Editor&Publisher's Top 10 Story for 2005

E&P's Top 10 Newspaper Industry Stories of 2005 Fri Dec 23, 1:51 PM ET

The newspaper industry had quite the rollercoaster year in 2005, with many of the twists and turns leading down rather than up. We saw anonymous sourcing attacked, blockbuster deals struck, and, of course, cuts, cuts and more cuts.

Still, the daily miracle survived, albeit with a need for changes and a continued uncertainty on how to get there. With that, I offer my choices for the top 10 newspaper industry events of 2005. Good, bad and, too often, greedy.

10. Pulitzer Prize allows online entries in all categories.

For the often-stodgy and unbending Pulitzer Prizes -- still hailed as THE journalism award after nearly 90 years on the mantle -- change is a four-letter word. Rules for the Columbia University School of Journalism prizes, which have been credited with sparking many a salary raise and promotion, have remained pretty much the same since 1917. The journalism awards go only to newspapers, the 19-member board has the final say, and finalists are never revealed early -- except when (always) they're leaked.

So when the Pulitzer keepers announced they would allow online submissions in all categories, after only tolerating them in the Public Service award, it marked a sign that Web journalism had arrived and those vying for the annual competition would have an even broader canvas on which to create.

9. Los Angeles Times loses John Carroll, gains first black editor Dean Baquet.

One of the most-respected veterans of newspapering, John Carroll had already earned his stripes as an editor at The Sun of Baltimore and Lexington (Ky) Herald-Leader when he was recruited to pick up the pieces of the troubled Los Angeles Times in 2000. Nursing a black eye from the embarrassing Staples Center scandal -- in which the paper had devoted an entire issue to the city's new sports arena, and allowed the arena to sponsor the issue -- the Times needed a respected and able trainer to return it to contention. Within four years, the paper was back on its feet and then some, winning five Pulitzer Prizes in 2004 and making the past scandal a faint memory.

But the same Tribune Co. that had come to the rescue as the paper's new owner five years ago decided this year to sharpen its slashing knife, with dozens of cuts and cost-cutting demands that eventually prompted Carroll to leave. Carroll's departure paved the way for managing editor Dean Baquet to take the reigns, making history as the paper's first black editor and making the Times the highest-circulation paper with an African-American running the newsroom. But Baquet may also have the toughest editor's job in the industry as he seeks to steer the paper through the changing world of multimedia, and do it with fewer resources.

8. Lee Enterprises Buys Out Pulitzer.

The acquisition of Pulitzer Inc., owners of the St. Louis Post-Dispatch, Arizona Daily Star, and a dozen other papers by Lee Enterprises, pushed Iowa-based Lee into the big time, making it the fourth-largest newspaper company in the nation. But belt-tightening soon followed when the Post-Dispatch announced newsroom cutbacks would reduce the editorial staff by 12%, which sparked Editor Ellen Soeteber to quit and add to an already battered industry.

7. Detroit newspapers triple deal

The biggest blockbuster trade in Detroit this year had nothing to do with the Tigers, Lions, or Pistons. In fact, it involved three teams from Colorado, California and Virginia. The triple-swap that sent The Detroit Free Press from Knight Ridder to Gannett Co. Inc., and The Detroit News from Gannett to MediaNews Group, marked the biggest upheaval in The Motor City since four-wheel drive. But Michiganders were not the only ones affected as the deal also included ownership changes among the big three at several smaller papers, from Florida to Idaho. The only thing more surprising than the size of the swap was the secrecy surrounding it, as the inevitable rumors did not begin building until the night before the deal went public.

6. Payola pundits

Newspapers' already damaged credibility took another hit in 2005 when four syndicated columnists were found to have been paid off for their views. The first three came early in the year, starting with Tribune Media Service's Armstrong Williams, who was paid $240,000 by the Department of Education to write favorably about the Bush administration's "No Child Left Behind" law. He lost is column soon after. Maggie Gallagher of Universal Press Syndicate followed with revelations that she had been paid $21,500 for promoting Bush's pro-marriage efforts, as did self-syndicating scribe Michael McManus, who received $10,000 for pushing the same views. The last shoe dropped in December when Copley News Service's Doug Bandow resigned after admitting taking money from indicted lobbyist Jack Abramoff for writing favorably about some of his clients.

5. Hurricane Katrina forces Times-Picayune to evacuate.

The devastating hurricane not only battered the gulf coast from the edge of Texas to Florida's Panhandle, it also threw local newspapers, such as the Sun-Herald in Biloxi, into the deep end of the, well, flooding. For most, the costliest storm in U.S. history was weathered by relocating temporarily and managing news via the Web. Stories of reporters blogging in Mississippi and photographers nearly drowning in Louisiana were typical.

But no newspaper felt the wrath of Katrina like the New Orleans Times-Picayune. Forced to abandon its Big Easy home, the paper's staff were disbursed to various locations across the Bayou State for more than a month, while many staffers had to tend to their own homes and families from afar.

Utilizing its Web site, and borrowed resources from newspapers in Baton Rouge and Houma, the Newhouse Newspapers' property, led by veteran Editor Jim Amoss, kept the news coming, as well as blogs and online information. Executives at Advance Publications, which owns Newhouse, also pitched in, promising that all employees would be paid during the two months after Katrina, whether they worked or not. The Biloxi paper, and owner Knight Ridder, also did stellar work.

4. Deep Throat revealed.

For 33 years the identity of the infamous Watergate source, dubbed "Deep Throat"
after the porn flick of the 1970s, was the best-kept secret in Washington, D.C. As the guessing games spanned decade after decade, and included several movies, books and even a college class investigation, the trio of Washington Post legends -- Woodward, Bernstein, and Bradlee -- held their tongues. Even Alex Trebek of Jeopardy could not worm the name from Woodward during a guest appearance on the show.

In the end, it was Mr. Throat himself, W. Mark Felt, a former FBI official, who removed the mask in a Vanity Fair story that touched off new debates about both the Nixon administration and anonymous sourcing.

3. Knight Ridder for sale.

Long known as one of the better newspaper chains, Knight Ridder had amassed a collection of some of the industry's most respected properties -- from the Philadelphia Inquirer to The Miami Herald -- during its storied past. Add to that a Washington, D.C. bureau ranked one of the best, and a piece of the highly-regarded Knight Ridder Tribune news service, and you are talking a key news player.

But, like its corporate media competitors, the San Jose-based company was seeing revenue reductions and circulation cuts that were making stockholders nervous. When is largest shareholder, Private Capital Management LP, complained that the company was being undervalued, others joined in a call to sell. Concerns about how a buyout might affect the papers' quality has already prompted two groups, a collection of Knight Ridder alum and leaders of The Newspaper Guild, to attempt to buy the dailies. Initial bidding began in late 2005 and the betting is a new owner, or owners, will be in place by the end of 2006.

2. Valerie Plame Scandal/NY Times fallout/Bob Woodward testifies.

The increased effort to get reporters to reveal confidential sources -- including some via subpoenas -- had been going on for several years and had affected reporters from The Washington Post to the San Francisco Chronicle. But when The New York Times' Judith Miller went to jail on July 6 after refusing to testify in the Valerie Plame leak probe, the issue of anonymous sourcing suddenly had an unlikely martyr. Miller had not even written a story about Plame, the one-time CIA agent whose identity had been disclosed two years earlier by the unjailed Robert Novak. But she served 85 days in the slammer before being released once an agreement for limited testimony was struck. While the Times editorial page urged her release on a regular basis during her time behind bars, it's news pages barely covered the story, even getting scooped by E&P when word came of her release.

Once out of jail, Miller quickly went from journalistic hero to goat. Already reeling from past WMD reporting that turned out to be wrong and, in part, prompted an infamous editor's note in 2004, Miller's rep took another hit as she refused to cooperate with Times reporters attempting to write about her. When the self-described "Ms. Run Amok" got into a memo-trading snit with Executive Editor Bill Keller, Public Editor Byron Calame and Columnist Maureen Dowd, her exit was a forgone conclusion.

But it did not conclude the Plame saga. Just weeks after Miller turned in her employee security card to Times officials, Watergate legend Bob Woodward joined the fray, admitting that he, too, had been the recipient of a Plame leak, and apparently before any other reporter. He also disclosed that he'd keep the information from Post executive editor Leonard Downie Jr., for more than two years and had testified about it in November.

1. More than 2,000 newspaper jobs lost...at least.

Using the bizarre premise that newspapers can bring back lost circulation and ad revenue by making their products WORSE, top executives at major chains from The New York Times Company to Tribune took a butcher knife to staffing with buyouts and layoffs that appeared almost epidemic. Although some claim to be adding jobs on the business side for the purpose of boosting revenue and circulation, the loss of hundreds of jobs at so many major newspapers -- most of which are making tidy profits -- does not bode well for the industry's future and shows the dangers of the recent corporate takeovers of the business.


-- Joe Strupp (jstrupp@editorandpublisher.com) is senior editor at E&P.