![]() ![]() Tom Silverstein, president of the Newspaper Guild local and a Green Bay Packers beat writer, has been at the table for several rounds of negotiations. Nailing down a contract with the union ahead of the shareholder vote was also key-and it helped that negotiations were anything but hostile. Had the new owners brought in an outside editor, it would have set off alarm bells. Some of that trust would have been lost if we had not been doing great journalism.” And for us, that means doing great journalism. Gabler described the Journal Sentinel as a “reporter’s paper,” meaning that management “really cares what we think and are here to make us happy. The newsroom has a lot of confidence in the newsroom leadership, and that’s a pretty big deal.” “If that would have happened, it would not have been good. “George stepping into Marty’s role was very reassuring to the newsroom that the change in ownership didn’t affect the leadership,” said Ellen Gabler, an investigative reporter. Had the new owners brought in an outside candidate, it would have set off alarm bells. Stanley and Kaiser led the Milwaukee newsroom together for close to two decades with Kaiser leaving, Stanley’s promotion was expected, and staffers felt it was deserved. One of those moves: appointing Stanley as editor. But they also pointed to some major decisions by management that have made the transition smoother and offer hope the paper’s journalism will be sustained. Several reporters I spoke with acknowledged feeling wary about the implications of the ownership change. “With the lack of local ownership, it is possible to imagine that they will care a lot less about how well the Milwaukee Journal Sentinel serves its community, since it’s no longer based in this community,” Murphy said. And though Journal Media Group will be based in Milwaukee, most of the stock will be held by Scripps shareholders. That cross-subsidy is going away-and the newspaper-only company “is probably going to be a money-losing company,” Murphy predicted. The Journal Sentinel is the only metro daily in Journal Communications, where the bottom line is buoyed by broadcast outlets. Will the ownership change put this success at risk? Bruce Murphy, a former Journal Sentinel employee who now writes for the website Urban Milwaukee, worries that it might. The paper has won three Pulitzer Prizes since 2008 for investigative and explanatory reporting, and it boasts one of the highest market penetration rates in the country. These changes add up to a big moment for the Journal Sentinel, which, though hardly untouched by the challenges that have rocked the newspaper industry, has won widespread praise for its ambitious public-service and investigative journalism, including from us here at CJR. We have to find a way to stop revenue decline.” “Down the road, though, if revenue declines a certain percent, our costs will have to also decline a certain percent to keep from losing money. “Last year, we had some buyouts related to shrinking revenue like most other companies we know of, and hopefully that got us where we need to be,” Stanley added. I asked Stanley if he anticipated more staff cuts after new ownership comes into place-Scripps, after all, just posted lagging quarterly revenues. The new union contract, which took seven months to negotiate, neither calls for further layoffs and buyouts nor offers protections against them. ![]() The well-regarded Kaiser was one of 16 people who took a buyout last fall, after the Scripps deal was announced. A new managing editor has not yet been named. Also last week, veteran managing editor George Stanley officially stepped into the role of editor, replacing Martin Kaiser, who had held the title for 17 years. ![]() Ahead of the vote, the Newspaper Guild on March 4 ratified a new two-year contract with ownership. That’s hardly the only change happening at the paper. The newspaper chain will be spun off into the newly created Journal Media Group, based in Milwaukee and led by CEO Tim Stautberg, currently the vice president of newspapers for Scripps. Under the new structure, the Journal Sentinel will be the flagship paper in a family that includes the Memphis Commercial Appeal, the Knoxville News Sentinel, and the Corpus Christi Caller-Times. Scripps approved a deal to merge the two companies and then separate their broadcast and print properties. On Wednesday, shareholders in Journal Communications, the paper’s owner, and E.W. But for all the changes the newspaper has weathered since then, one of the biggest arrived this week. Its roots stretch back so far, the Milwaukee Journal Sentinel’s early political coverage focused on Wisconsin’s effort to become a state. ![]()
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