Writing Shotgun

END CITY HALL’S NEWSPAPER SUBSIDY

Will SwaimSat. March 29
 

OR GIVE IT TO THE DISTRICT!

Missing from P-T reporter Wendy Thomas Russell’s otherwise fine overview of the low-profile battle over city advertising revenue is this: there shouldn’t be any revenue.

“With newspaper revenue falling nationwide, . . . state-mandated ads and notices are in higher demand than ever before,” she wrote today. “In fact, they’ve become rare constants in an industry that’s hemorrhaging classified advertising revenue as more readers turn to a multitude of online alternatives.”

It’s the “online alternatives” that makes such ads—called public-notice advertising—obsolete.

I’m borrowing an idea from Bill Pearl of LBReport here: with the rise of the Internet, Pearl said the other day, it’s stupid to require city governments to pay for advertising anywhere. With Long Beach, LA County and the state government hacking deep into their budgets, it’s time to end the old-school approach. What we need now is a state decision to allow City Halls throughout California to run public-notice advertising on their own websites.

I told Russell as much when we spoke Thursday.

“Are you telling me that you’d put the city’s interests ahead of your own?” she asked.

No, I said. As part of Long Beach, the District—and every other publication scrambling for the windfall from the P-T’s sudden unpopularity at City Hall—wins when the city’s potholes are filled, its kids educated, its streets made safer.

Don’t get me wrong: if the city continues to pour cash into print-advertising campaigns, we’ll do what we can to make sure the money goes to the District, rather than into the coffers of the Denver-based MediaNews Group. We think we’re sexier. We know we’re smarter and more loyal.

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COMMENTS

  1. 1

    You may be sexier, I’ve never seen any of you. Smarter, well on some issues you are in my opinion. But on loyalty, I’ll with hold judgement for a few years. You’re trying to make some money off Long Beach news. That’s great. I don’t fault you for it. I encourage it. But you certainly benefit from a little controversy and aren’t necessarily a beneficiary of Long Beach success. Given that your orgs business is in OC and you live in OC, time will tell before I name you most loyal. The PT has many faults and appears to be sinking lower, but they have been around awhile and certainly have demonstrated loyalty to LB’s interests in more than a few occasions in the past 80 some odd years.

    [report]

    Posted By lbresident on March 29th, 2008 at 4:13 pm

     

  2. 2

    “The PT has many faults and appears to be sinking lower, but they have been around awhile and certainly have demonstrated loyalty to LB’s interests in more than a few occasions in the past 80 some odd years.”

    Make no mistake about it, the only part of the PT that’s been around for eighty years is it’s name. All operations are outside of Long Beach, save for a handful of reporters. Any loyalty it has shown is coincident to its operation for profit, as it should be in a free market economy.

    This is why the concept of “loyalty” is a misplaced emotion when it comes to patronizing corporate entities. The PT has shown it’s low regard for me as a reader by shrinking it’s news content down to its current small size, while not reducing its editorial content, i.e, telling me how to think. There will need to be a lot of changes in the way it does business before I send a quarter down a coin chute for the PT.

    Both The District and the PT target a demographic to make a profit, and editorialize accordingly, sometimes subtly, sometimes not. The Grunion Gazette had my loyalty when Fran & Jon owned it, but now, as a Dean Singleton joint, it’s taken on some of MediaNews’ bad traits. I choose Bill Pearl as my go-to source for Long Beach news because he’s the local guy operating on a shoestring.

    Bottom line? I’m not going to tattoo any news source’s name on my ass. Do what you think is the right thing, and I’ll let you put your cookies on my computer for a few minutes before I wipe ‘em out.

    [report]

    Posted By Sam Lowry on March 29th, 2008 at 5:46 pm

     

  3. 3

    I felt a sense of instantaneous alarm, a feeling of “oh no, here we go again” when I read Press-Telegram reporter Wendy Thomas Russell say, “Whether the city of Long Beach could pull its advertising without rewriting the City Charter is debatable.”

    The rewriting of the City Charter is not an action to be taken without serious consideration. The City Charter is our “constitution” and can not be changed without approval of the people of Long Beach. The City Charter is the rules and regulations that must be followed and obeyed. To put it another way, the City Charter is the dos and don’ts of how the City of Long Beach is mandated by Charter to function.

    Following is an example of recent abuse of the City Charter by the Long Beach City Council and shows how circumvention of the dos and don’ts resulted in a very well orchestrated power exchange at City Hall.

    Dave Weilanga of The District Weekly reported (Wed. October 17, 2008) the announcement of the resignation of Assistant City Manager Christine Shippey to take effect in December 2007.

    “According to the City Hall power schematic,” wrote Weilanga, “Shippey’s steady rise through the ranks of Long Beach city government was scheduled to land her in the city manager’s office—the most-powerful room in town—when Jerry Miller retired last summer…

    “Sure enough, Shippey was appointed acting city manager during the search for Miller’s successor, traditionally the last step before coronation. Surprise! The Council picked relative newcomer Pat West instead.

    “Shippey was even shortchanged on the acting city manager gig. Hoping to make the search process fairer, the Council replaced her with Police Chief Anthony Batts—who had been reporting to Shippey for the past three years. Can you say “uncomfortable”? Yeah, but apparently not for very long. “The discomfort lasted less than a week,” says Batts, who returned to his duties as police chief.

    According to the Long Beach City Charter (Sec.303. VACANCY.), Whenever a vacancy occurs in the office of the City Manager, the City Council shall proceed immediately to appoint a City Manager. Until a City Manager is appointed and has assumed the duties of the office, the Assistant City Manager shall be designated as Acting City Manager. He shall perform all of the duties of City Manager and be vested with all the powers of City Manager as set forth in this Charter. The Assistant City Manager shall continue in the position of Acting City Manager until a new City Manager has been appointed and has assumed the duties of that office.

    Chief of Police Batts was put in as a “blocker” to take out Acting City Manager Christine Shippey so Mayor Bob Foster and the City Council could clear the field and allow Pat West to become City Manager.

    Political power is never given, it is taken.

    [report]

    Posted By Dwight K Snider on March 30th, 2008 at 2:05 am

     

  4. 4

    CORRECTION: Dave Wielenga is the correct spelling of the The District Weekly writer quoted above.

    [report]

    Posted By Dwight K Snider on March 30th, 2008 at 10:36 am

     

  5. 5

    Seems to me that a lot of folks claiming to know all about legal notices actually know very little about newspaper law. There is a big difference between being adjudicated for L.A. County and being adjudicated for a city. Charter or no charter…law is law.
    Maybe the city needs to have their attorney look in to the matter…or give me a call; I’ll be happy to share what I know about newspaper law - information I’ve been trying to share with the city for the past two years. After dozens of phone calls to the powers that be - with promises of “an answer,” I gave up and went on with the business of running a paper. Thanks to Tonia the matter is finally out in the open.
    Neena Strichart/Publisher,Signal Tribune

    [report]

    Posted By Neena Strichart/Publisher on March 30th, 2008 at 7:11 pm

     

  6. 6

    “”We think we’re sexier. We know we’re smarter and more loyal.”"

    WOW! I think everyone realizes you guys are a bunch of bitter ex-PT employees taking out their frustrations on the staff thats left. Thats right, I said you are taking it out on the staff! Your rails against management, even though they are mostly from uninformed sources, are one thing, but when you guys attack hennessey, or other staffers, your motives become clear.

    [report]

    Posted By wow on March 30th, 2008 at 10:47 pm

     

  7. 7

    “”We think we’re sexier. We know we’re smarter and more loyal.””

    First of all you must be one of the ( well into retirement age ) PT managers who hears no evil, sees no evil and speaks no evil.
    I think the ” loyalty ” comment was towards their staff and readers, meaning media news has no loyalty to their staff or readers.

    As a reward for the PT readers ” loyalty ” for more than 100 years, the readers are now spoon fed OC Register, Breeze, and LA Daily News stories.

    Comments from LAT writer Tim Rutten via LAOobserved in 2006.

    Tim Rutten: His Saturday column in the Times argues that much is at stake in the inner Tribune dispute over the size of the paper’s staff:
    To borrow a homey image from Henry Adams’ agrarian America, the smart guys among our newspaper managers will not be the ones who eat their own seed corn simply to fatten themselves through another fleeting season.
    Whether newspapers belong to individual proprietors or corporate stockholders, the future — and its profits — will belong to those who are both socially responsible enough and financially hard-headed enough to carry what is indispensable about the present into the era now struggling to be born.

    Los Angeles will be one of the places where we’ll eventually find out whether newspaper journalism’s current distress is a birth pang or a death rattle.

    [report]

    Posted By Eat Your Corn Hole on March 31st, 2008 at 12:18 am

     

  8. 8

    The issue here is not who should get City Hall funds for legal filings. The issue is why are the filings going to the Press-Telegram?
    I hate to mention this to the legal wonks at City Hall, but the Long Beach City Charter is irrelevant because state law supersedes it on this matter. California Gov’t Code 6041 specifically addresses where legal filings “by any State, county or city officer, by the officer of any political subdivision of the State, or by any officer of any court” are to be published. The code is quite clear. They “shall be given or made only in a newspaper of general circulation published within the jurisdiction of the officer.”
    The somewhat subjective portions here are where the PT currently falls through the cracks. Namely, how does the state define “general circulation” and what is meant by “published.”
    One could argue that the PT meets the circulation requirement under any circumstance. Its 80,000 a day circulation is well above any other daily publication in the immediate area. Under such a broad term, though, most of the other papers would meet the state definition as well.
    So what does the state mean by “published?” The PT is not printed, managed, composed, or edited in Long Beach. The printing aspect is somewhat unimportant because there are no newsprint printers able to print a daily newspaper in Long Beach. The closest is Gardena or Santa Ana. The other failings of the PT however (not managed, composed, or edited in LB) would seem to combine to disqualify it as a daily paper “published” in the area, under most people’s definition of “published.” However, if the state takes “published” to mean “distributed” then the PT would certainly qualify.
    Sadly, for the other papers in the area, getting the legal filings, no matter where or in what medium these other publications are published, will be an uphill battle. California Gov’t Code 6041.2 explicitly states what will happen if the PT is deemed to not fulfill its role as a “general circulation” paper “published” in the jurisdiction: the code says the “advertising shall be given or made in a newspaper of general circulation published nearest thereto.” I am not sure of the geographic mileage, but that would probably be the Daily Breeze or the OC Register.
    And be careful what you wish for Dave and Bill. If the state law were changed to cover online publications, the clause about being published in the area would have to be removed simply due to the remote nature of the Internet. Qualification would likely have to be phrased around local web traffic. And I hate to say it, but Yahoo or Google get more hits in this area than all the local publications’ websites combined. Change the state law to include online and you can almost bet that City Hall will still be sending their money out of town, just as they are with the PT now.

    [report]

    Posted By KHigginbotham on March 31st, 2008 at 6:28 am

     

  9. 9

    “The PT is not printed, managed, composed, or edited in Long Beach.”

    Is the District printed, managed, composed or edited in LB? I am asking not commenting. I really don’t know. My guess is most of the managing and editing is done out of the owner’s Irvine house / office. Don’t know though…

    [report]

    Posted By lbresident on March 31st, 2008 at 11:15 am

     

  10. 10

    and here i thought you district types were bitter ex OCweekly employees! live and learn!

    [report]

    Posted By howardx on March 31st, 2008 at 11:33 am

     

  11. 11

    Depending on whom you listen to in this string, The District is either (Comment 6) “a bunch of bitter ex-PT employees taking out their frustrations on the staff thats left,” or (Comment 1) the “orgs business is in OC and you live in OC.” While it’s true I live in Irvine–I know: I live with your shaming every day–the “orgs business” is in Long Beach. That’s where our office is, and that’s where the “bitter ex-PT employees” take out their frustrations on . . . wait a minute . . . I’m getting a message. What’s that? Only two of the 14 staffers (Dave Wielenga and Theo Douglas) worked for the PT?

    But the point of this has nothing to do with us trying to claim that we’re more Long Beach than the PT, and everything to do with–what’d I write in my original post?–oh, yes: “with the rise of the Internet, . . . it’s stupid to require city governments to pay for [public-notice] advertising anywhere. With Long Beach, LA County and the state government hacking deep into their budgets, it’s time to end the old-school approach. What we need now is a state decision to allow City Halls throughout California to run public-notice advertising on their own websites.”

    Can I just apologize for muddying that simple communication with anything else about loyalty and sexiness and intelligence?

    And can we all agree that spending the taxpayers’ money on print advertising of public notices–ever, but maybe especially now–is wrong?

    [report]

    Posted By Will Swaim on March 31st, 2008 at 2:34 pm

     

  12. 12

    The answer is no. We cannot and do not “all agree that spending the taxpayers’ money on print advertising of public notices–ever, but maybe especially now–is wrong.”

    [report]

    Posted By Dwight K Snider on April 2nd, 2008 at 11:54 am

     

  13. 13

    “The answer is no. We cannot and do not “all agree that spending the taxpayers’ money on print advertising of public notices–ever, but maybe especially now–is wrong.”

    Explain.

    [report]

    Posted By Andrew Williams on April 6th, 2008 at 2:48 pm

     

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