The Biz Blog

The (Baltimore) Sun took the layoff binge to a new level of carnage Tuesday and Wednesday when it showed 61 people the door, including a dozen top editors. Along the way it dashed cold water on the hopes of local businessman Ted Venetoulis to return the paper to local ownership and operate it as "a high quality, full-service" newspaper.

 

Venetoulis and other local backers have been working on a deal to acquire the paper for years and thought they were close as recently as a few weeks ago. But complications involving Tribune Co.'s bankruptcy proceedings had pushed the schedule back several months, Venetoulis said in a phone interview.

And by ditching so many experienced print editors, Tribune Co. could be signalling that it plans to continue running the operation itself rather than selling it.

 

"One assumes that the publishers have balanced the need to respond to economic conditions," Venetoulis said, "with a need to provide a quality editorial product." But he sounded doubtful.

 

I have been speaking with Venetoulis on background since an introduction through a mutual friend in January, and he attended a Poynter conference in March on nonprofits and the future of news. He went on the record on several matters in our conversation today.

 

Venetoulis has been a strong supporter of Maryland Sen. Ben Cardin's proposal to allow newspapers to operate as nonprofits and receive contributions from individuals and foundations that would be tax-exempt. The structure fits Venetoulis' plans for raising money for the Sun venture, but he has also said that he and his group would go ahead and buy the paper anyhow as a for-profit business if he could close the deal.

 

A former Baltimore County Executive (an elected position), Venetoulis owns a group of community newspapers and has said he is realistic about the financial distress of the Sun and other metros. But late in his career, he is willing to take it on and has pitched potential investors that saving the paper is comparable to past efforts in Baltimore mobilizing the business community to save the city's sports franchises.

 

Among potential contributors is the Abell Foundation, a midsized Baltimore community foundation, with the twist that its founding money came from the family that once owned The Sun.

 

The group's first pass at buying the paper was several years ago while Tribune was still a public company. Negotiations with Sam Zell and his management team have run hot and cold. But the asking price has fallen steadily, and Venetoulis said he thought the two sides had reached agreement.

 

The dismissals Tuesday included, among others, a deputy managing editor, the copy desk chief, the editorial page and op-ed editors and three regional bureaus chiefs -- the core of editors who know the city well and put out the paper every day. Guild leadership has said 40 more newsroom employees and lower-level editors got pink slips Wednesday.

 

That suggests radical innovation, such as cutting back print and swinging to an online-dominant strategy. And that is what Renee Mutchnik, director of marketing and communications for the Baltimore Sun Media Group, said is driving the cuts.

"We are going to become a 24-hour local newsgathering operation that more effectively gathers news and distributes it among our many platforms," including print, online and mobile, Mutchnik said. "This is our plan for success, not just survival."

Mutchnik confirmed that 61 employees were laid off, both editors and Guild-represented employees. The vast majority were not reporters, she said. "We are really committed to having the same number of feet on the street as we have in the past," she said.

 

Sun editor Monty Cook dropped some strong hints of his plans for the Sun's future in a presentation two week ago at Johns Hopkins University. "The days of the six-part series are gone," he said, while indicating that the Sun's future is online with blogs, social media and Twitter playing prominent supporting roles to traditional news. That's a direction about 180 degrees opposite what Venetoulis hopes to do.

 

Venetoulis said that he remains optimistic that his group will acquire the paper and wanted to be circumspect in not rendering a snap judgment on the cutbacks.

 

David Simon, a former Sun reporter and the high-energy creator of the HBO series "The Wire," did not hold back in a comment on his Facebook page: "I (am) revulsed at what happened at the Baltimore Sun this week. ... It's almost unfathomable. The Baltimore newspaper's only plan is slow suicide, with Chicago leeching the last nickels and dimes even to the moment when they shutter the doors. Never has an industry so willingly butchered itself or shown its own product such contempt."