The New York Times ran its first page one display ad on Monday.
And now the Boston Globe is following suit.
Back in July of last year I suggested that the Herald think about renting out their "prime front page real estate" as a way of bolstering their bottom line. They do run ads on the front of the local section.
But how long before we start seeing ads on 1A of the Herald now that the big boys are doing it?
White Angel Breadline, San Francisco (1933) by Dorothea Lange (via artnet.com)...
If you have a lunch appointment coming up with Miami New Times editor Chuck Strouse, chances are you'll be picking up the tab...for both lunches.
According to an internal memo written on New Year's Eve by Village Voice Media - New Times parent company - boss Michael Lacey, all "VVM Publishers and Editors are taking 10% pay reductions until our revenues begin to grow again." Apparently that includes Chuck.
Here's the entire memo:December 31, 2008
To all Village Voice staffers:
It's no secret that the chickens have come home to roost from the George Bush economy of the past eight years. We have all felt the downturn at Village Voice Media operations and, as you know, have been trimming expenses since December of 2007
Unfortunately, this year we have found it necessary to make staff reductions and have placed all staff openings on hold.
We are also going to take these additional measures effective January 1, 2009:
1) All VVM senior managers and officers, including Larkin and Lacey, are taking 15% pay reductions.
2) VVM Publishers and Editors are taking 10% pay reductions until our revenues begin to grow again.
3) We will suspend the Village Voice Media match into our 401-K plan. The plan will still remain open and we urge you to take advantage of the tax deferred personal savings advantages.
We hope that these measures will be the last steps we have to take until our business improves, however will continue to be watchful as 2009 progresses.
We believe in our local publishing and local digital businesses. It is our conclusion that the downturn in weekly publishing is largely cyclical and that as daily newspapers continue their decline, we will have numerous publishing opportunities in the markets we serve.
Many of you know that Village Voice Media digital businesses are growing and expanding quickly. As this current economic nightmare ends, Village Voice Media will be well positioned for the future in both digital and print.
We have navigated tough times before and although this seems the roughest stretch we've ever seen, we are confident that the content Village Voice Media operations produce and market daily will carry the day in whatever format the future might serve, print or digital.
We appreciate the effort each of you make to insure our success every day. Should you have any comments or questions please feel free to contact your publisher or either of us below.
Thank you,
Jim Larkin
Michael Lacey
Chances are you won't be reading about this in the pages of New Times.
They've been pretty much close-mouthed on VVM's financial woes.
Broward New Times media watchdog Bob Norman finally got around to writing about the subject last week some 48 hours after my first post on the subject.
In the spring of 2005 at a meeting of the American Society of Newspaper Editors a speaker put up a slide of Craig Newmark. He then asked....how many people in the room of several hundred recognized him or his name? Only a smattering of hands rose. A few more hands went up at the mention of Craigslist and its free classifieds.
Here's a guy who was taking business worth millions of dollars from newspapers and the people who who ran those papers didn't even know his name.
Newspapers in one city - San Francisco - had already lost $50 million to $65 million in employment advertising revenue to Craigslist according to a 2004 report.
Phil Bronstein, former SF Chroncle editor and now an editor-at-large with Hearst Newspapers admitted just today that mistakes were made:"But the notion that we old media institutions are still the big boys, so much more more important and, well, HEFTIER than these pesky digital newcomers sounds familiar: we had the exact same view of things when CraigsList started cranking up at the beginning of the 2000s.
"We were up to important things then, too important to worry about this quirky little community, sell-your-bicycle site. Weren't we? Hundreds of millions of dollars in lost classified revenues later, newspapers no longer feel that way. Too late for crying."
And it's well documented that the people who run newspapers pretty much missed the boat in grasping the importance of the Internet.
And now they have another problem....blogs!
The proliferation of blogs is a part of the democratization of the delivery of information.
Newspaper decision makers who ignore this fact are making the same mistake as those who failed to grasp the importance of the Internet and Craigslist, hoping perhaps, that those two entities would go away.
Our hometown paper - The Miami Herald - is a microcosm and might well be the poster child for problems that continue to plague the newspaper industry.
And it's missing the boat again.
Can you remember the last time you read a story in the Herald or on its website that talked about or linked to a local blog?
That's right...almost never!
Occasionally one of the Herald's blogs will link to a local blog.
But for the most part the Herald continues to deny that bloggers exist in South Florida.
Many blogs in South Florida - including this blog - link to Herald stories many times a week. SFDB links to all of South Florida's three newspapers everyday. For many, a visit to SFDB is a must first thing in the morning...even before a visit to MiamiHerald.com.
And there's some damn good writing showing up on some of our blogs. And there's stuff you won't read anywhere else.
Why can't the Herald reprint some of the best writing from South Florida's blogosphere on its op-ed pages once a week or more often? And what's wrong with devoting a section of their website with links to some of South Florida's best blogs.
Other segments of South Florida media occasionally recognize the existence of bloggers.
But not the Herald.
Those in power at the paper can no longer afford to ignore bloggers as they did with the Internet and Craigslist. We're not going away. We're here to stay.
In September of last year David Letterman said to John McCain after McCain blew off an appearance on his show during the campaign: "You don't come to see me, well we might not see YOU on Inauguration Day!"
To paraphrase Letterman, bloggers to the Miami Herald: Ignore us and we might just start ignoring you!
And a final thought to those in charge at the Herald: There's not much riding on this...just your survival!
Making predictions about Fidel Castro and Cuba can be embarrassing.
Just ask Herald columnist Andres Oppenheimer, who, in 1993 wrote a book on Castro with the least prophetic title imaginable: Castro's Final Hour: The Secret Story Behind the Coming Downfall of Communist Cuba. Ok, so he was off by just a few years.
But with the fiftieth anniversary of Castro's revolution behind us I think I can safely say that his days are numbered.
I'll even go out on a limb and predict that Friday, April 10, 2009 will be D-Day for Castro. "D" as in Dead!
Historically speaking he's already dead. The only thing left for him to do is....well....die.
Newspapers all over the world already have written his obituary.
All they need to do is put new top on their stories containing a few details like the time and date of his death and then start the presses!
But you don't have to wait that long.
Because much of what will happen on the day he dies is so predictable and on the off chance you might be really busy on April 10, here's a Random Pixels Exclusive! -- a look at first few paragraphs of the "Bearded One's" obit along with the Herald's front page the following day:HAVANA - (AP) - Fidel Castro Ruz, the intractable and defiant leader of Cuba for nearly half a century, died peacefully in his sleep Friday according to a statement read on Cuban state radio. He was 82.
The bearded lawyer-turned-rebel seized power in Cuba on Jan. 1, 1959, relinquishing it only after he fell ill in 2006.
Cuban television broadcast pictures of thousands of tearful Cuban citizens milling in the streets of Havana.
Meanwhile in Miami, tens of thousands of Cuban-Americans, many of who weren't even born when Castro came to power, took to the streets in noisy celebration.
Miami police shut down streets in many sections of Miami's Little Havana district including large stretches of famed Calle Ocho.
A police spokesman reported numerous traffic jams.
The spokesman also said his department had made about a dozen arrests including two television station live truck operators who got into an fight over a parking space at the Versailles Restaurant.
So, there you have it. I might be off on the date of his death by a few months but I think I have everything else right.
Because while much of what takes place in Cuba is so unpredictable (Andres Oppenheimer can vouch for that); a lot of what happens here in Miami is easy to predict.
White Angel Breadline, San Francisco (1933) by Dorothea Lange (via artnet.com)
