news. Media General has basically been supervising a slow collapse of their print properties, with no apparent ability to arrest or reverse that collapse. Buffett is perhaps the deepest of deep-pocketed investments out there, known for shrewd, long-term, community-focused thinking. The future of the Progress is looking a lot brighter.

Progress Editor Leaving for UVA

Published by Waldo Jaquith on May 4, 2012 in Business and Meta News. 7 Comments Tags: .

McGregor McCance, managing editor of the Daily Progress for seven years, is becoming the latest employee of the paper to depart for UVA. McCance is going to work for university spokeswoman Carol Wood.(Note that the position of managing editor is the top editorial position at the Progress—there is nobody with the title of, simply, “editor.”) Today was McCance’s last day. The Progress doesn’t yet have a replacement for McCance.

Media General Planning to Shed Newspapers

Published by Waldo Jaquith on April 10, 2012 in Business and Meta News. 9 Comments Tags: .

Media General is planning for a post-newspaper business model, Richard Craver writes for the Winston-Salem Journal. The media giant—andDaily Progress owner—has made it known that all of their newspapers are for sale, and a recent regulatory filing forecasts revenues premised on the assumption that they’ll strip the company down to its television stations and electronic media components. Media General claims that multiple parties have expressed interest in purchasing their newspapers. They’ve said that they’re interested in selling all of the properties off together, or individually, meaning that it’s possible that another big media company could take ownership of the Progress, but it’s also within the realm of possibility that somebody local could buy it.

Media General purchased the Daily Progress from the Worrell family in 1995, along with the rest of the Charlottesville-area family’s Virginia newspaper properties.

Embattled VQR Editor Resigns

Published by Waldo Jaquith on April 4, 2012 in Meta News and UVa. 11 Comments Tags: .

Virginia Quarterly Review editor Ted Genoways has resigned from his position, effective May 31. Genoways’ increasingly erratic and nasty behavior towards his employees culminated in the 2010 suicide of one employee, managing editor, Kevin Morrissey, and the rest of the employees quitting. (Including me.) A subsequent investigation by the university found Genoways lacked the capacity to supervise employees, demanded that his inappropriate financial practices be ended, and called for an investigation—which apparently has not happened—into his use of university funds to publish his own book of poetry. The university’s response to their own investigation was not to fire Genoways, but to retain him. For more backstory, see Dave McNair’s series of stories in The Hook from over the past couple of years.

After Genoways took over as editor, the 87-year-old’s publication’s focus gradually narrowed, being written for an audience of Genoways’ fellow National Magazine Awards judges, until every issue was dedicated to wars and various types of misery. Circulation shrank accordingly; the most recent published numbers indicate just over 1,700 subscribers (or two days of unique visitors to cvillenews.com).

Genoways is on a five-year contract that doesn’t expire for another couple of years, so presumably the university has bought out the remainder of his contract in exchange for his departure. UVA is left to rebuild the publication, and has gradually hired employees to take over the publication, including a new Web Editor—my old position—who starts June 1, the day after Genoways’ departure. With Genoways leaving, I wish them the very best of luck in their efforts to return the magazine to a viable state. Genoways’ house was on the market for a very brief period in March and, according to the Chronicle of Higher Education, is scheduled for a closing very soon. I gather he and his family are moving back to his home state of Nebraska.

For the record, here’s how things ended for VQR’s remaining employees. Associate Editor Molly Minturn is now the Managing Editor of Arts & Sciences Magazine. Circulation Manager Sheila McMillen settled with the university under undisclosed terms, and was given early retirement. I went on to work for the White House Office of Science and Technology Policy, though as of last month I have a fellowship with the John S. and James L. Knight Foundation. Intern/donor-turned-employee Alana Levinson-Labrosse has changed her name and moved to Iraq. Genoways has been pushed out of his job—and town—and is moving back home to Nebraska, to spend more time with his writing.

Progress Switching to Facebook Comments

Published by Waldo Jaquith on April 4, 2012 in Meta News. 39 Comments

The Daily Progress is doing something about their cesspool of a comments section, and switching to Facebook as their commenting system. Second only in horribleness to NBC-29′s comments, comments on the Progress site are often filled with nasty, anonymous attacks, with a handful of regulars turning every conversation into an opportunity to go on one of a few stock tirades. Other Media General papers have been making the same switch (here’s a sample Times Dispatch article where you can see the comments at the end), in an effort to force people to put their real names on their comments—or at least outsource that to Facebook’s judgment and administration. That switch will take place tomorrow.

A year or so ago, I toyed with the idea of using Facebook as the cvillenews.com commenting system, until I realized that there was no need. There’s no problem here in need of solving. People are generally civil to one another, many people post under their real names, I know who many of the pseudonymous people are (and they know I know—there’s nothing nefarious going on here), and all is generally well. But nearly every local media outlet would benefit from either switching to Facebook’s system or simply eliminating commenting functionality.

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