This article was first published
in the LA Weekly
Another
Domino Falls
Between high profit margins and
hard bottom lines journalism takes a beating in the
Pomona Valley
Report by MARK CROMER
Last Wednesday, the nearly
200,000 readers of the Inland Valley Daily Bulletin
awoke to find a color mug shot of a man staring smugly
back at them from the paper's front page.
Spread across his face was a wide, tight-lipped grin.
Like a Cheshire cat who just swallowed a canary.
In fact, he had.
The face peering up from morning
coffee tables and breakfast counters across the Pomona
Valley belonged to none other than William Dean Singleton,
the Denver-based media mogul who has methodically bought
regional daily newspapers across Los Angeles County
during the past two years.
In a relatively short time, Singleton has cobbled together
enough suburban dailies across the county to compete
for major national advertisers with the Los Angeles
Times, one of the nation's largest metropolitan dailies.
Yet while Singleton seems
to love buying newspapers - his MediaNews Group Inc.
publishes 50 daily newspapers and 119 nondaily papers
in 13 states - it is far from clear that he's dedicated
to putting out a first-rate one.
That's what has reporters at the Daily Bulletin worried.
"As a journalist I have to ask why he is involved
in newspapers," said one newsroom staffer who asked
not to be identified. "He has a love for money
and that's about it. He likes to say he was a reporter
once. Yeah, well, if he was, he sure didn't stick around
long, did he?"
The newsroom employee, who previously worked at a Singleton
newspaper - only to see the long arm of Singleton's
empire claim his career anew - added that the staff
is nervously waiting for the ax to start falling.
Singleton is infamous for cutting costs, through strategies
that are deviously creative. In some cases, he arranges
for the former owner to slash jobs before he arrives.
Alternatively, he inks an "assets sale," in
which he purchases the name, physical plant, subscription
lists, etc., but not the employees - making most reporters
re-interview for jobs at lower pay.
That's exactly what happened last year at the Press-Telegram
in Long Beach, just prior to Christmas. At a few money-losing
newspapers, Singleton's cost cutting has kept the doors
open. Pretty much everywhere it keeps the money flowing
into Media- News coffers.
"We expect the cuts to come on January 29, which
is the last weekday before he takes over," the
Bulletin employee predicted.
Bulletin editor Mike Brossart acknowledged that there
is "some anxiety" in the newsroom but insisted
that major cuts are unlikely at the already lean newspaper.
Not exactly a modern Citizen Kane, Singleton isn't known
as a yellow-dog, hell-raising, war-starting publisher
à la William Randolph Hearst.
To the contrary, where the Hearst name evokes memories
(however shaded) of newspapers' glory days, the name
Singleton often inspires chills of disgust among journalists
who see him as little more than a corporate raider,
albeit one who has spent his entire career in newspapers.
Hardly dodging that characterization, Singleton pointedly
fueled the ire of journalists by saying that if he had
a choice between pleasing a thousand reporters or one
banker, he'd rather please the banker. And Singleton
is reputed to have gloated to reporters at one paper
that news stories were only good for filling spaces
in the paper that he couldn't sell as advertising.
He wasn't nearly so cavalier during interviews with
the Weekly. In a conversation following his purchase
of dailies in the San Gabriel Valley, Singleton attributed
much of his reputation to a handful of journalistic
purists who are living in the past.
"I love reporters. Our newsrooms are made up of
solid reporters. I like them and respect what they do,"
Singleton said. "But all you need is one or two
soreheads to start badmouthing the new owner of the
paper, and it creates a problem. There is nothing wrong
with being a member of the Newspaper Guild, just like
there is nothing wrong with being a member of Rotary.
But I'll be damned if I am going to let the guild or
Rotary tell me how to run my business."
Singleton added, "If you look past those disgruntled
journalists, you'll see growth at my papers, in both
circulation and ad revenues."
Singleton's acquisition of the 68,000-circulation Daily
Bulletin effectively puts him at the reins of nearly
every major regional daily stretching from Chatsworth
to Fontana, from Glendora to Long Beach: The Press-Telegram
in Long Beach, the Daily News in the Valley, the Pasadena
Star-News, the San Gabriel Valley Tribune, the Whittier
Daily News and now the Daily Bulletin are all Singleton
newspapers.
Only Copley's Daily Breeze in Torrance, which is rumored
to be near collapse, remains as a significant L.A. County
daily not owned by either Singleton or Times Mirror,
the parent corporation of the L.A. Times.
Unlike some past purchases, Singleton did not buy the
Daily Bulletin outright, but rather absorbed the paper
and 11 others from Donrey Media Group. In return, Donrey's
Little Rock-based parent company will get a cut of profits
from Singleton's Los Angeles Newspaper Group.
No matter how the corporate dance between Singleton
and Donrey plays out, the competition professes to be
salivating at the chance to hammer Singleton's new paper.
"Hot damn!" exclaimed Tom Bray, managing editor
at the San Bernardino County Sun, a Gannett-owned newspaper
that competes with the Daily Bulletin. "If that's
the way he runs a newspaper," said Bray, referring
to Singleton's reputation, "we can't wait to get
down to it."
If Singleton repeats in Ontario what he did in Long
Beach, it could spell trouble for reporters, readers
and revenues, said Mel Opotowsky, ombudsman for The
Press-Enterprise in Riverside. "It disregards the
dignity of the people who work at the newspaper, and
ultimately, that will be reflected in the pages of the
paper."
Yet Daily Bulletin editor Brossart asserted that some
of the 12 cities in the newspaper's circulation area
may actually get an extra reporter on the beat as a
result of the merger. In some markets, such as Denver,
Singleton has invested resources in papers that otherwise
would be trampled by competitors. That direction would
be good news to readers in cities such as Pomona, many
of whom feel abandoned since Donrey combined the Pomona
Progress Bulletin with the Ontario Daily Report in 1990,
the merger that created the Daily Bulletin. Some staffers
estimate the paper lost well over 10,000 readers in
the sprawling city as a result of the merger - and the
Bulletin's overnight decision to change the name of
the Pomona Valley to the previously unheard-of "Inland
Valley."
"They tried to change history and it didn't work,"
one reporter says. "Can Singleton turn it around?
Who knows?"
In recent years the newspaper, long a voice for lily-white
Reagan Republicans, has struggled with not only its
geography but its design, identity and integrity amid
the Pomona Valley's rapidly diversifying demographics.
"One would think the Daily Bulletin may now produce
more income as a result of the larger, combined ad base,"
says Opotowsky of The Press-Enterprise. "But will
the newsroom see any of it? Or will it go into Singleton's
pocket? I don't think anything is a foregone conclusion."
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