David Michael Miller
Milwaukee Journal Sentinel editor George Stanley loves to be a crusading journalist. No sooner did his newspaper’s reporters learn that Gov. Scott Walker and Republican legislators were quietly trying to pass a law to end open records in Wisconsin than Stanley pounced on the issue, using the state’s largest newspaper to alert the citizenry. There were front-page stories, blaring headlines and prominent bylined editorials by Stanley himself excoriating these politicians. And in just a couple days, the Republicans backed off.
Yes, many others in the state media also jumped on this issue. But the Journal Sentinel still has more clout when it comes to setting the political agenda, and its ferocious defense of open records made a big difference.
Which is why the announcement that Gannett will be purchasing Journal Media Group and its flagship Milwaukee newspaper is so worrisome. Gannett is famous for cutting the budget and staff of newspapers it buys. The changes won’t just affect the Milwaukee metro area; they could have a negative impact on journalism statewide, resulting in less scrutiny of government.
The Journal Sentinel still has two full-time Capitol reporters, Patrick Marley and Jason Stein, whose stories help everyone, including others in the media, understand what’s going on in Madison. (Their coverage of Act 10 and the resulting protests was so in-depth it resulted in a book they co-authored.) Daniel Bice’s “No Quarter” column — a kind of bipartisan dirt patrol — was by far the best source of information on the John Doe investigation of Walker. Veteran journalist Craig Gilbert does the best analysis of electoral trends in Wisconsin.
The newspaper also has another dozen or so “watchdog” reporters, who have done in-depth stories or series on such issues as the zebra mussel invasion of Lake Michigan and inland lakes, uneven property tax assessments, the health risks for workers in coffee roasting companies, how federal laws protect gun store owners and the extreme level of political polarization in Wisconsin. Over the years, countless of their stories have had an impact on state policy making.
How much of this will be lost? Gannett CEO Bob Dickey declared that his company intended to let the “local editors make local decisions on coverage,” including the level of journalist staffing. But Gannett has never operated that way.
Jim Hopkins worked for Gannett for 20 years and then did an excellent blog covering its operations for six years. He documented the extraordinarily high profit margins of Gannett’s newspapers back before the Great Recession, with the Green Bay Press Gazette leading the pack with a 43.5% profit margin. Many Gannett papers had profit margins between 20% and 35%.
These fat profits were achieved mostly through lean staffs, but in the years since then, as the full brunt of print’s economic demise was felt, the company still slashed its staff almost in half. “From 2008 to 2012 Gannett reduced total employment by 20,000 positions out of 45,000 positions,” Hopkins notes. “The vast majority were age 45 and up because they were the highest paid.”
Gannett owns more than 90 daily newspapers — and will add 14 more with the purchase of Journal Media Group. It implements a similar editorial approach at every paper.
To get a sense of how much the Journal Sentinel’s staff might be cut, I compared its current editorial staff (editors, writers, photographers, designers and online staffers) of 117 people with Gannett papers in two mid-sized cities. Louisville’s Courier-Journal, in a metro area of 1.3 million, has just 63 total staff covering these same functions. The Indianapolis Star, in a metro area of 1.76 million people, has 89 staff covering these functions. Given Milwaukee’s metro population of 1.55 million, the staffing could fall somewhere between the other two cities, meaning the Journal Sentinel loses 35 to 40 staff.
These will likely be the most veteran staff, those most knowledgeable about the community — and state — they’re covering.
And that will likely include many enterprise reporters. “That’s going to be a luxury,” Hopkins says. The Indianapolis Star lists just one investigative reporter. The Louisville paper lists two, but one sounds like a beat reporter.
Considering Gannett also owns 11 other newspapers in Wisconsin (more than in any state but Ohio), it seems certain there will more consolidation of Capitol coverage between the Milwaukee paper and the 11 smaller publications.
Even as it sheds serious reporters, the Journal Sentinel will likely add more lightweight beats. Gannett papers have all these quaint-sounding jobs that will need to be filled like the “quality of life content strategist,” “senior content coach,” “beverage reporter,” the “working for equality, celebrating diversity” reporter (the Louisville paper has two of these!) and the all-important “give back and pay it forward” reporter. And no, I am not making these titles up.
Hopkins, who lives in Louisville and watched how Gannett changed the Courier-Journal, describes the impact this way: “There’s never been a better time to be a crooked politician or businessman, because so few reporters are keeping an eye on them.”
Bruce Murphy is the editor of UrbanMilwaukee.com.
