My local papers are on the block. It's a daily in an affluent suburban area plus a twice-weekly in an incredibly affluent area and a weekly in the beach towns, and there's little local competition- no daily, a weak weekly heavy on entertainment news, no local radio, cable divided among a few different systems. It should be a gold mine, but Copley's managed to get far less from these properties than you'd expect.
Who'll be the new owner? There aren't a lot of candidates. Tribune can't- it owns the Times, and besides the antitrust considerations, the Times is in enough trouble. Gannett? Too far from any other Gannett papers, although it IS possible. McClatchy? Too small, and they'll be digesting Knight Ridder for a while. Lee? Not enough growth potential. Cox? Owns the cable system in Palos Verdes and they don't appear to be in the market for more papers anymore. Media General? Buying TV, not papers.
Nope, it's down to Dean Singleton and Freedom, and Freedom seems more interested in Orange County proper than anything nearby, so it's all up to Singleton. Judging by the papers he owns in the area- the Daily News, Long Beach Press-Telegram, the Pasadena-Whittier-San Gabriel Valley papers- he'd strip the Breeze until it's a vessel for "repurposed" Daily News stories, canned features, and classified ads. Journalism would not be Job One. The Palos Verdes 2x-weekly would probably go the way of the old San Pedro News-Pilot: one page a few times a week in a zoned Breeze. We'd be down to precious little local news in the paper, and, combined with little coverage from local cable and practically none from the Times or local radio and TV (unless someone gets killed or into a high-speed chase), that would mean a substantial population with, for all intents and purposes, no local news.
It doesn't have to be this way, and if someone with a vision buys the papers, perhaps it won't. Herewith, humbly, may I submit some things any sharp buyer of the Daily Breeze, Palos Verdes Peninsula News, and Beach Reporter should know before walking through the door on Torrance Boulevard:
1. The reason the Breeze's circulation is so anemic is because it's barely a local paper. Count the number of purely local stories. It has gotten better in the last year or so, but the paper is still filled with national and international news, stuff from the sister/parent paper in San Diego (including editorials- it's disconcerting to go down to San Diego, pick up a U-T, read it, come home, and, a few days later, read the same editorial, published as if it came from the local editorial board)... in other words, stuff you can get anywhere else. Both the Breeze and the PV News seem to think that just running a lot of prep sports articles in the sports section's plenty enough local news- just paste a picture of sunset off Redondo on the front page or a kid licking an ice cream cone on the Strand and you're all good. You're not. Give people something local that they can't get elsewhere- that means ANYTHING local- and they'll subscribe. Don't, and you get what you have now- most people don't get it, because you can brush through the whole thing in 3 minutes or less.
2. In the same vein, get local columnists. The current star columnist in the Breeze- the ONLY local columnist- doesn't even live here. And he fills at least one column a week with reader e-mails (they write FOR him), and the rest with the kind of wishy-washy old-fart 50s liberal stuff that went out of style 40 years ago. Lots of befuddled "these kids today" stuff that appeals to the same folks who still read "Blondie." Get younger, get relevant, get local.
3. You are not buying a newspaper. Get out of that mindset. You are buying a news gathering and reporting infrastructure. The press and distribution model is doomed, but you can't look at what you're buying as locked into that sheaf of newsprint that someone is forever trying to stick into my face when I walk into Ralphs, offering a low-price trial as if there's anyone in town who isn't aware what's in that paper. You know the future is online, sure, but don't stop there. There's no local TV? Give reporters video cameras and make your own newscast. But that's not what a paper does? Ask WDEL in Wilmington, Delaware what it is, and "AM radio station" is now only part of it- because Delaware has no local commercial TV newscast, they started their own- you can get it as a podcast, too- and it's pretty damn impressive, and they're making money with it. No local radio? Create an audio newscast, podcast it, loop it and stream it. Newspaper, website, online streaming audio, video- there should not be a limit on what you do with the material you generate. THAT'S the real future.
4. While you still feel the need to print a hard copy version of the thing, make it more attractive, more fun, more readable. Think tabloid, not in reporting but in appearance. Or that Berliner size they use in the UK. It's 2006, and the papers look like it's 1973, even after last year's redesign. They're ugly and unwieldy. Go wild and use lots of color and modern design elements. Check out the tabloid versions of the "quality" UK papers, check out the Philadelphia Daily News, look at alt-weeklies. Don't just throw a stack of paper on my driveway at 4 am- give me something I'll be eager to look at, something FUN to look at.
5. More comics, please.
I know, of course, that what we'll probably get is the Dean Singleton strip job- incredibly thin paper, mostly canned stuff, a standardized, ugly tabloid entertainment insert ("U"), and, ultimately, something you get only when you're looking for a car or a job. But a guy can dream, can't he?
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