A Cautionary Tale

Mass firings, restructuring and layoffs aren't new to the American economy or its journalism institutions.

In 1981, the Globe-Times was the dominant newspaper in Bethlehem, Pa. it had 39,572 subscribers, about 4,000 more than normal after having scooped up readers from the recently deceased Allentown Evening Chronicle. What it did not know was that the cost of maintaining a geographically diverse population was higher than the rewards from added circulation and advertising revenue. It did not count on recession, a change in the public's newspaper reading habits and a demographic time bomb that was about to explode when advertisers increased emphasis on the quality, rather than quantity, of circulation.

Then, in 1982, the newspaper added a Sunday edition raised rates and forced readers to accept seven-day delivery. Subsequent questionable decisions by managers and good planning by the competition led the Globe-Times into crisis by mid-1988. Its circulation plummeted below 21,000, service to subscribers was poor, advertising dropped and the news operation--once one of the best--began to slide.

In its one-paper town, the Globe-Times should have had a comfortable monopoly, confronted only by weaker radio, television or billboard advertising. The Globe-Times and the nearby Easton Express, a 45,OOO circulation newspaper, had defined their geographical areas. Until the late 1970s, the principal competition facing the Globe-Times was not the Easton Express, 11 area radio stations, two Allentown TV stations, billboards and shoppers, but the Allentown newspapers.

With the larger Morning Call and its Evening Chronicle to hold the evening market, the Allentown newspapers were sleeping giants with a successful bureau in Bethlehem. By the mid-1980s, the Morning Can had a daily circulation of about 135,000, and a Sunday circulation of about 181,000, with every intention of becoming the dominant newspaper in Bethlehem and the Lehigh Valley. After absorbing its evening paper in 1980, the call successfully began outselling the Globe-Times in the Bethlehem City zone.

The Globe-Times' solution was a massive restructuring in 1988 and the firing of editors, reporters, senior managers and other veteran employees, many in their 4Os and 50s.

So what? In the Lehigh Valley alone, Mack Trucks and Bethlehem Steel, the two largest employers, laid off several thousand employees.

But newspapers aren't conglomerates that can simply retrain or lay off workers to meet economic realities. Only so many reporters can be laid off before coverage suffers. Knowledge of the community is as important to a journalist as technical skills, and continuity is as important to a newspaper as newsprint. Firing almost half its editorial staff for reasons of economics, personality differences and what some managers claimed to be lack of journalistic competence caused a loss in continuity, left the newspaper with no product to sell, and offended its readers. How the restructuring and firings were carried out fostered internal crisis and lack of public confidence.

For more than three years circulation continued to fall. Unable to survive the recession, and facing a stronger editorial competitor, the Globe-Times died Nov. 4, 1991.

Although it might be easy to blame the recession, changing readership patterns and stronger competition, the Globe-Times might have survived had it better understood its audience and basic journalistic principles, and carried out a few creative steps to assure its future.

The problems the Globe-Times faced are not limited to that newspaper. More than half of all U.S. dailies and almost all weeklies have circulations at or below the Globe-Times'; since 1980, more than 74 other dailies have died.

My hope is that we might learn from the G1obe-Times to prevent other newspapers from developing the problems that lead to diminished roles in their communities.

Selections of this book:

Prologue
Acknowledgements
Introduction