Big changes coming this week and next for the Tampa Tribune

This week and next bring a blizzard of changes for the Tampa Tribune, which laid off a high-profile local columnist among four job reductions implemented Monday, while preparing to launch a streamlined, two-section daily weekday edition on Oct. 6.

   Editorial writer/columnist Joe Brown was among four staffers laid off Monday (the other three were editors/managers John McCoy, Martha Durrance and Bob Fryer), the last among several rounds of job reductions at the Media General-owned Tribune, which included reporters, photojournalists and a few editors.

Executive editor Janet Coats said the changes -- including a reorganization and further merging of newsrooms for corporate siblings the Tribune, WFLA-Ch. 8 and TBO.com -- are based on a new focus for their work, which involves gathering material for their Web site first, then determining how to place that content in the newspaper and TV station.

"The purpose is to work as one newsroom," Coats said. "It's kind of a return to a lot of newsroom structures we tried in the '90s, but didn't put a lot of energy into. It's a different way of looking at the data we gather."

Coats declined to reveal many details about the new newspaper design coming Monday, saying the Tribune has its own marketing plans for spreading those details later this week. Some readers got a preview from a post from the Tribune's Jeff Houck blog today noting that the Wednesday Flavor section stops publication after today, thus moving his column The Stew and several other features to a new Sunday section called BayLife Magazine.

Coats said the Tribune is doing what others, including the St. Petersburg Times, have done, beefing up Sunday sections where people take more time to read while slimming down weekday editions that arrive when readers have little time to peruse them. She said the new Sunday edition will also feature more business news, with changes to how they present local news. (At left is an example of the newspaper's current design.)

The Tribune joins a long list of newspapers that have recently changed their look and newsroom to deal with staff reductions and the increasing price of newsprint. From redesigns of the Chicago Tribune and Orlando Sentinel to news-sharing agreements among the Miami Herald, Sun Sentinel in Fort Lauderdale and Palm Beach Post in South Florida, many newspapers are trying ideas they once never considered to curb costs and maximize staff contributions.

Staffers in the merged Tribune/WFLA/TBO.com newsroom have been separated into several subject areas: data, deadline, watchdog journalism, personal journalism and grassroots. When a news event like a freeway accident occurs, staffers from the deadline area work to gather material for the Web site first, as those tasked to the other areas may develop plans for their own stories.

Because there are editors in charge of each platform, there will be people thinking specifically about what should go into the TV newscasts or next-day newspaper. But Coats said the goal is to develop a newsroom where there is less emphasis on filling holes in a newscast or newspaper and more focus on delivering information to consumers in whatever form they may need.

Isn't it possible important stories that aren't appealing to the Web will get short shrift? "I think there's a certain degree of old media arrogance that goes into that kind of thinking," she said. "For most of us, it's only been in the last year to 18 months that we've started getting away from the idea that the Web site is the newspaper on a computer screen . . . I'm worried that if we don't change how we think about this further it won't matter what falls through the cracks because we'll have no readers."   

And though Coats expects "I'll be spending a lot of time on the phone Monday," with readers angered by the changes, the new face of the Tribune and its new focus is something she expects to last a while. "From a reader perspective, it's been just as bad to keep changing the paper we're giving to people every six months," she said. "This is something we think we can sustain and live with a while."

For real geeks about this stuff, click below to see two memos outlining the specific changes in the newsroom.

*

From Janet Coats.....
Everyone,

Today, we're announcing the composition of the reporting and photography teams in the Interactive Newsroom.

This is based in large part on the surveys many of you filled out earlier this summer, telling us your preferences for work group membership. Those were reviewed by Don, Duke, Loren and me. Then, we asked the Audience Editors to do another review, with an eye toward making sure we had enough staffing in each group for the work we'll be doing across all platforms.

This list includes only reporters and photographers. No supervisors are on this list. We plan to announce the supervisors for each work group the week of Sept. 29.

We are also working on staffing for the finishing groups and for the desk that will serve as "air traffic control'' for the daily news report. That desk will assume some of the functions of the current WFLA assignment desk and the Trib photo assignment desk, but the focus will be broader and more universal to all the work that is going on in each news cycle.

We intend to announce more details about how that desk will work and about the finishing groups for each platform next week.

There has been confusion, based on some of my ramblings I'm sure, about beats. Reporters who are covering beats generally can assume they are taking that beat with them to their new team. There are a few exceptions, and we'll be talking with those people individually. The idea is not to eliminate beat work, but to change the focus of much of that work as we shift emphasis to an "audience first'' perspective, using TBO as the medium through which we plan much of our coverage.

If you have questions or concerns, please contact your platform chief (Don, Duke or Loren) or drop me an email and we'll work with you to get answers. I'm out of the office the rest of this afternoon, but I will be checking email; if you have a concern or question for me to address, email is going to be your best bet until I'm back in the office on Monday.

If you are a reporter or photographer, and if your name does not appear on this list, please do not panic or assume the worst. With this many moving parts, chances are high that we may have inadvertently left off a name or two. Just flag us via email and we'll fix it.

DEADLINE:

Daniela Velazquez

Scott Brown

Matt Neistein

Beth Gaddis

Tim Chong

Shannon Liston

Angus Shafer

Joe Emerson

Rick Mayer

Laura Fiorilli-Crews 

Tom Brennan

Elaine Silvestrini

Todd Leskanic

Stephen Thompson

Keith Morelli

Lisa Davis

Valerie Kalfrin

Josh Poltilove

Ray Reyes

Ted Jackovics

Russell Ray

Erik Erlendsson

Roy Cummings

Tony Fabrizio

Dan Lucas

Dave Reynolds

Brett McMurphy

Mick Elliott

Krista Klaus

Chip Osowski

Jeff Patterson

Josh Thomas

Natalie Shepherd

Peter Bernard

Lynn Carson

Sam Sodos

WATCHDOG:

Mike Salinero

Shannon Behnken

John Allman

Windy March

Adam Emerson

Christian Wade

Laura Kinsler

Richard Mullins

Lindsay Peterson

Catherine Dolinski

Billy House

Dan Ruth

Joe Henderson

Steve Andrews

Stacie Schaible

DATA:

Janine Dorsey

Kevin Wiatrowski

Baird Helgeson

Michael Sasso

Michele Sager

Courtney Pastor

Ira Kaufman

Marc Lancaster

Mark Douglas

PERSONAL JOURNALISM:

Carl Lisciandrello

Neil Johnson

Ryan Bauer

Rommie Johnson

Kevin Walker

Rich Shopes

Mary Shedden

Phil Morgan

Jeff Houck

Walt Belcher

Curtis Ross

Sherri Ackerman

Cloe Cabrera

Michelle Bearden

Sarah Hoye

Emily Seawell

Greg Williams

Gayle Guyardo

Steve Jerve

Leigh Spann

Jennifer Hill

Megan Hatton

Katie Coronado

GRASSROOTS:

Kevin Brady

Judy Wade

Scott Butherus

John Ceballos

Geoff Fox

BC Manion

Steve Otto

Joyce McKenzie

Marilyn Brown

Ronnie Blair

Jessica Balanza

Jamie Pilarczyk

Lois Kindle

Jose Patino

Yvette Hammett

Laura Frazier

Donna Koehn

George Wilkens

D'Ann White

Ken Knight

Derek Sharp

Tom Jackson

George Newman

Kathy Steele

Felix Martinez

Sarah Rothwell

Joey Johnston

Bill Ward

Nick Williams

Adam Adkins

Martin Fennelly

Anwar Richardson

Katherine Smith

Eddie Daniels

Bill Ratliff

Yolanda Fernandez

Jennifer Leigh

Jackie Barron

Rod Challenger

Multimedia Photographers:

Fred Bellet

Andy Jones

Christine DeLessio

Candace Mundy

Robert Burke

Jim Reed

Chris Urso

Jason Behnken

Julie Busch

Scott Iskowitz

Jay Conner

Jay Nolan

Colin Hackley

Kathy Moore

Cliff McBride

Michael Spooneybarger

John Winterrowd

Bob Hansen

Paul Lamison

Kate Caldwell

Jim Hockett

Dave Kraut

Joe Martin

Eric Hausmann

Rugene Moore

Chris Coyner

Michael Egger

Jim Farquhar

Maurice Capobianco

Indira Levine

Katy Hennig

Peter Masa

Wally Patanow

Anthony Allred

Gordon Dempsey

Todd Davis

Pat Brammell

Second Memo:

We are pleased to announce the six Audience Editors for the Interactive Newsroom.

They are:

Kiely Agliano. Kiely's current position is Senior Editor/Design and Graphics for the Tribune. Kiely has worked at the Tribune since 1997, when she started as a features page designer. In her current role, she has been responsible for the look and feel of the Tribune, coordinating visual presentations for all news sections. She had input into the final TBO home page redesign, and she is working on the redesign of the Tribune.

Clarisa Gerlach. Clarisa is now the CND day editor. She started on what was then the Tribune's "Comm Desk'' in 1993, serving as a Trib page designer from 1995 until 2000. That year, she made the leap to TBO, starting as a news and special projects producer. In her current role, she coordinates news coverage and multimedia content among the platforms and the affiliate newspapers, with a focus on breaking news. She leads the daily 7 a.m. CND meeting, tracks our user traffic and drives interactivity through reader comments.

Ken Koehn. Ken is deputy managing editor for the Tribune, focusing on metro, business, features and weekend coverage. Ken came to the Trib in 1991 as a local government reporter. He covered city hall for five years, worked as bureau chief in Brandon and served as metro government team leader. For three years, he directed our regional coverage, supervising all the bureaus and neighborhood zones.

Susan Newman. Susan is now executive producer for WFLA. She came to WFLA as a planning manager and served as managing editor for that newsroom from 1995 until 2002. She has been executive producer since 2002. Susan has managed short-term and long-range planning projects on everything from hurricanes to Super Bowls. She has worked closely with the CND and the WFLA assignment desk on the merger of resources during the last year. Susan is perhaps the person in the newsroom who has been most directly involved with all of our convergence and cross-platform collaboration efforts during the last nine years.

Vidisha Priyanka. Vidisha is the Interactivity Team leader. We asked Vidisha to lead the formation of that team more than a year ago, when we decided that we needed to focus more on interactive journalism online. Vidisha has been the driving force behind the creation of our database project; under her leadership, Data Bay has grown to include more than 35 databases on everything from baby names to the Pinellas toxic plume. Vidisha came to TBO on an internship in 2001 and stayed on to become a news and special projects producer until assuming the Interactivity Team leader position last year.

Debbie Swartz. Debbie is the assignment desk manager for WFLA. As assignment manager, she prioritizes stories and assigns reporters and photojournalists for WFLA to make sure they are covering the right stories and developing content for the newscasts. Debbie came to WFLA as a photojournalist in 1995. In that role, she field produced news stories, tracked cases through the court system, shot still photos for the Tribune and operated the live truck. Debbie was a member of the team that launched the CND; she has worked to bring the assignment desk and the CND closer in mission and in work flow.

Comments

[Can't take his Mac book to the crapper]

I think the Times and the Trib should merge. Keep the news writers from the Times and the sports writers from the Trib. And then they'll have to pay half the number of homeless people hocking newspapers on the intersection.

[NewsKnight]

Say it ain't so, Joe (Brown)... I guess that means we'll see him babble more often on local PBS, "Florida This Week" or maybe not, because nobody calls jobless newspaper columnists for their take on the issues.

[June Hamory]

I have considered dropping the Tribune for years but always hesitated because I want the TV guide and the two crossword puzzles. This makes it easy. When my subscription is up I'm gone!

[I'm Not Reading The Trib At My Crib]

Dead Meat is right -- virtually nobody under the age of 30 reads the newspaper. They all depend on RSS feeds to get their news, and the newspaper industry has yet to find a way to capitalize on digital delivery.

Unfortunately, newspapers are taking a hit on too many fronts to survive. Their classified business has gone the way of Auto Trader/Craigslist/etc, and their print ads have shrunk as well. Throw on an increase in the cost of paper, ink, and distribution, and you have a perfect recipe for disaster.

My hat is off to the employees that were let go. It's unlikely that Janet Coats is up to the task, judging by the talent level of who she let go. Janet, good luck to you and the rest of the Media General stooges as you try to 'go digital'!

So '90s of you, my dear.

[yet another former Tribune employee]

It's over. It's been over for a long time. The last couple of times I've been in Tampa and read the Tribune I was done in five minutes tops. There's not much original enterprise or sharp thinking. I know and respect many of the people still there, but they're playing with a bad hand and they're not getting the help they need from Richmond.

[dead meat]

Who under the age of 30 grabs a news paper in the morning? The newspaper industry is on its last legs. By the time the paper hits the driveway 6 hours of new news is available on your PC. The business model to make it work is non existent. There are not enough eyes on the paper to make it work any more. The next 5 years are going to be real interesting!

[another former Tribbie]

Trib = Lost Cause.

The Trib's owners long ago gave up on context and content, routinely getting rid of writers and editors that could provide both (while keeping the fat-cat managers, like Janet Coats, who do little but destroy the paper).

It's glaringly obvious that the paper's owners no longer believe in its viability, and are letting it go down the drain "naturally," without appearing to be killing the once formidable newspaper.

For anyone who cares about the newspaper tradition, and the importance of having multiple journalistic "voices" in a community, and the importance of "institutional memory," it's a crying shame.

The paper can do its online thing all day long, on one of the country's worst newspaper web sites.

But without its owners' support for viable content and the people - experienced reporters and editors - who produce that content, then its new-media revolution won't amount to much more than a sad final chapter for the Trib.

Drink up!

[Lin Young]

That's bad news, Joe Brown was one of the strongest writers the Tampa Tribune had. But when I arrived in the area in 1999, the Trib didn't have enough going for it to make me read it very often, the St. Petersburg Times was by far the better paper then, and has managed to remain so today. I can't imagine the Trib can hold on too long with the kind of cuts it's making. Getting rid of columnists and editorial writers means they can't deliver much context to readers anymore. And busy readers need/ want/crave context. Plus sometimes columns just deliver some diversion to readers. At any rate, I think the Trib just made a big mistake.

[another former MG employee]

These are complex times for the media business in general, and none of the players seems to have the answer. This much is clear, however: It is folly to put TBO.com--a Web site that is impossible to navigate, horribly designed, slow to load, and cluttered with non-targeted ads--at the center of your strategic plan.

[beltwaybandit]

On the surface this appears like simple re-arrangement of deck chairs on the Titanic.

But I note an underlying strategy that COULD, if executed correctly and given enough time, produce an interesting transition for the Media General operation in Tampa.

They clearly have decided that the web is the future and have placed a bet by making it the top focus.

The keys to whether this is successful rely on the following:

* The strength of the management team they've put in place (second memo) and how good they are at leading through rough waters. Most, if not all, newspaper/broadcast management have zero experience leading turnaround efforts.

* The flexibility of the photogs, TV camera folks and reporters (both tribune and FLA) and their ability/willingness to lose their loyalty to their medium and become agnostic in the age of digital delivery.

* Audience acceptance of the changes. People are creatures of habit. Will they accept seeing their newspapers come in much different packages and how will they gravitate to the web for their primary information source?

* Time. How long can Media General sustain what undoubtedly will be increasing losses resulting from continuing to pay the distribution costs of the paper and the high salaries of TV anchors whose value is pretty much de-valued in a digital age. Newspapers cost roughly the same to distribute regardless of size and shape. While print costs can be reduced by shrinking the paper, ultimately the cost to deliver a newspaper will require circulation to decrease and thus readership, followed closely by reduced ad revenue. The Death Spiral for newspapers. And TV anchors are the result of a time when emotion and personality drove ratings. That will go out the window in a digital delivery age.

This can work...but the odds are very long. And thus far, the Media General management team has not proven itself up to the task.

[former tribune employee]

sweet feathery jesus ... what an absolute clusterhump.

i left the tribune newsroom nearly 10 years ago -- before the steep, downward death spiral of this once proud newspaper began -- and i can only fall to my knees and thank god i'm out of there.

my concern is personal as well ... as in, at what point does listing the tribune on my resume actually become a liability?

i only hope, for the sake of those left aboard that sinking ship, that they're printing up road maps and flow charts to let people know what the hell they're doing and who they're reporting to.

prediction: this newspaper, within the next five years, will no longer exist on a daily basis. truthfully, i'm thinking it'll be closer to three years.

but that hardly would be surprising ... because the longest book ever written is the list of former tampa tribune employees.

[Wenalway]

Janet Coats has no clue and should be fired. Claiming that redesigns and smaller papers are the solution is pure idiocy. She has no innovative ideas.

Every day that Janet Coats is still an editor is a day that newspapers are hopelessly without a clue.

Janet Coats should be fired.

[dreaming]

Coats said the newspaper is doing what others including the St. Petersburg Times have done, beefing up Sunday sections where people take more time to read while slimming down weekday editions

excuse me, eric? have you taken a look at your own sunday paper recently? it's thinner than kate moss on heroin.

theyve been dumping it in my driveway for free lately, which is the only way i'd know.

but seriously, content is becoming a thing of the past. what little there is in your paper is at least of somewhat higher iq than what the trib puts out.

but geez, if the trib claims its sunday paper is its flagship, then its really all over but the shoutin'.