'The Oklahoman' to cut positions

Longtime employees of The Oklahoman are being offered early retirement packages as the newspaper begins cost-cutting measures that could affect 150 positions.

David Thompson, the newspaper's publisher, said a downsizing of The Oklahoman's work force of about 1,100 people will be completed by the end of October, in two stages: retirements and a reduction in force.

Thompson and other senior executives met Wednesday afternoon to discuss early retirement with 102 veteran employees, who are at least 55 years old and have worked for the newspaper for 15 years or longer. The 102 employees have until Sept. 24 to decide whether to take the early retirement offers.

Then, starting in early October, The Oklahoman will begin layoffs across The Oklahoma Publishing Co.'s media division, OPUBCO Communications Group. In total, about 150 positions are expected to be eliminated within the next two months, Thompson said. Both voluntary and involuntary reductions will include employee severance packages.

He described the pending cutbacks as "painful,” and the company, which has been controlled by the Gaylord family since 1903, "is sensitive to the impact they will have on our employees and their families.” But the reductions are necessary to "right-size our costs commensurate with revenue,” Thompson said.

Despite a growing economy in Oklahoma City, The Oklahoman is being affected by the same forces that have roiled the newspaper industry, particularly at metropolitan dailies, in recent months.

They include:

•Traditional media — not just newspapers, but television, radio and magazines — are facing the second worst advertising recession since World War II. The only period more severe, Thompson said, was after the terrorist attacks of Sept. 11, 2001. All media are seeing softness in national advertising; for newspaper-based companies, recruitment, or employment, advertising also has been particularly sluggish.

•More readers, particularly younger ones, now go to the Internet for news and information, bringing a fundamental shift in reading habits that industry experts say will only accelerate.

•Costs in newsprint, a newspaper's second biggest expense after employment, will have increased 40 percent by the end of 2008 compared to the fourth quarter of last year.

•A rise in fuel costs, that affect transportation and distribution of the newspaper, hits papers with a geographic footprint as large as The Oklahoman's particularly hard.

"It really is a perfect storm,” Thompson said.

Still, The Oklahoman is moving forward with digital initiatives that "are quite exciting,” he said. They include more improvements to NewsOK.com, the company's award-winning news site, and wimgo.com, an events calendar launched last winter that has exceeded initial expectations.

And, despite the employee cutbacks, Thompson said The Oklahoman's "journalistic quality and integrity will be uncompromised” as the organization retools to meet changing demands for news, information and advertising.

Sign of the times in the newspaper industry. At least the Oklahoman has done a better job than most publications in embracing new media.

The biggest money-maker for papers has always been classified ads and that's a market that has been completely taken over by on-line rivals, such as Craigslist, eBay and myriad others.


The irony of newspaper staffs being cut is that it's really the only place that true reporting is generated. So, at a time when there are more and more outlets for news, there are far fewer people actually reporting it, which leaves everyone else just to talk and provide opinion.

It's quite disturbing in many ways.

I disagree, the Daily Oklahoman is one of the worst state newspapers I know of. I am forced to read the Tulsa World, and the Dallas Morning News to get unbiased news reports, and not a personal opinion of the Daily Oklahoman.

Editorials (opinions) are in every newspaper.

I agree that the Oklahoman only covers Chamber of Commerce type events, but that's their journalistic prerogative. That's not a slant, that's just an editorial choice as to what to cover.

There's actually no such thing as lack of bias in journalism. Every paper is biased in what it chooses to cover. There's a limited amount of space and a lot of news every day, what goes into the news is always a biased decision since the paper can't cover everything.

As for muckracking and such, the Oklahoman and other papers of its size simply don't have the budget to pay for reporters to do stories which require extended periods of time for research and fact gathering. You will seldom see things in any daily paper anymore which require more than a day to write.

The Oklahoman has come a long way since the 80's and the Columbia Journalism Review hit-piece.

I agree, the DO is a very biased, substandard newspaper. As a former OKC resident and now residing in Dallas, the DMN is a much better written news daily and does not lean to the right or in a twisted slanted way. Even people in Dallas know the "poor reputation" the DO has. I believe even the Columbia Review wrote a scathing article about the Daily Oklahoman being one of the worst newspapers in the country. What an embarrasment for OKC because you all are suppose to be growing up and become a "big league" city. I feel for those at the newspaper if they lose their jobs.

My comments were aimed at the newspaper/news industry in general, not the Oklahoman in particular.

And no matter how you slice it, newspapers are one of the few places where reporters are actually employed and their numbers are rapidly dwindling.

If you think news is slanted and opinionated now, it's only going to get worse with these changes.

Ah yes, the Columbia Journalism Review... now there, my friend, is an unbiased news source!

BTW, I've gone on record many times saying that I think in many ways the DOK does a good job, especially electronically. They were one of the first papers on the web, have their entire archives available, have embraced new media elements long before papers of similar size, etc.

I don't necessarily agree with many of their op-ed pieces but I generally stay away from those in any paper.

They've always done a good job covering local business and sports news and that's what's most important to me. And as much as I'd like to see them do more (some?) investigative reporting I realize that isn't going to happen and isn't a particularly realistic expectation.

Haven't they actually won awards within the last several years?

People bring up that Columbia Review study, but wasn't that from years ago?

And even if it is conservative, who cares? It's just like any other media outlet who can print what they want. NY Times leans left, Washington Times leans right...

CNN leans left, Fox News leans right...

It's a private company and a free press... don't buy it and it will go away.

Before I moved here, I used to run into the same comments about my local paper in my previous locale. People seem to have this idea that the Dallas paper is somehow superior. Maybe it is. I don't know. I don't read it because I don't live in Dallas. How do you know what's going on in your own community if you're reading the Dallas paper?

This is the part that we need to be very concerned about. Even though many people are getting their news from the internet these days, those online stories come from newspapers for the most part. Once the papers fold, who will step up to fill the void? Yahoo? Google? Will online news sites only be available to subscribers?

The same thing is happening at the Dallas Morning News, except they are getting rid of 500 employees.

The L.A. Times has slashed thousands of jobs as well, and they covered lots of national stories and have always done a fair amount of investigative journalism.


And regarding the Internet, the news still has to be originated somewhere and the only place that happens is with reporters. Yahoo and Google don't have reporters and have said that's a business they don't want to get into.

At least with the traditional media there has always been some measure of accountability. You reported something, you had to stand behind it. The recent Dan Rather situation demonstrates that.

So, this is all being replaced by speculation, rumor and opinion. There is plenty of room for all of that and it generates important discussion but who can we rely on to go out there and gather facts so there is even a basis for discussion?

Now come on. IF people are up to date on the Oklahoman they know that paper has improved since old man Gaylord died and new management came in. For instance, the highly homophobic editorial writer is long gone. He was fired for using Oklahoman stationery to promote funding of a political candidate he supported.

I can agree with that, the few times lately that I have picked up the DO, it does seem better.

Yes, it has improved but still lacking serious content. Why don't we have a daily food section with food reviews, etc. Business section needs to be daily and more content and full stock and market reports. We need a dedicated US/World news section as well.

Ugh, are we still talking about the Columbia Journalism review? A review that was written almost a DECADE ago? Are we still going to be talking about this 50 years from now? Get your crap together people.

I'm sorry, but journalism right now sucks across the board. With the exception of Steve Lackmeyer, who is an avid Oklahoma Citian, every news paper JUST DOESN'T IMPRESS ME!!!! The Dallas Morning News, NYT, Tulsa World, LA Times, I don't care.

Columnists and commentators in any media outlet are dastardly biased. Liberals are biased against conservatives, and conservatives are biased against liberals. You people have no idea how divided our nation is right now. Wake up.

__________________
Continue the Renaissance!!!
www.okcpulse.net

Thank you, okcpulse. Please, however, check out the following link:

Poynter Online - How to Stop the Bleeding from Journalism Job Cuts

Right. Dallasites and the Columbia Review. No bias against Oklahoma there at all...


I've heard speculation that this is an attempt to get rid of the older reporters who don't embrace new media. That is why they are offering early retirement packages.

Out with the old, in with the new........LOL

Sadly,

Pete's commentary is dead on. I was at a conference a year or so ago and there was a blowdried former OKC TV "journalist" sitting next to me. She was gleefully trumpeting the demise of newspapers.

I couldn't resist: I told her that if newspapers vanish we will have no true journalism left, as local TV news does no actual reporting.

Oddly, newspapers can make it work online, but the revenues are just not as lucrative right now. Maybe they will strengthen over time.

Watching the current election cycle, I've been astonished at how little actual reporting goes on among the major TV networks. Almost everything is the talking head shows, which, more and more, remind me of the farcical (yet entertaining) commentary you find on ESPN.

It truly is entertainment and ratings first, news second, in almost all cases.

Hopefully, newspaper organizations will merely switch formats, as we desperately need their reporting capability. Without it, our democracy is imperiled.

Regardless of their content, newspapers are taking a hit in an evolving economy. Like all industries, the conventional newspaper industry is passing maturity and is rapidly approaching the end of its life cycle. Darwin knew what he was saying - evolve or die.

I think the DOK is a pretty good paper. I've lived in a lot of places and have read a lot of papers. It is always somehow comforting to pick up an Oklahoman in a coffeehouse. Yes, their opinions have hisorically leaned strongly to the right; and even today, they continue to piss me off. But the paper is a part of our community and is reflective of community standards. Oklahoma is a conservative place.

Altough I have had my disagreements with the DOK, I'm truly sorry to hear of their troubles. I will always be a proponent of local companies no matter their political opinions. Tom Ward and Aubrey McClendon support causes that make me ill. But their companies, like the DOK, help build OKC into stronger place. A successful, thriving, locally-owned and managed company pays substantially higher dividends to the community than a shiny new Bass Pro in a tilt-up concrete box.

Maybe the DOKs online and other ventures can soften the blow. How great would it be to see OKC develop into an even stronger high-tech center?

Hear hear!

With Lackmeyer, I can tell that he's doing a job which he loves. He seems like the kind of person who would be happy to do his job with or without pay (happier with pay though!). Few writers have the sort of passion for what they write about.

Another fine writer they have up there is Greg Elwell. He's just a damn good writer.

There is very little, if any, investigative journalism going on anymore.

Many years ago, Vince Orza, to do a story about the local business leaders colluding and illegally spending taxpayer funds on projects for themselves.

Orza actually took on E.K. Gaylord himself -- and these were the sort of reports which could have sent E.K. Gaylord to prison had Mike Turpen not been elected to the A.G.'s office after the D.O.K. ran a ridiculous flurry of front-page editorials about how the current A.G. was "bad for business." The good 'ol boys were clearly shaken.

I'm not old enough to remember the OIA scandal, but I do know that some damn fine journalism was going on. Orza actually followed a paper trail which the OIA folks had done a lot of work to cover up. You won't find that much anymore. I think I was shocked to see Allie Meyers doing something investigative in nature a few years back, but nothing since.

Local TV news these days seems to consist of nothing more than a regurgitation of the police blotter, the repetition of a few press releases, with maybe a few VNR's mixed in. That's why I don't watch local T.V. news. Frighteningly enough, I am much better informed about the goings on in this city by reading this message board.

It's so disappointing to hear this news. This has been happening all over the nation, and the Gazette recently had a story about the dying of the community (smalltown) paper. I agree with Peter - if you think news is biased and one-sided now, just wait.

What is most troublesome is that over the years working in PR, I have witnessed so many journalists plowing through the details. They were paid to do this and they sometimes worked hours on end to ink a story, and sometimes fight for it. Bloggers who pander to technorati rankings and are especially brazen to attract visitors to their Web sites - to increase their viability to earn ad revenue are going to wield more and more influence.

There are no fact checkers for these bloggers. Nobody calls their Ed Kelley to say "Your reporter got it wrong!" Retractions are at the will of the blogger. The Web provides anonymity reporters don't generally enjoy. In addition, online news sources feel the need to sex it up. The news has to entertain and stories can't exceed 500 words. Gone is the expose. Now, we must rely on water cooler fodder.

I think part of the blame has to be put on schools, which failed to educate their students about the role of journalism in society. If the Oklahoman is weakened then the watch dog on government is weakened and we absolutely cannot afford that. That is why this news is so incredibly disappointing. Had we nurtured a greater value for the daily paper three decades ago, things might be different. In addition, I witnessed the Oklahoman on a few occassions correct a story electronic media butchered. So, they actually served as a watch dog not only on government but other media.

The bottom line is the Internet stole their ad revenue. People can cherry pick their news, now. They can remain singular in focus - skipping passed business and on to the latest story about (Lord help me) Lindsay Lohan. I nearly always skipped the Sport page, but over the years, I still came to know Trammell and Carlson. The Oklahoman had one of the last society pages in the nation, and I actually rather liked it. I learned a lot from that page over the years. It sounds superficial, but what I learned from it wasn't.

On a final note, they said radio was going to die, but a few years after that, radio was bigger than ever. So, I'm looking into my crystal ball and predicting that while newspapers will suffer in the short run, they will rebound eventually, coming back leaner, but stronger for it. They're also going to cost more.