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Journal will continue to serve its readers despite the recession
Newspaper racks line the sidewalk at Harris Teeter in Thruway.
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Published: February 8, 2009
The stunning statement in the commentary piece on this page -- that a third of daily newspapers in the United States could be in bankruptcy by summer -- begs for some local perspective.
No, the Winston-Salem Journal is not on the verge of bankruptcy. Have we been suffering under the worst downturn in the newspaper industry in almost 30 years, or possibly the worst ever? Yes.
The Journal is perhaps better prepared than other, larger-market newspapers to weather the recession.
In addition to its conservative financial culture, the newspaper has been reducing expenses for at least three years to deal with expected changes in the advertising marketplace. And while those changes have lowered revenues, the newspaper has added new niche products, such as magazines, which offer more flexible options for new and traditional advertisers. The Journal also has increased its commercial printing business.
In advertising, the largest source of revenue for the newspaper, the Internet has become the primary vehicle for classified recruitment advertising -- help wanted ads. When this advertising returns in the future, we expect much of it to be directed to journalnow.com. The newspaper will continue to play a vital role in the future in the way cars and homes are marketed and sold, however. In the retail advertising category, the shift by major retailers to preprinted advertising inserts and away from ads on newspaper pages has had a dramatic impact on revenue, but we are renewing our commitment to publish advertising from more local stores and businesses.
In the meantime, the Journal has continued to leverage more of its resources in the past year to improve online publishing where readership is booming. By comparison to many other markets, Winston-Salem has sustained far less injury from the sub-prime loan disaster and the drop in real-estate values. Again, the region's conservative business climate has helped insulate the community from larger problems.
This translates into a less steep decline in overall revenues -- much less than the 20 percent to 25 percent national average for newspapers. Nevertheless, the cutbacks we've been forced to make -- in people and pages -- have been painful to our employees, and to our readers. Companywide, the Journal's staff of 274 full-time employees is down about 20 percent in the past three years. In the newsroom, the number of journalists has dropped about 30 percent. That's due to a combination of voluntary departures, retirements and layoffs. Some very fine people are no longer with us, and we regret that.
In the newsroom, these reductions instigated a large-scale reorganization last year that created more collaborative teams of reporters -- print and online -- editors, photographers and designers. The smaller reporting staff means all reporters have more responsibilities than in the past, but we believe our focus -- as far as staff resources are concerned -- must be on local news. This led to our decision to eliminate staff coverage, for example, of the NFL and NASCAR. Robust coverage of these national sports is available to us from The Associated Press and other sources.
We believe it makes sense to assign our smaller corps of journalists to cover local and regional stories that are not available from other sources. We still do that far better than any other media.
Despite the daily predictions of the demise of American newspapers, we at the Winston-Salem Journal are optimistic. We intend to rise from this recession a stronger organization. Smaller, but more focused than ever before on providing accurate, in-depth local news and information in print and online.
■ Carl Crothers is the vice president and executive editor of the Journal. He can be reached at 727-7277 or ccrothers@wsjournal.com.
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