Creating A New Paper In Milwaukee p. 12

By: Mark Fitzgerald

Journal and Sentinel merger means less people, bigger news hole,
more sports, more family coverage, lots of digests and indexes sp.

BACK IN THE days when Time magazine used to apotheosize its "top" 15 newspapers in the United States, the Milwaukee Journal always made the cut.
But time and fortune have taken their toll on the afternoon Journal and its morning cycle sister, the Milwaukee Sentinel.
The dwindling circulation of the Journal and the ever-harsher imperatives of the newspaper economy led slowly but inexorably to a certain deterioration in both papers.
"As we've divided resources between the two papers over the years, we have just dropped a lot of that stuff," Journal/Sentinel Inc. president and chief executive officer James Currow said in an interview.
Currow was talking about sports agate and high-school game coverage, but he could just as easily have been discussing any other section of the paper. Or some non-newsroom issues, such as the Journal's faltering home delivery service.
However, with the announcement that the two papers are merging April 2, Journal/Sentinel Inc. executives say the new paper, the Milwaukee Journal Sentinel, will mark the return of a first-class paper to Milwaukee.

Bigger news hole

At a time when news holes are shrinking at newspapers around the country, the Journal Sentinel will have a news hole that averages 10 pages more than either existing paper, editors say.
And it will contain more of the news Milwaukeeans say they want: more crime coverage, more neighborhood coverage, more sports agate, more high school sports ? more sports in general.
It will be, editors say, one of those papers that appeal to readers both time-pressed and hungry for depth.
"It will have lots of digests, lots of indexes, lots of what Mario calls 'finger food:' items you can get through quickly . . . . At the same time, we will significantly increase suburban coverage, local coverage, political coverage," Sentinel editor Keith Spore said.
Mario is Mario Garcia, the newspaper designer affiliated with the Poynter Institute, who is creating a new look for the new paper.
Advertisers will finally be able to buy the entire market in a single buy, the paper's marketers say.
For the first time, too, the newspaper will have weekly, as well as daily, zoned distribution.
And while the ad rates are going up to reflect a higher anticipated circulation, the cost-per-thousand will go down, the paper said.
To replace a morning paper with a circulation of 175,000 and an afternoon paper with a circulation headed below 200,000, the Journal Sentinel should boast a circulation of 320,000, management says.
"We're creating a newspaper like you've never seen," goes the slogan for the extensive advertising and promotion campaign planned for the Journal Sentinel.

Human cost

Journal and Sentinel editors say determination to create a great paper is a heartening upside to the human cost of the merger.
Of the 3,500 full- and part-time employees, more than 200 full-time employees must depart the paper ? 54 of them from the newsrooms of the Journal and the Sentinel. The company says it must eliminate between 500 to 550 full-time equivalent jobs by June 1 at the latest.
Terms of voluntary severance and early retirement packages were announced Jan. 24. Employees will have until March 7 to decide whether to accept the package or risk layoffs in the event there are not enough voluntary departures.
"Bob Kahlor insisted that if we are going to do this [merger], then we are going to make a terrific paper," said Sentinel editor Spore, referring to Robert Kahlor, who is chairman and chief executive officer of parent company Journal Communications.
"Bob is a businessman, but he has a journalist's instincts," Spore continued, "and he said that whatever we did was going to be a hell of a lot better than what we are doing now."
The new paper is still aborning and will need an influx of newsroom ideas, said Mary Jo Meisner, Milwaukee Journal editor and vice president.
Meisner has some ideas already, however.

New beats

For one thing, she says she intends to flatten the newsroom structure and rethink the system of beats used at both papers.
"I want to build more teams and make the beats less oriented in terms of feeding sections," Meisner said.
"We've talked about getting away from 'building reporting' exclusively and more toward issues that interest people, more toward issue beats," she added.
One addition that is almost certain will be a weekly section, perhaps a tabloid, devoted to the family, broadly defined.
Also certain to stay is the morning Sentinel's relatively new and highly successful Monday business tabloid.
Many other decision have yet to be made, she said.
"It's zero-based newspapering," said Meisner, who will be the editor of the Journal Sentinel.
In newsrooms of uncertain staffing, however, there is skepticism about the future.
There are, after all, hard personnel decisions to be made ahead. Like Noah's ark, the merged paper suddenly has two of everything: two food editors, two editorial cartoonists, two court reporters ? even two features editors who happen to be husband and wife.
"Jim Currow and Keith and Mary Jo are talking a great deal about how great this newspaper is going to be, and certainly we hope we do create a great newspaper," said Larry Sandler, Sentinel business reporter and first vice president of the Newspaper Guild local.
"But great newspapers are not born out of a desire to save money," Sandler continued.
"Great newspapers are based on a commitment to quality and an ongoing commitment of resources.
"That has not been the history of our company, so I think people are justifiably skeptical . . . . We've seen before a pattern of starting off strong with some initial hoopla that eventually gets cut back."
The Guild, which represents about 360 employees, was one of eight unions that issued a statement condemning the merger as "not well thought out," which was made "without any involvement by the employee owners of this newspaper and any input from the community itself."