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The headline on the front page of The Post-Standard Jan. 20 read, “Syracuse Media Group unveils downtown location for region’s newest media company.” The accompanying story described plans to move 150 employees across downtown, from Clinton Square to the new headquarters of Syracuse Media Group (SMG) at Merchants Commons, 220 Warren St.
An unusual front-page editorial sought to tie the move to the nascent resurgence of housing and commerce in downtown.
“Things are on the move downtown. So are we. New life stirs all around. You see it in motion from the Near West Side to the Connective Corridor. There are new ways to move – follow the flow of the creek, cruise the bike lanes, hop aboard the bus-hub bustle.
“Downtown Syracuse is the heart, the central organ pumping energy through the larger community. Its health is vital to the region’s, and the vital signs are strong.
“Downtown, the pulse is quickening. Armory Square vibrates with activity. Long-empty department stores house apartments by the score. Corporate branches and tech-garden seedlings alike lay down roots. New hotel rooms open soon. Coffee shops perk.”
After describing the company’s plans, the editorial concluded:
“It may be a short move in city blocks; it is a thrilling march forward into our shared future.”
Thrilling, perhaps, but it’s undeniably weird to watch a newspaper acting essentially as its own publicity firm, putting its own spin on one the biggest media stories to hit the city in years. This is just the kind of Orwellian doublespeak (less is more, old is new) that reporters are used to resisting, not printing on the front page.
If it were any other company making a claim, we would expect The Post-Standard to be the first in line with the tough questions.
But who reports on the newspaper that has been for years the only game in town?
Let’s take the claim that the move across downtown, accompanied by a reduction in the workforce, is in some sense a part of the downtown economic boom.
SMG president Tim Kennedy declined to answer questions about the number of employees, but from its own reporting, it would appear that The Post-Standard has dismissed as many as 115 employees and made 60 hires. This follows two rounds of buyouts.
The Post-Standard will vacate about 25,000 square feet on the first floor of its Clinton Square building and rent 28,000 square feet at Merchants Common. So why is a move from one downtown office to another being reported as a commitment to economic development? Especially when the number of employees is falling?
“We didn’t say it was economic development, we said we were making a commitment to downtown,” Kennedy said.
Just how moving a shrunken workforce across town represents a contribution to the development of the urban core has yet to be explained. The new digs might look modern, but fewer employees and vacant real estate on Clinton Square means fewer feet on the Creekwalk and fewer workers waking up to smell the coffee perking at java emporiums. How is that economic development?
No one answers the question. Even worse, the leading news organization in town isn’t asking.
One of the more confusing aspects of the change has been the insistence by The Post-Standard that it will continue to publish a print edition seven days a week. While technically correct, on four days that print version is limited in size (16 pages) and distribution (12,000 copies, available only in Onondaga County).
The paper is still delivered to homes three days a week (Sunday, Tuesday and Thursday). On the other days, readers will have to venture to the newsstand or find their local news online at Syracuse.com or via the ePostStandard, a new digital facsimile of the paper, available to %u2028subscribers.
When the first four-day-a-week print version came out Feb. 4, it contained two pages of local news (the same number of pages dedicated to classified ads) and two pages of local sports, a weather page plus obituaries. The lead story on both the front page and the sports page was an Associated Press write-up about the Super Bowl.
A tour of newsstands and convenience stores in the city that day showed that sales of the paper were brisk. Rocky’s Newsstand, on North Salina Street, sold out midday, and many other retail outlets were left with just a few copies by evening.
Kennedy said online readership has increased—the ePostStandard had more than 10,000 logins or registrations in early February. Fifty-one subscribers cancelled home delivery Feb. 4, and Syracuse.com recorded more than 1 million page views that day, a “substantial increases in users,” Kennedy said in an email.
Will the seven-day publication survive? Many industry observers suggest the newsstand edition won’t last for long.
“Time will tell,” said Steve Davis, chair of newspaper and online journalism at the S.I. Newhouse School of Public Communications at Syracuse University. “They’re not the only ones to try this. It’s probably a segue to an all-digital product. My guess is that these papers will go away.”
Davis expects the print run to remain status quo for the short term. “As long as there is revenue, why wouldn’t you keep doing it? They will be trying to figure out if those four days are worth it.”
The Detroit Free News and The Detroit Free Press, not owned by the Newhouses, switched to thrice-weekly home delivery last year, and their alternate-day publication survives. Enterprising delivery people in Detroit have begun offering seven-day-a-week delivery in selected neighborhoods, an option that has not yet surfaced in Syracuse but is not off the table, said Kennedy.
The point is moot, according to Martin Langeveld, a media observer with the Neiman Foundation at Harvard University. Langeveld has spent 30 years in the business, 13 of them as a publisher, and writes the blog “Newspaper Death Watch: The Decline of Newspapers and the Rebirth of Journalism.”
“Seven days a week {is} unsustainable,” he said from his home in Vermont. “They {SMG} are hedging their bets that in the short run it can work. In the long run, publishing a print version seven days, even a limited edition. . . definitely not. It’s a necessary transitional step to a digital-first operation. You need to make the switch to a 24/7 digital operation.”
Even inside the walls at Clinton Square, there are signs that the company is not as committed to a seven-day publishing schedule as it is saying publicly. The news release Aug. 28, 2012, that announced the shakeup at Clinton Square, said, “The Syracuse Media Group will review the single-copy program carefully and may decide to eliminate it before or by the end of next year.”
A special section of the Sunday, Jan. 27, paper devoted to the changes does not mention the four-day-a-week newsstand venture.
When Sean Kirst, the paper’s columnist, wrote a note Oct. 23 in tribute to his departing colleagues and telling his readers of his decision to stay with the company, he referred to the paper making a transition from a “daily to a tri-weekly.” Intentionally or not, he might have been as honest as anyone.
Even Kennedy says bluntly that he is not sure it will work. “That’s the great thing about print. If it doesn’t work we will change it,” he said.
“Advance/Newhouse is looking ahead at demographic trends, where the eyeballs are moving,” Langeveld said.
With the pressure to produce stories that are shorter and quicker, is there a future for in-depth reporting, which in Syracuse, with rare exception, has been carried out by the daily paper?
It’s no secret that the only newsroom in Central New York with the resources to dig deep into stories sits in Clinton Square—until the move across downtown. Asked how much serious news a digital publication, driven by instant ratings instantly analyzed, will be able to create, Kennedy said that a digital-first news operation need not be more prone to errors or tend toward the sensational.
“I reject the idea that we can’t do long-form journalism in a digital format. Journalism schools all over the country are teaching how that is done,” he said.
One recently departed staffer, who was not willing to be identified, begs to differ.
“The focus is on fast,” said the displaced worker. “They want more stories, shorter and faster. It’s about speed and traffic, 24/7. With no copy editors, it’s bizarre and terrifying. What if we make a mistake?”
If you find yourself concerned about the quality of news in the new era, consider this snippet published 11:55 p.m. Jan. 28 at Syracuse.com by new hire Ken Sturtz:
Syracuse, NY – Syracuse police are investigating an armed robbery that occurred Monday.
The 8:14 p.m. robbery happened near 503 Sunnycrest Road, in Eastwood, Onondaga County 911 reported. No injuries were reported. It was not clear who had been robbed, what was taken or by whom.
It’s hard to imagine a reporter like Jim O’Hara, who was not retained, writing such a piece devoid of basic information. It’s hard to imagine an editor allowing it to find its way to print.
There are signs that the company is committed to investigative work. The core of the investigative reporting team—including award-winning reporters John O’Brien, Dave Tobin and Michelle Breidenbach – remains intact. A front-page story Feb. 7 by the newly hired Sara Patterson detailing turmoil in the high-profile Hoffman Hot Dog bid to go national was a classic example of investigative work.
Still, Davis said there are more questions than answers about the new company, its strategy and its chances for success.
“How this will turn out?” Davis asked. “Who the hell knows?”
