Mercury Meltdown
Paper To Abandon San Jose?
The San Jose Mercury News recently reported that it’s considering pulling up stakes in San Jose. On Oct. 18, the newspaper reported that it might move many of its offices to another location. Publisher Mac Tully said, “We would be interested in staying in San Jose and we would keep all of our options open.” How nice.
I seem to remember that when the Mercury News was purchased a few years back that the new owners assured that nothing much would change. Here are a few “hits” (and misses) surrounding Dean Singleton, the architect of the Mercury News’ “makeover.”
“Mr. Singleton intends to make a showcase of the San Jose Mercury News…as a kind of laboratory for how to meld print with the web.”
“Mr. Singleton said he had no plans to reduce the staff, change the guard or consolidate operations in the Bay Area under one roof.”
“He earned a reputation as a merciless cost-cutter early in his career and is still known for “clustering” properties…buying contiguous papers so he can combine back-office and even editorial operations.”
(Source for all three quotes: Katharine Seelye, nytimes.com, 5/22/06.)
Perhaps, in the end, it’s not that big a deal. Some critics say that the Mercury News abandoned San Jose long ago. Heck, they might as well go all the way!
It would be nice if the San Jose Mercury News relocated to downtown San Jose, which is where the paper once was and where it belongs.
It would also be nice if the paper used the words “San Jose” in its online masthead, as I’ve mentioned previously.
And maybe focus a little more on the hometown sports teams as opposed to those from the smaller cities to the north with their own papers. Too much to ask, so I’ve been told.
And this just in…The Mercury News is now 75 cents at the newstands! Ya, that makes a lot of sense…raise your price when you’re trying to attract more customers.
PC
Good riddance and let’s hope Mr. Tully finally coughs up some money on his way out of town to take down the unsightly Knight Ridder sign on top of the building in downtown.
The Mercury News should stop pretending to be a major daily paper and just print a few local articles like the Palo Alto Daily. If you removed all the wire stories and NY Times articles, there isn’t much left.
What I heard from a friendly editor is that the Mercury News will outsource abroad every possible aspect of publishing, except for the actual application of ink to slices of dead trees.
Thus the business pages will go to experts abroad who will stay in touch with business leaders here.
Our political leaders will be interviewed by telephone or email from abroad.
Video tapes of council meetings, council committee meetings, and other electronically-captured events will be studied abroad, and the necessary news sent back to San Jose.
Every day at 5:00 PM a small, but sturdy, team of locals will sort through all the stuff sent in, edit it, and make it printable. We will be grateful.
The SJM is currently run by boobs.
They now have an electronic edition that is suppossed to be the exact same as the printed version. Obviously, that is less expensive to produce than the printed version. What they do not take into consideration is that reading from a computer screen SUCKS when compared to reading from an actual piece of paper.
But, I can see advantages to the electronic version. For example, it is easier to read at work, versus having a newspaper open at your work area.
Where they managed to screw up the electronic version idea is weekly subscribers should get the electronic edition for free, not at an additional cost. Even worse, I tried the electronic version during a trial period, and the password they gave me did not work.
I used to think that it might be a good idea for the Chronicle and the Mercury to combine, but now I do not want to see the Chronicle ruined.
#3 – Yeah, I just noticed that. 25 cents more for 25 percent less content. That makes sense.
#2 – Glad to see someone else wishes the Knight Ridder sign would be removed from the Fairmont Towers. It’s been an eyesore from the getgo, especially since it was never centered correctly. Hope the sign the San Fernando entrance is removed too. Wonder if damage was done to the building when it was installed? So amazing that Redevelopment exited the space to make room for KR. It will never be a strong paper, so just let it go, only thing I’d miss would be the obits.
It would be difficult, if not impossible, to imagine a local newspaper less reflective of the daily concerns, values, politics, and interests of its readership than the Mercury News. Aside from the Fry’s ads and classifieds, the local market hasn’t been served by the Mercury, it has been indoctrinated—with a divisive blend of race politics, class warfare, and white guilt. Over the years, in service to agenda rather than reality, the newspaper sent its sophomoric, biased staff out to condemn and vilify our every institution, from the classroom to the courtroom to the boardroom. Racism, not personal or familial failure, was always the headline, a charge dramatic and disturbing enough to sell papers and alter opinions no matter that there was no evidence to follow. The divisive changes brought about by the newspaper’s considerable push, changes that incorporated the reverse discrimination that produces real victims, has done absolutely nothing to alter the demographics of failure. If anything, things are much worse.
The Mercury’s track record for social change is as dismal as are its current revenue projections. It has literally become the know-it-all brat still living at home because the real world has yet to get it right. The once considerable readership loyalty evaporated as it’s own loyalty eventually shifted to those who don’t read newspapers. A worse marketing strategy I cannot imagine, not even had government advise been sought.
The only question left is this: if the Mercury stops printing, will anyone notice?
Finfan,
If the Merc stopped printing people would notice. And despite the comments here they wouldn’t be happy about it.
Despite the Merc’s flaws it is the only real newspaper in San Jose. Let’s face it, the Merc is the starting point for many of the conversations here on SJI. We may not always like the Merc, but most of us read it.
That said, it seems that with every issue the Merc is a little weaker. You can’t just blame the layoffs. Management seems to have adopted a philosophy of “If we can’t be a well staffed newspaper, at least we can generate inflammatory articles that piss people off.”
A newspaper does not need a large staff to be good. But it does need good leadership and a commitment to quality journalism. The Merc seems to have neither.
FFF—Soaring and entirely acurate rhetoric on the Murky-News. Funny how now, as it winds and whines down people notice it isn’t worth reading. It’s been that way for years.
There are many obnoxious traits the paper has always had, but one you touched on—the stay-at-home-adolescent “expert”—has been enraging for years, whether the subject is wine, women, song, politics, dieting or just plain thinking, every issue has had much dis-course, including not a speck of wisdom, let alone research, on what each and every reader must do. Even so, their political rec-ommendations, to keep the liberals in power, pass every tax put forward, have been mostly ignored. Diversity, diversity, diversity, at every turn,without a mention of unum. How about the list of hard-hitting investigative stories on local shenanigans—back even 60 years when the SJ Water Co owned the Board of Soups and every judge. Not a long list—not even a list. And Joe Ridder derailing Bart to the South Bay because it would diminish his influence somehow. Putting the airport in the absolute way of downtown and taking millions of dollars off the tax rolls when neighborhoods were demolished for the landing approach, the true cost of the Taj Gonzales and its negative impact on downtown. So many good stories never touched upon. The Anderson Valley Advertiser has more good stuff on the front page of any issue than the Murk has had in its entire history. And it’s better written. Maybe Scott Herhold could get a pundit job in Booneville when the paper goes.
George Green
Maybe now that Babs Attard is out of work she can go to work as Mercury reporter. She is such an objective and independent thinker she would be a perfect fit, just like all the other Mercury reporters. Why just look at what a great job she did as the “Independent Police Auditor”, notwithstanding her ties to the ACLU and every other group that hates the police. I’m sure that her bias wouldn’t show itself, just as the ‘reporters’ from the Mercury are so well able to mask their own biases and present fair and objectively written news articles. I just can’t understand why Babs is out of a job and the Mercury is going out of business.
If the Murky News evaporated tomorrow, no one would notice. The level of reporting is on a par with a real-estate advertising flyer.
– Since the hey-days of the 1950’s/60’s it has become a dumbed down advertisement for the chamber and other lawyer-types invested in City Politics.
– Very poor grammar, usually at 6th-grade level.
– Lacking in objective deep investigation of politically sensitive issues.
– Ostensibly biased in “who” and “how deep” their hit pieces investigate.
In short, any one in San Jose, or the Santa Clara Valley will gain more insight and more objective balanced reporting from the ‘EPOCH’, or any of the Spanish-language papers, or the San Francisco Papers.
The “Murky” has been increasingly on life support for the last three decades … it’s time to turn off the switch! Let the chamber publish it’s own newsletter directly.
-Resident since the ‘20’s