List of API "Crisis Summit" Attendees

Jen: API released an executive summary of what happened at yesterday's closed door meeting. We have the coverage over at the main site. Click through below to see the full list of participants.

• Michael G. Abernathy, president Landmark Community Newspapers

• Steven Ainsley, publisher The Boston Globe
• Reid Ashe, EVP, COO Media General

• Donna J. Barrett, president and CEO CNHI

• David H. Black, president Black Press Group

• Diana Block, president, co-publisher, Pittsburgh Post-Gazette

• James B. Boone, chairman, CEO, Boone Newspapers

• Elizabeth Brenner, president, publisher Milwaukee Journal Sentinel

• Bruce Buchanan, president, CEO, Harris Enterprises

• Mark Contreras, SVP/newspapers E.W.Scripps

• James Currow, publisher The Florida Times-Union

• Keith Dawn, publisher, COO The Press of Atlantic City

• Robert Dickey, president U.S. community publishing, Gannett

• Maria Eugenia Ferra Rangel, president, El Nuevo Dia

• Douglas Franklin, publisher and president, The Palm Beach Post

• Sherman Frederick, president, publisher Las Vegas Review-Journal

• Michael Gugliotto, VP, COO Pioneer Newspapers

• Arne Hoel, president, CEO Swift Newspaper

• Terry Horne, president, publisher The Orange County Register

• Peter Horvitz, president and CEO, Horvitz Newspapers

• John Humenik, editor and publisher, Arizona Daily Star

• Walter Hussman, president and CEO Wehco Media

• Wade Hynes, VP online, Sum Media

• George Irish, president, Hearst Newspapers

• Mary Jacobus, president, COO, New York Times Regional Media Group

• Gregg K. Jones, president, Jones Media

• Maurice Jones, publisher, The Virginian-Pilot

• John Kirkpatrick, president, publisher, editor, The Patriot-News

• Michelle Krans, SVP, strategy, development, Gannett

• Brent Low, president, CEO, MediaOne

• William Lynett, publisher The Citizens' Voice

• Thomas McDevitt, president The Washington Times

• William Morris, president, Morris Communications

• William Morris, chairman and CEO, Morris Communications

• Kevin Mowbray, president, publisher, St. Louis Post-Dispatch

• John Newby, publisher, The Times

• Charles Peters, president Gazette Communications

• Dana Robbins, publisher, The Hamilton Spectator

• Steven Rossi, president and CEO, California Newspapers Partnership

• Jonathan Segal, president, Freedom Newspapers

• Thomas Silvestri, president and publisher Richmond Times-Dispatch

• John Sturm, president, CEO, NAA

• Steven Swartz, EVP, Hearst Newspapers

• Paul Tash, chairman, CEO, editor, president, St. Petersburg Times

• Brian Tierney, CEO, publisher, Philadelphia Media Holdings

• Wesley Turner, VP, strategic planning, Advance Publications

• Robert Weil, VP, operations, McClatchy

• Rufus Woods, publisher and editor, The Wenatchee World

• Thomas Yunt, president, COO, Woodward Communications

Comments

[joe]

You have tainted the news you choose to print. Facts are omitted, stories slanted, issues ignored, rumor reported as fact, facts reported as falsehoods. This results in only one side of a story being presented. In most cases the days of print media being independent, disinterested, tough-but-fair newspaper are over. You have become nothing more than partisans, propagandists and lackeys for the democrat Left in this nation.

[Mike Peterson]

Well, leftwing lackiness notwithstanding, I do think the biggest crisis is not the failure of the chains, which at this stage seems inevitable, but the process that failure is already taking. As print facilities are centralized, the value of local papers for resale is being eroded. Local papers can succeed -- local papers ARE succeeding. But the need to outsource production is a killer expense that will keep citizen groups, employee groups and local magnates from being able to take over these individual papers and keep them, and the industry, alive. If there is a government bailout, perhaps it should include the requirement that, while they are not required to upgrade their equipment, neither are they permitted to scrap it. Because once the stock-swapping geniuses are out of the way, there is a potentially viable industry lurking under this steaming pile of brilliant solutions.

[Ric Locke]

I am sixty-one years old. In my life I have been directly or peripherally involved in a dozen or so incidents that have "made the paper". In every case, what finally appeared in the "news" differed so materially from the actual facts on the ground that any reader not familiar with the incident from direct sources would be seriously misled.

Your consultant is telling you to, among other things, leverage your core competencies. This is good advice, but before you can do that you need to know clearly what your core competencies are. You might start out by finding out just what that "army of editors and fact-checkers" does all day. It is most assuredly not what you are (theoretically) paying them for.

When it was impossible for the average citizen to check, the situation went unnoticed. It was more or less taken for granted that what appeared in the paper bore some resemblance to the events in the real world. Now, though, the actual people involved are able to weigh in, and it has become painfully obvious that the Press's ability to report is seriously deficient because its members' ability to understand is nearly nonexistent. This, not the more obvious advertising competition, is how the Internet is killing the news business.

People need information to make decisions. If the source of information proves itself unreliable, they will discard it and seek another. That's what's happening to you. No, your overall readership hasn't gone down much -- but the people who still read you are no longer decisionmakers or influential people; they are seekers of titillation and/or reinforcement of their own prejudices. Such people are not high on the lists of target audiences for advertisers.

The list of bullet points is addressed to financial and management issues. No matter how adroit its management might be, any enterprise ultimately depends upon delivering product to the consumer, and if the product is defective no amount of financial cleverness or management skill will save the enterprise in the long term. If you provide the product you are not guaranteed success, but you have a chance. If you do not provide the product, nothing will save you -- and, at the moment, you are not providing the product. What you assume as your core competence is nonexistent, so there is nothing to leverage.

I don't know how to turn it around, but I do have one piece of advice: starting now, eliminate a "W". Get Who, What, When, and Where as completely and accurately as you are able, and leave Why for somebody else. It would be, if nothing else, a worthwhile exercise.

Regards,
Ric

[Jeff]

Hmmm...funny, but nowhere on the list of bullet points covering potential solutions to the media's "crisis" did I see "stop lying to your readers in furtherance of your political agenda."

[C Doyle]

One of the considerations publishers need to address in short order is how they fundamentally do business, not just how they create content and present it. Yes, they compete against media that are newer and have compelling pitches to advertisers, but the publisher also need to learn from and follow some of the tools that online and other media are using in transacting business. How they sell advertising and get ads into the papers often borders on the archaic. In speaking to one global media buyer recently she was specific that print needs to fix their "Speed of Activation" or the time to market advertisers are clamoring for in addition to transparency and accountability.

[Lic Rocke]

- stop lying to your readers in furtherance of your political agenda

- propagandists and lackeys for the democrat Left in this nation

This explains why the Washington Times is the nation's most successful newspaper.

(hint: it ain't)