This week, Michigan mainstream news organizations overlooked perhaps the biggest business and news and information story to hit the state in some time. After several years of buyouts at each of its eight dailies, the Booth Newspaper chain announced a chainwide buyout that extends to employees with a scant five-years seniority. It also said it would consolidate design and copy editing for the entire chain at a universal desk in Grand Rapids. (At least it wasn't Bangalore.)
Perhaps the Booth papers can be excused from covering the announcement with almost identical briefs. But where is the competition for this story? Where are the Detroit publications? Where is the mainstream business press?
Here's why this is a big deal: This chain of outstate dailies is a critical piece of the state's news and information infrastructure. It represents Michigan's greatest concentration of on-the-ground reporters -- you know, the ones who attend meetings, interview public officials, and break hot scoops. Booth publications share news stories with each other and prompt other organizations to follow the stories they break.
(Disclosure: Yes, I'm biased. I worked a dozen years in Booth's state capital bureau. It's a chain that has demonstrated a strong history of commitment to my favorite beat, the environment.)
No one knows how many reporters will take this buyout, but the conclusion is inescapable that after already significant downsizing there will be even fewer journalists watching what's going on.
Booth is a division of Newhouse. Mired in a terrible local economy ravaged by the auto downturn, perhaps it should be credited for holding out as long as it has. But if you want news and context of Booth's retrenchment, you'll need to turn to what's eating the mainstream media's lunch.
On Nov. 12, Paper Tiger No More (a blog written by former Ann Arbor News staffer Jim Carty) ran perhaps the fullest account of this story. There were several other trenchant blog and e-mail list posts as information percolated from staffers and others. That's right: To find context on the unraveling of local news orgs, you need to turn to what's driving (in part) this painful news transformation.
To follow developments and views as this issue unfolds, follow the Twitter hashtag #booth. Several people are contributing updates.
Guest contributor David Poulson is associate director of the Knight Center for Environmental Journalism at Michigan State University
