Long Beach lost its daily newspaper today. The Press-Telegram, a name synonymous with local journalism for 110 years, suffered deep staff cuts and a corporate restructuring that leaves it as little more than a bureau for the Torrance-based Daily Breeze.

MediaNews Group, Inc., the corporate parent of both papers, fired Press-Telegram publisher Dave Kuta, managing editor John Futch and nine newsroom employees, then placed the operation under the control of Daily Breeze publisher Mark Ficarra – who has been on the job for little more than one month. Twelve other P-T employees will join the staff at the Daily Breeze.

“It’s a fatal shot to our efforts to maintain local control of our coverage,” said Joe Segura, veteran P-T reporter and leader of the paper’s unionized newsroom employees.

Press-Telegram Executive Editor Rich Archbold will keep his job, and reporters figured that was probably why he characterized Friday’s bloodbath as “kind of a bittersweet day.” Archbold thus extends his 30-plus-year tenure at the Press-Telegram, where in a variety of management positions — managing editor, editor, judge in the annual Halloween costume contest — he has presided over the steady decline of the paper.

Meanwhile, Press-Telegram newsroom employees had been working without a contract for more than a year while negotiating to stop the steady dismantling of the once-great paper by its over-leveraged corporate owner. Now, another bunch of them won’t be working at all.

The 11 cuts announced today during a series of late-morning meetings in the Press-Telegram’s office suites on Ocean Blvd. brought the body count for the week to 14. Reporters Don Jergler and Hanna Chu resigned a few days ago and photographer Kevin Chang checked out Thursday. The Press-Telegram now has 10 reporters to “cover” the 19 cities it claims as its territory.

Friday’s developments only made official what was becoming more and more evident in recent months. As The District reported in December, ultimate authority over the P-T’s coverage already had been shifted to Phillip Sanfield, the editor of the Daily Breeze. Sanfield began informing P-T employees that he was in charge — above Archbold on the chain of command — as soon as he arrived.

Sanfield denied he was calling the shots at the P-T when contacted by The District in December.

“I don’t want to spend much time talking with you about this, except to say that you’re not correct!” Sanfield snapped in what, as he promised, turned out to be a very short telephone interview. “I’m working with the editors at the Press-Telegram, working with Rich [Archbold] and John [Futch], looking at how we can do things as a group, more efficiently, between our two papers. Okay? Thanks.”

Sanfield cut off a follow-up question by hanging up.

But his denial was contradicted by several of the P-T’s reporters. “Sanfield has told us that, when push comes to shove, he has the authority to make the decisions,” said Segura. “He has said it a number of times. He’s not too shy about talking to reporters who are not from The District.”

Tags: Daily Breeze, Daily News, dean singleton, death of journalism, Joe Segura, John Futch, Long Beach, Mark Ficarra, medianews group, Philip Stansfield, press telegram, Rich Archbold, Torrance

COMMENTS

1

I worked for a Dean Singleton paper for nearly four years before I jumped ship. I wanted to stay in SoCal, so the only option I had was a couple of alt-weeklies, online mags or the LA Times. (I worked for Freedom before and I’m never going back). Seeing as the Times has its own problems and I’m not witty or self-loathing enough to work for the alt-weeklies, I took a leap to the darkside: PR. It’s not what I was trained to do, but at least I know I have job security. It sucks to be a print journalist nowadays.

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Posted By The Commish on February 29th, 2008 at 9:18 am
2

This has become a self-fulfilling prophesy. Less relevant news=less local interest. Corporatizing doesn’t bring efficiencies when it comes to reporting, but it does when you are trying to get out of reporting.

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Posted By Andy on February 29th, 2008 at 9:48 am
3

In the honored traditon of journalism on the death of a newspaper let’s hold a wake. I suggest O’Connell’s tonight after the P-T is put to bed. Let’s put some large photograph’s of Dean Singleton on the floor next to the toilets and urinals. Everybody should drink as much beer and booze as possible until their bladders reach a point of near explosion. Then, when they go to the heads to relieve themselves everybody can ”overshoot the target” and express their opinions of Mr. Singleton. This will give new meaning to being ”piss drunk, pissed-off and pissed-on.”

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Posted By Dwight K. Snider on February 29th, 2008 at 12:11 pm
4

“”Don Jergler and Hanna Chu, have already voluntarily resigned this week.”"

Come on guys - this is a good enough story with the district writers embellishing it.

Chu and Jergler did not “voluntary resign” - they both found other jobs a week befoer the layoffs were announced. The way you write it makes it sound like they quit because the layoff were coming - one thing had nothing to do with the other.

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Posted By District Watcher on February 29th, 2008 at 1:47 pm
5

when you leave a job because you have found other employment isnt it always a “voluntary resignation”?

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Posted By howardx on February 29th, 2008 at 2:16 pm
6

OMG, that changes everything.

Still sounds like they saw the writing on the wall…no matter how you choose to spin it.

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Posted By Andy on February 29th, 2008 at 2:18 pm
7

Stevie Wonder could see the writing on the wall in that place. Take a walk through the halls of the P-T offices, you can cut the tension with a knife. My question is, who will The District spar with next? Going after the P-T anymore is like watching the prodding those “downed” cows.

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Posted By District Reader on February 29th, 2008 at 3:24 pm
8

Well, I can’t wait to read about all the exciting goings on in the South Bay. Oh, and the LB Chamber of Commerce press releases.

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Posted By Andy on February 29th, 2008 at 4:33 pm
9

Regarding the post by District Watcher about the “voluntary resignations,” I don’t know the circumstances of Hanna Chu’s departure (except that, yes, she did find other employment) but I know that Don Jergler is leaving the Press-Telegram (again, yes, for other employment) after having run out of patience with the disintegrating circumstances there. He loved the P-T, but it would not love him back.

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Posted By Dave Wielenga on February 29th, 2008 at 5:30 pm
10

Note: Don Jergler and Hanna Chu did find better digs and gave their notice to the P-T, two fine reporters whose positions (confirmed by management) will NOT be filled.

In 1997 when Media News purchased the P-T and wages of newsroom staff was slashed 21% one reporter on her way out told me - ten years from now the Press-Telegram will be nothing more than a storefront operation. How right she was.

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Posted By Former P-T subscriber on February 29th, 2008 at 5:40 pm
11

You know what else sucks about this?

The philanthropists over at MediaNews waited to pull this until Feb. 29–which means there isn’t even a real anniversary marking the day when the one daily newspaper covering the state’s fifth largest city ceased to exist.

That’s awesome. See you in–what?–2012?

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Posted By Theo Douglas on February 29th, 2008 at 5:50 pm
12

Just to clarify: The mass exodus has been going on for a little while now. The consolidation and threats of layoffs hanging over our heads is what’s motivating all the “voluntary resignations.” Counting back about a year at least eleven other employees (who liked working at the PT and would not have otherwise left so soon) also left the newsroom for other “employment opportunities”-including a couple of editors. Two others (who also loved working at the paper) were laid off last summer when the library was dismantled. (though the official word was that one of them retired).
It’s a sad day when the company looks at all these hard-working dedicated employees only as a liability.

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Posted By now-former journo on March 1st, 2008 at 12:32 am
13

Well, I see two reasons for the downfall. First, advertising revenues have fallen. Virtually every publication has suffered this calamity. Being that not many lucrative businesses exist in Long Beach, there isn’t a whole lot of advertising to go around. Second, the Press Telegram degenerated to a pro-establishment newspaper. This being the case, why would anyone seek a journalistic source that is biased?

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Posted By Juan on March 1st, 2008 at 11:57 am
14

In each issue there were only about two or three real “local” news stories. The rest were wire service reports or features that could appear in any paper. I tried to keep buying it, but the less reporting staff resulted in less reason to buy the paper.

I don’t buy the “not many lucrative businesses” line. There’s plenty of advertising revenue, if there’s circulation content to back it up. But publishers and media conglomerates are interested in recovering debt as quickly as possible. Not attempting understand the new dynamic of online/print interaction.

You’re definitely right about the general decline of revenue and lack of any type of serious deep reporting by the P-T (not blaming the writers here).

Small, local papers can be profitable: there was an article in Editor and Publishers about them (which I can’t find the link to right now…)

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Posted By Andy on March 1st, 2008 at 5:40 pm
15

Here is the link on Stress-telegram http://www.lbreport.com/news/feb08/ptnot.htm

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Posted By journo on March 1st, 2008 at 8:45 pm
16

oops http://lbguild9400.blogspot.com/2008/02/small-m...

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Posted By journo on March 1st, 2008 at 8:46 pm
17

I’m with Andy (No 14): the argument that there aren’t “many lucrative businesses” is plain wrong. Long Beach has the business to support good journalism through advertising. What it didn’t have with the P-T was a management team committed to real journalism. No matter how talented the P-T’s staff, management proved unwilling to let the staffers off the leash to tell the stories worth telling. This doesn’t mean there weren’t other, broader problems–orgs like Craigslist devouring classified; spiking paper, benefit and fuel costs; national advertisers looking for one-stop shopping with big newspaper chains rather than small-town papers.

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Posted By gorilla warfare on March 2nd, 2008 at 8:20 am
18

Not sure that anyone cares, but I am a former PT employee. I just blogged about this on my site. Yeah, that sounds like spam, but it’s better than copying and pasting my long rant here.
http://jimhallsleepsallday.blogspot.com

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Posted By Jim Hall on March 2nd, 2008 at 6:14 pm
19

Gorilla warfare — I couldn’t agree with you more. Archibold & Co., were unwilling to take on the sacred cows of the city. He can never dispute such a contention.

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Posted By Juan on March 4th, 2008 at 8:46 am

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