Dimming Beacon?   

The effort to keep profits up during the economic downturn has led to belt-tightening throughout the newspaper industry. It's been particularly painful for Knight Ridder's Akron Beacon Journal, which suffered the first newsroom layoffs in its history.

REPORTER FRANK WITSIL is standing in his favorite place at the Akron Beacon Journal--a shrine to the man who built a great newspaper chain.
Technically, it's a conference room, with rows of straight-backed brown chairs and a lectern. But for Beacon Journal staffers, it's also a testament to their newspaper's place in history. It was their paper that was the first owned by the Knight family. It was from their building on the corner of High and Exchange streets that John Shively Knight built up his company into 32 daily newspapers.
Witsil knew all about the charismatic leader they call Jack when he came to the Beacon Journal for his job interview last year. When he found out about the room, he asked to see it. Then he brought his wife back to show her the room. Its walls are covered with quotes and photos of Knight. "I'm not afraid of anybody," reads one. Another wall shows the scrip Knight used to pay his employees during the Depression. His Royal manual typewriter sits under a glass case.
"I just wanted to feel the spirit of Jack Knight," Witsil explains.
These days, the Beacon Journal is making another kind of history, and Witsil is part of it. The 29-year-old who earned a reputation as one of the paper's bright young stars will also be remembered for another reason: He's among 10 newsroom staffers named to be laid off--the first in the 98 years that the paper has carried the Knight name.
Times have been tough before in this manufacturing city. Still, layoffs didn't happen at the Beacon Journal during the Depression. They didn't happen when the rubber companies left town. But two months after the paper achieved a profit margin above 20 percent, Witsil finds himself an employment casualty.
Although he quickly landed another job, he's not happy about being forced to move. "I specifically came to the paper because of John Knight's legacy, and I don't want to leave," says Witsil.
Despite the upheaval it's caused in his life, Witsil is just as troubled by what the layoffs mean for the chain that Jack built--the one that made its reputation on the kind of journalism that lures great reporters. Exposing corruption. Questioning authority. Telling a great story as it happens. But can that kind of coverage continue at newspapers when their corporate bosses are continually pushing for higher profit margins?
On the wall behind Witsil is another quote from Knight: "We believe in profitability but do not sacrifice either principle or quality on the altar of the countinghouse."
"I wonder what Jack Knight would say about what's going on in his company," Witsil says. "And I wonder what advice he'd have for me."

THE STAFF-SHRINKING and money-pinching that's going on at Knight Ridder is happening in newspaper companies industrywide as they deal with an economic downturn that has shrunk advertising revenues seemingly overnight. From Long Island to Atlanta to Portland, Oregon, papers are slashing their spending by cutting back on travel and training or trimming newshole or saying no to most new hires. But nowhere have the cutbacks been more visible than at Knight Ridder papers. The chain once considered the darling of passionate journalists has found itself in a public relations nightmare that--ironically--it seems unable to handle.
Word of the cutbacks at various Knight Ridder papers has leaked out over the past months, each one stirring up new tirades. Layoffs in Akron. A plan for a downsized Monday paper in Kansas City that was later scrapped. Possible layoffs in San Jose. That development led Mercury News Publisher Jay T. Harris to take the extraordinary step of quitting in protest, saying he wouldn't destroy the paper to meet profit demands. The next day the threat of newsroom layoffs vanished at the Merc as Executive Editor David Yarnold stood on a table and ripped up the list while the staff cheered.
But in Akron, where the layoffs are definite, a malaise pervaded the newsroom. While the city may live in the shadow of Cleveland, the paper never did. It always prided itself on being the scrappy competitor, the small paper that acted like a big one and wrote the hell out of a good story. It's won four Pulitzer Prizes in its time, an impressive number for a paper of about 140,000 daily circulation. Armed with its reputation and a generous pay scale, the paper has been able to attract, and often retain, talented journalists.
But that changed irrevocably when the newsroom layoffs were announced, staffers fear. It went from a paper proud of its news coverage to one preoccupied with the fate of its staff and its own future. "Everybody's been in a funk," says reporter Katie Byard. "You just feel sad. You feel sad for the people getting laid off." Reporters know what number they are on the seniority list. Staffers talk about whether they should stay or go, and how the paper is going to continue to attract talented people. It is Akron, after all. Sometimes, they cry.
When word came down that she was on the layoff list, reporter Christina Hange Kukuk ran to the bathroom so no one would see her tears. A self-admitted "stress sponge," she's had difficulty concentrating on work ever since. She's had nightmares, her face has broken out, and she developed a rash on her eyelids from where she rubs her eyes. Once, she just started crying for no particular reason and asked to go home.
Kukuk didn't start out that way. At 22 and newly married, she was hired last summer fresh from Kent State University to fill the slot of a business reporter on maternity leave. Business Editor Steve Berta calls her the smartest reporter he's ever had straight out of college, a quick study who's able to grasp complex issues. "She has a maturity that is beyond her years," Berta says. After she started breaking front-page stories on customer complaints at phone company Ameritech, other staffers and editors took notice, Berta says. She was given a permanent position.
"For a few months, I thought I was producing something good, something that had value," says Kukuk. "That's the stuff that helps people make sense of their world."
Kukuk's the primary breadwinner in her family--her husband gives music lessons--and she loves her job. But as she searches for a new one, she isn't sure she wants to stay in journalism. "I'm not sure...that killing myself for a company that doesn't support quality journalism is worth it," she says. While as a business reporter she understands the corporation's need to make money, she wonders how much is enough. "They just want more, and they'll keep wanting more."
Reporter Julie Wallace and photographer Gary Green had both aspired to work at the Beacon Journal for years. And both can't say enough good things about working there.
"You can't not do good work here, the bar is so high," says Wallace, 34, who covered two suburban communities.
"Working on any assignment with that staff was such a unique experience," says Green, 29.
When Wallace heard about the layoffs, she wasn't too concerned because she was number seven on the list of reporters. The newsroom conventional wisdom was that only a few of the 10 layoffs would be reporters. Then, on a Thursday, she was called in the bureau by Editor Janet C. Leach and asked to come to the newsroom. "I was dumbfounded when I got called in," says Wallace. "I thought I was in trouble."
Wallace had been metro editor at the Elyria Chronicle-Telegram in northeast Ohio before she took the Beacon job, and had been commuting 45 minutes from there to her bureau post. She was ready to look for a new apartment closer to work when she got the layoff news. Instead, she moved in with her mother. "It's hard at 34 to move home with your mother; you feel like such a failure," says Wallace.
Green wanted to work at the Beacon so badly that he took a pay cut to get on board part time 19 months ago. He was hired full time six months later. But under the Guild's contract, a photographer hired after him had more seniority because he had worked about 80 more hours. Figuring he'd be on the layoff list, Green had started looking for a job and was snowboarding in Lake Placid when he got the official news. Even though he has seven years' experience and won three awards in the past year, he's had no luck in the tight photojournalism market.
"That has been the hardest part of it...realizing that I may be looking at several months of unemployment," says Green. "On my down days, I begin to wonder if I'm ever going to work in this field again."
Every person laid off has a story, and in a staff this close-knit, everyone knows that story. This is a group that raised $400 for a reporter's son who was diagnosed with cancer. Many often babysit for each other or socialize together. "I still think it's a great place to work, but this is obviously a very difficult environment," says Stephanie Warsmith, unit chair for the paper's Guild unit. "Those were our friends that sit next to us. It's pretty awful."
In their sadness and anger, they have lashed out at Knight Ridder CEO Tony Ridder, whom they see as The Enemy, and anyone who represents Him. When a group of Knight Ridder executives arrived in Akron in March to present the results of a positive readership survey, reporters and editors wearing black T-shirts lined their passageway though the newsroom, forming a silent gauntlet. They decorated their computer monitors with black balloons and put one above the urinal in the men's room as a special touch.
They have also peppered company execs with questions, written a letter of protest to Ridder, sent Jay Harris flowers to show their appreciation. They know that their actions are probably futile.
"We're powerless, but at least we feel like we're doing something," says Mark Braykovich, assistant managing editor. "Is it falling on deaf ears? Probably. I don't think anyone expects Tony Ridder to change his mind."
At the heart of the anger, what they can't understand, what they keep asking over and over is: Why are we laying people off when we're making good money?

THE VIEW FROM WALL STREET is a bit different from the one in downtown Akron. The Street only cares about one thing, says Edward Atorino, an analyst with Dresdner Kleinwort Wasserstein: "Stock prices going up." And that is directly related to earnings, he says. Good journalism, Pulitzer Prizes, they don't matter.
"Some reporters don't understand that they work for a company that sells advertising," says Atorino. "They're in the advertising business, not in the journalism business. They don't get it. Without the bottom line, they don't have jobs. They're in a business and the business is to sell ads and make money. The people that own the company are the shareholders, not the reporters."
Harsh? Maybe.
But it's reality.
And while Knight Ridder has been widely admired in the journalism world, Wall Street is less impressed. For years, it lagged behind other newspaper companies in profits. When Ridder took over as CEO in 1995, one of his goals was to improve the company's performance on Wall Street. While he's made good on that pledge, getting profit margins up from the mid-teens to nearly 21 percent last year, that's still below the industry average of 22.4 percent. Ridder has said he wants the company's margin to reach 25 percent in three years. "It's not our priority to be the best financial performer," says Polk Laffoon, the company's vice president of corporate relations. "We're not going to milk our newspapers. We have worked hard to find the right balance."
Ridder, who declined to be interviewed for this story, has said he's afraid that diminishing returns could make the company a takeover target. Potentially, that could happen, analysts say, because Knight Ridder doesn't have one large shareholder--directors and officers control about 4.5 percent of the stock. And unlike some other publicly held newspaper companies, it doesn't have two tiers of stock--one that gives more voting rights to family members (see The Newspaper Business, page 76). While Atorino says he's heard of no takeover rumors, it doesn't really matter. "If they're afraid, they're afraid."
Laffoon says the company's need to be a good business will protect its ability to do good journalism. "To us, our newspapers are special," says Laffoon. "To a financial player, these are just a group of assets, period. To open up the possibility that we could lose this because someone sees it as 32 assets and nothing more is a very unappealing prospect to us."
Analyst Lauren Rich Fine of Merrill Lynch says she thinks Ridder is resisting shareholders who think he should sell off the company. Wall Street still thinks Knight Ridder hasn't maximized its performance, Fine says. And Wall Street mistrusts a corporate culture that doesn't accept taking tough steps to do so. "If you're a CEO and one of the tools at your disposal is layoffs and you get total pushback from employees who say, 'We're writers, we're above that,' it's an issue." At a company like Gannett, it wouldn't be questioned, she says.
Against this backdrop, Knight Ridder newspaper managers have been squeezed to get more profits out of their papers. In past downturns, Knight Ridder editors were given more slack, they say. If a perennial financial underperformer like Philadelphia fell short, other profitable papers made up the difference. But now, each paper is being held to its goal. For instance, Philadelphia Newspapers Inc., which includes the Philadelphia Inquirer and Daily News, had a profit margin of about 19 percent last year but is supposed to reach a target above 20 percent this year. Miami Herald Publishing Co., which had been struggling in previous years, hit its goal of 22 percent last year. And there is constant pressure to keep improving on those numbers companywide as Knight Ridder works toward its goal of 25 percent profit in three years--regardless of the downturn.
Former Knight Ridder executive Bob Ingle says that newspaper companies, like all public companies, are judged against their peers. That's why they can't let profits slide. If one company lets profits slip more than another, "the market will punish you big time," says Ingle. "You don't wait until you're bleeding red ink...if you do, you're toast."

IT'S GENERALLY KNOWN WITHIN the industry that a number of former high-level Knight Ridder editors left the company because the dollar demands wore them out. But when Mercury News Publisher Harris dramatically resigned in protest, he made public the secret griping generally reserved for trusted colleagues. Challenging your corporate owner just isn't done.
Instantly, Harris became the rock star of the journalism world, besieged by congratulatory phone calls and e-mails. He received a standing ovation after he spoke in April at the American Society of Newspaper Editors' convention in Washington, D.C., and was surrounded after his speech by people wanting to shake his hand. Harris says he was surprised by the reaction. "This clearly struck a chord that resonated with newspaper people around the country," he says.
Harris won't talk about the numbers he was being asked to achieve. According to a March 17 e-mail sent to Harris by Steven Rossi, president of Knight Ridder's newspaper division, the Mercury News had been hitting profit margins in the range of 22 to 29 percent in the past decade, but was under pressure to raise that level. Harris responded to that memo in his letter of resignation, saying, "The profit target Steve laid out Friday cannot be achieved short of layoffs."
During his ASNE speech, Harris questioned the company's emphasis on the bottom line that he feared was overtaking journalism concerns. "What troubled me...was that little or no attention was paid to the consequences of achieving 'the number.' There was virtually no discussion of the damage that would be done to...the Mercury News as a journalistic endeavor or to its ability to fulfill its responsibilities to the community." It was like watching a loved one unintentionally commit suicide, he said.
Former Miami Herald Executive Editor Douglas C. Clifton, now editor of Cleveland's Plain Dealer, says he spent four of his eight years in the Herald's top newsroom spot wrestling with some type of budgetary crisis. The editorial staff that was once over 400 is now at about 376, and in 1998 the paper eliminated its Sunday magazine.
"It got to be a very wearing part of my editorship," says Clifton. "I spent too much of my time worrying about budgetary things as opposed to worrying about...the quality of news coverage."
The pressure to produce earnings on a quarter-to-quarter basis isn't as intense at privately held Newhouse, which owns the Plain Dealer, he says.
Clifton says while fears of a takeover may be valid, he questions the actions the company is taking to prevent one. "If in the process of fending off a takeover by a Gannett you've become Gannett, what have you gained?"
Former Wichita Eagle Editor Davis "Buzz" Merritt says he, too, got tired of struggling to keep his paper's profit margin above 20 percent and not always succeeding. "It's a tough atmosphere," says Merritt, who retired from the Knight Ridder paper in 1998. "I'm glad I got out when I did."
But Merritt says it's no use castigating Wall Street. "Once you go public it doesn't matter if your margins are 90 percent. Wall Street wants 91. Wall Street is doing what Wall Street does." Merritt recalls that before Knight Newspapers went public in 1969, Jack Knight initially said he was opposed to the move. "Jack Knight said it all--you lose control of your destiny," says Merritt. "It's taken a long time, but it has come true."

UNLIKE MANY INDUSTRIES, newspapers have been relatively immune to layoffs. Even in this economic downturn, the number of people who have lost their jobs is relatively small compared with the downsizing in other industries.
Akron's is one of the first newsrooms where the ax has been wielded. The Grand Forks Herald in North Dakota had three layoffs on its editorial staff. The Columbus Ledger-Enquirer in Georgia had one newsroom layoff and eliminated three unfilled positions. While the Mercury News won't be laying off newsroom staff, 15 non-editorial employees will lose their jobs, although some may be reassigned. All are Knight Ridder papers. Gannett's USA Today, while not anticipating newsroom layoffs, let go 60 circulation employees in the first quarter of this year, says Tom Curley, president and publisher.
And as depressed earnings reports come out for the first quarter, more layoffs are on the way. The New York Times Co. announced it will have buyouts companywide and layoffs of some editorial staff at its papers, although not at the New York Times. Dow Jones is laying off 202 workers, including a few reporters at WSJ.com. E.W. Scripps is cutting the staffs at the Cincinnati Post and the Knoxville News-Sentinel, and the Seattle Times is considering layoffs.
Grand Forks Herald Editor Mike Jacobs says dealing with the budget cuts has been more difficult than coping with the flood that destroyed the paper's plant in 1997. "During the flood, we had an enormous amount of help from Knight Ridder," says Jacobs. "There's an irony in that an even greater crisis that is more difficult to resolve is brought on by Knight Ridder's insistence on greater margins."
The paper is carrying debt from rebuilding after the flood, and Jacobs got some relief from corporate's profit demands. Last year it failed to make a 20 percent profit margin.
Jacobs says he understands the thinking of his corporate bosses. "We cannot be a successful newspaper unless we're a successful business."
But, adds Jacobs, who has been editor since 1984, "It's depressing to have to take apart a newspaper that you built. I frequently assess whether that's something that I have the appetite to do. My personal situation does not allow me to quit. The response I've settled on is that I'm doing the best possible job with the resources I have. That's the honorable thing to do."
While newspaper editors from other companies say they've been downsizing their staffs, as well, they're more often doing it by not filling positions or offering early retirement. Some are eliminating jobs but offering open positions to the employees affected, as the Orange County Register did with 17 newsroom staffers.
Many papers have switched to a 50-inch press web width to pare down newsprint costs. Long Island's Newsday has trimmed about five pages a week of newshole from the paper, says Editor Tony Marro. The Dallas Morning News has folded several specialty sections, such as Science and Fashion, into other parts of the paper.
Still, while almost all editors and publishers are feeling economic pressure, some say they do not think they are under as intense scrutiny as their colleagues at Knight Ridder. Part of that depends on the company. Some companies, although public, are still largely family owned and not as subject to the financial market's whims.
Says Executive Editor Rick Rodriguez of the McClatchy-owned Sacramento Bee, "If it means a couple of bad years when the top officers [at the Bee] don't make their bonus, so be it. I'd rather do good journalism and save the jobs."
Howard Weaver, McClatchy's vice president, news, says the company isn't anticipating layoffs. "We think it would be disruptive to what we're trying to do," says Weaver. "We don't want to rebuild papers and then tear them down. Layoffs are demotivating." He says while it's not OK if profits are down, "we recognize it may be unavoidable within the confines of the way we do business."
Tribune Co., a publicly traded company that does not have significant family ownership, is not anticipating layoffs, although it is closely watching its budget, says Howard Tyner, vice president/editorial of Tribune Publishing Co. The company eliminated 170 editorial and advertising jobs at the Los Angeles Times last fall, and the paper may announce further budget cuts.
At profit king Gannett (28 percent last year), a company spokeswoman says the chain has not had any newsroom layoffs. Richard Leonard, the company's director/news recruiting, says Gannett is still hiring, although the pace has slowed. "We do not want to be in a situation where we're worrying about having to cast off staff," says Leonard.
Linda Grist Cunningham, executive editor of the Gannett-owned Rockford Register Star in Illinois, says the company is good at managing costs. "Gannett doesn't have this pattern of whipsawing that we see in other areas."
She has two positions frozen. "Do I like this? Of course not. But the economy sucks out there." Her mantra, she says, "is to do the least harm."
While some believe that the quality of newspapers has ebbed with each fresh budget onslaught, no one is saying that newspapers are dying. On the financial side, analyst Rudolf Hokanson of CIBC World Markets says he thinks the long-term outlook for the industry is bright because newspapers remain a primary advertising vehicle. He also says that papers need to keep up their quality to attract those ads. On the public service side, many editors argue that they can fulfill their missions, even with a diminished staff.
"If you can't add staff, it doesn't relieve you of improving the paper every day," says Mike Burbach, editor of the Columbus Ledger-Enquirer in Georgia. "And I'll be damned if I'm not going to do that. But it's hard. It's hard in good times."
He adds, "There has been times in the past when we've been trimming and tightening when I tried to get discouraged. I don't like [cutting], but I can't get discouraged. You get inspiration from readers every single day."
Burbach says he feels that some of the criticism of Knight Ridder is unfair. Mercury News Executive Editor Yarnold says while it's tough to juggle business imperatives and quality journalism, "I believe that Knight Ridder's core value that good journalism is good business is intact."
Yarnold points out that the Merc's redesign will feature improvements in the real-estate section, refocused business coverage, better stock tables and better showcasing of health and science coverage.
While critics have been decrying newsroom staff cuts, corporate spokesman Laffoon notes that papers like the Mercury News--with a staff of 400 and a circulation of about 287,000--have larger newsroom staffs than the accepted norm of one per 1,000 circulation. Before the layoffs, the Beacon Journal's staff was about 165, while its circulation is about 140,000 daily. The paper had recently been building up its roster, says Laffoon. "Nobody called me up to say, 'Why are you ratcheting up the newsroom in Akron?' " he says.
Burbach says he hasn't heard from his readers yet about changes to the paper resulting from cutbacks. And while Knight Ridder may be focusing more intently on its bottom line, he adds, it is still devoted to good journalism. The Miami Herald in April won a Pulitzer Prize for its Elián coverage and recently made headlines for its recount of November's contested presidential vote (see "Strange Bedfellows," page 50). "Some of this gnashing of teeth and wringing of hands can be a distraction to what we're trying to do--put the best journalism in the newspaper," says Burbach.
Many inside and outside the company, including Harris and Clifton, agree that Knight Ridder publishes some fine newspapers. The problem, says Harris, is that the balance between public service and profits is shifting in the wrong direction--and that needs to be reversed.

IN AKRON, THE PAPER'S been steadily trimming its costs over the past few years. But the real crunch came late last year and continued into this one with a shortfall of more than $1 million. The paper axed the Sunday magazine and eliminated a section called "News and Views." It folded the features section into the food section on Wednesdays. Two bureaus were closed and two editions eliminated. Sports reporters stopped traveling with the Cleveland Cavaliers. But it still wasn't enough. The only thing left to cut, says Managing Editor Thom Fladung, was people.
Fladung said he lamented to Jerry Ceppos, Knight Ridder's vice president/news, that he wished he could have some wiggle room and make up the difference through attrition. Ceppos told him it was corporate's decision to make up the shortfalls as they happen. That's in part because the economy has showed no signs of a quick turnaround, Laffoon says. Corporate doesn't tell the papers what to cut; it's up to their managers to decide.
"We believe we cut everything there was to cut. That's what led to the layoffs," says Fladung. Several weeks later, management came up with the list, which had to be selected by seniority according to the Guild contract. It included eight reporters, one photographer and one graphic artist. (The paper also eliminated six-and-a-half positions on the business side.) Fladung was responsible for telling five of the 10, an experience he called "horrible." "I was kind of hoping someone would scream at me or attack me," he says. "Some people said, 'All I ever wanted to do was work here.' "
Fladung says while he doesn't like what he's had to do, it's part of his job. "We have a profit margin we have to meet," he says. "I try to influence Knight Ridder. Knight Ridder sets the profit margin. I can accept or reject their argument. They're afraid of a takeover. That's what our corporate leaders argue, so if I'm going to stay here, I'm going to have to meet those profit margins."
Former Detroit Free Press Publisher Neal Shine says that despite how difficult it might be, that's the attitude managers have to take. "If you're taking the man's money, then you do the job they want you to do. You didn't sign on only for the good times, you didn't become a publisher just to be able to avoid the unpleasantness."

BEACON JOURNAL REPORTER Mark Schlueb is the first on the so-called "loser list" to leave, heading for his new job at the Orlando Sentinel. On his last day, he's packing a box of keepsakes and other belongings, including a rack card from a series he worked on and a Florida map from his last job that he never unpacked.
Like so many of the young reporters, Schlueb says he was drawn by the paper's reputation for solid journalism. "I've had a terrific time while I've been here," says Schlueb, 31, who is married with two young children. "It's the most talented group of people I ever worked for."
He's exposed corruption in county government and helped bring down the sheriff. "Mark is so good, I adore him," says his editor, Charlene Nevada. When Schlueb heard about the looming layoffs, he decided to start looking for a job, rather than wait to find out if he was on the list. When he got the call, he was on his way to a job interview.
Even if he wasn't on the first layoff list, he worried he might be on the next. "I was given no assurances that Knight Ridder wouldn't demand further cuts. I wasn't going to stick around and be left in that stressful situation for another eight months or a year and put my life on hold while some CEO taking a break from a golf game makes some arbitrary decision to affect my life." As the day goes on, people come up to him and congratulate him on the story that will appear in the next day's paper--his last story for the Beacon Journal. The county executive gives him a proclamation declaring it "Mark Schlueb Day." Staffers give him a Beacon Journal mug and cap.
Before he leaves, he writes a vicious letter to Tony "The Ax-Man" Ridder and sends it out, against the advice of others in the newsroom. The letter gets posted on the Guild bulletin board and later hits the e-mail circuit. Schlueb changes his voice mail. "Hi, this is Mark Schlueb. I no longer work here."
As he walks out of the newsroom before 6 p.m., a clap is heard, then another, until applause fills the cavernous room. Many reporters and editors stand. Schlueb turns around and waves goodbye.
Later that evening, the staff holds a party, dubbed "the wake," for laid-off staffers. The evening's highlight is a dramatic reading of Schlueb's letter. Veteran reporter Jim Carney mimics Al Gore as he reads it, asking the partygoers to repeat key phrases. "YOU FACELESS CORPORATE HACKS," they shout. And then, "WHAT KIND OF WITLESS DOLT ARE YOU?"
Since that Friday in March, the Beacon Journal has had some good news. Two of the laid-off employees, including Wallace, were moved into other jobs when people who were not on the layoff list left the paper. For those who weren't so lucky, their final day was April 6.
The staff had a sheet cake with a photo of Ridder golfing in the middle. His $3.3 million salary (which includes stock options) was in each corner. "In Tony we trust, let us eat cake," it read. Among those laid off, Green and Kukuk were still looking for jobs at AJR's press time, as was another reporter. The three each received a check for more than $1,400--money raised by the Beacon Journal Guild and the staff at Cleveland's Plain Dealer.
Readers have been noticing the changes in the paper, says Public Editor Gloria Irwin, so much so that most of her calls deal with something that's budget-cut related, such as the defunct magazine or the reduced books section. "There is certainly an awareness in the community about what's going on," says Irwin. One reader even asked her how to contact Tony Ridder.
Managing Editor Fladung believes the Beacon Journal has been and will continue to be a strong paper. But now he needs to get the staff to concentrate on news, not the agony of the moment. Since the layoffs were announced, eight other staffers have left, including three part-time clerks. Fladung makes it clear that he's not bailing.
"You try to ratchet up the journalism and get people focused on their stories," he says. Although the editors are still working on how to cover the open beats, Fladung says they're going to focus more on high-impact enterprise. "We've got to do things differently," says Fladung. "But that doesn't mean they can't also be done better."
As for Witsil, who is going to the Tampa Tribune, he didn't hang around until the cake was cut on that last day. He says he is proud of the work he did in Akron, would come back if he had the chance--and he has learned that "money alone can't be the measure of a newspaper's profitability."
"The journalists here should hold their heads up high--they do a noble thing," he says.
And what of the Beacon Journal's future?
"That's up to the people who are here," Witsil says. "It's just a question of how hard they want to fight for their paper."