Los Angeles Times Publisher Mark Willes
Newspapers are always dying,
and someone is always killing them. Radio was supposed to bury them. So was
television. So was their aging readership. So was USA Today . So was the
Internet.
The
latest murderer: the corporate bean counter. He breaches the Chinese Wall
between business and editorial, cares more about the stock price than about the
front-page lead, favors stories that focus groups want to read, and talks
constantly about "product." To hear critics tell it, Times Mirror CEO Mark
Willes, who just named himself publisher of the Los Angeles Times , is of
that ilk. The greatest newspaper of the West is now being run by a man whose
newspaper experience totals two years (much of it spent closing papers) and who
passed the bulk of his career as an executive of General Mills, a
breakfast-cereal company (or rather, a breakfast-cereal company, for
chrissakes! ).
Virtually every newspaper in the country has married some
editorial and business functions, but Willes would go further. Rather than
limiting business-editorial contact to the top of the masthead, he proposes to
have each section of the Times (sports, business, etc.) operate as a
more or less autonomous unit. Each will have its own "minipublisher" who will
set profitability goals and consult with editors on general content (though
not, Willes insists, on specific stories). Media critics are aghast. The
Wall Street Journal calls it "a revolution in the newspaper
business."
Willes is
also pushing "hero" stories and civic journalism, the kind of pandering to
readers that infuriates editors. He suggests that the Times introduce
new sections aimed at Hispanic and female readers. Times staffers gripe
that such sections would only ghettoize minority readers. Shelby Coffey, the
Times ' editor of nine years, quit last week amid speculation that he
couldn't stomach Willes' changes.
The newspaper business has always been
romantic, and few papers have been more romantic than the Times . For
most of its life, it was a right-wing rag that rooted unapologetically for
Republican politicians and local businessmen. Then in 1960, Otis Chandler, the
surfing, antique-car-collecting scion of the Chandler family (which owns most
of Times Mirror), took over as publisher. During the next two decades, Chandler
and his editors transformed the Times into one of the best papers in the
country. They hired talented writers by the score, ran the longest stories in
the industry, and won Pulitzer after Pulitzer. The Times was profligate,
editorially bold, and profitable. Otis Chandler's Times --like the
Sulzbergers' New York Times , the Grahams' Washington Post , and
all great newspapers--was as much grand adventure as business.
But Otis
Chandler retired, the Times lost 300,000 subscribers, the stock went
south, and Chandler's more conservative relatives demanded higher profits. The
era of newspaper romance slipped away in Los Angeles (as it did everywhere
else). Willes seems to embody the capitalist rationalism that has replaced it.
A Utah native, he first made a name for himself in the late '60s as a
conservative economist, touting "rational expectations" theory long before it
became fashionable. In 1977, at age 35, he became the youngest president of a
Federal Reserve Bank (in Minneapolis). In 1980, he jumped to General Mills,
where he eventually served as president, chief operating officer, and vice
chairman. General Mills, his critics note, is a company where marketing, rather
than content, is king.
Two years ago, the Chandler family picked him to run their
$3.4-billion-but-still-sickly media company. (In addition to its flagship
Times , Times Mirror owns half a dozen other newspapers, including the
Hartford Courant , the Baltimore Sun , and Newsday ; several
magazines; and medical and legal publishers.) Within weeks, Willes had made
himself one of the most detested men in journalism. In a now infamous
interview, he compared newspapers to cereal. Then he shuttered the venerable
Baltimore Evening Sun and New York Newsday , the much admired,
much unread, much unprofitable downtown sister to Newsday . He also fired
175 members of the Times editorial staff. The paper, known as the
"velvet coffin" because of its high pay and cushy working conditions, had not
laid off reporters for decades. Predictably, Willes was nicknamed "Cereal
Killer" and "Cap'n Crunch."
Wall
Street loved what the newsroom loathed. Times Mirror's costs plummeted. Profits
soared. The stock has tripled from $18 when Willes arrived to nearly $60
today--the best performance of any big media company. Publishing analysts say
that Times Mirror is now one of the healthiest firms in the industry. The
Chandler family has profited from the company's rising dividends and stock
price.
Times-philes do have some reason to worry about
Willes as publisher. The idea of having ad salesmen and "minipublishers" help
plan editorial sections is terrifying to anyone who's ever met an ad
salesman. "Heroic" and civic journalism do often degenerate into idiotic
rah-rah cheerleading. A push for shorter stories--also said to be in the
works--may well vanquish the elegant, comprehensive (OK, long-winded) pieces
for which the paper is famous. ("We'll just have to be famous for something
else," snaps one Times vet.)
But there
is a more fruitful way to look at Willes: He is the first high-profile
newspaper man in a long time who actually believes in newspapers. Newspaper
profits may be at record highs, but the newspaper Zeitgeist is gloomy.
Circulation has barely risen since World War II, and it's been falling for five
years. Newspaper reporters increasingly feel themselves
irrelevant--marginalized by TV news and the Internet, ignored by a younger
generation of nonreaders.
Willes is an optimist. He's a proselytizer of newspapers.
According to those who know him, he has learned why newspapers are a public
trust since his unfortunate cereal interview. (He has forsworn cereal
analogies.) Other papers are shrinking content; Willes wants to add sections
and features. Other papers fear controversy; he proposes newspaper "crusades."
His ideas may be terrible--some of them certainly are terrible--but at
least they are new.
Willes' boldest goal: to
raise the Times circulation from 1 million to 1.5 million. No one thinks
he can do it. Industry analyst John Morton says it would be "a miracle" if he
pulled it off. But everyone wants him to try, because only new readers will
save the industry in the long run. Willes recently halved the price of the
Times to 25 cents to reach nonsubscribers. He's launched a huge ad
campaign. The Times added 47,000 readers last year, more than any
newspaper in the country--and about the same number the New York Times
lost.
To add half a million
readers, or even half that number, Willes will need to steal subscribers from
the 18 other newspapers in the Los Angeles area, including the Orange County
Register and the Los Angeles Daily News . This raises an appetizing
prospect. The Daily News is up for sale. Rupert Murdoch is rumored to be
interested in buying it and turning it into a West Coast version of the New
York Post . A circulation-hungry Willes vs. the rapacious Murdoch: That's
just the kind of fight the American newspaper industry needs.
