From Provost to Newspaper CEO p.

By: M.L. Stein

Freedom Newspapers' head is more than a theory-bound academic sp.

JAMES N. ROSSE, who worked his way through college in the mailroom of the Minneapolis Star Tribune, graduated as an economist, but the newspaper bug stayed with him.
After 26 years at Stanford University, during which he rose from economics professor to provost, Rosse is settling into his new job as president and chief executive officer of Freedom Newspapers Inc.
however, the privately owned, Irvine, Calif.-based chain knew it was getting more than a theory-bound academic. As Stanford's provost, Rosse (pronounced Ross) managed a $400 million operating budget while enjoying a wide reputation as a newspaper consultant, specializing in antitrust litigation and regulatory concerns. Besides Freedom, his clients included Gannett, Knight-Ridder, the New York Times, San Francisco Chronicle, Thomson, Hearst and Cowles Media, his former employer.
The 60-year-old Rosse, a bearish, soft-spoken man who wears both belt and suspenders, took over at Freedom last April, succeeding retiring D.R. "Bob" Segal, who remains a member of the company's board.
The Sidney, Neb., native inherited a domain of 25 daily newspapers, 16 weeklies, and five television stations around the country. Some financial experts rate Freedom a $500 million company.
"Some of our papers are doing better than others but we are generally in sound financial condition," Rosse said in a recent interview with E&P.
To the new Freedom chief this does not translate into complacency.
"The challenge I have is to move this company forward now that the family is no longer running it," he explained. "This is a group that has to find its way in the modern world."
The "family" was in reference to the late Raymond Cyrus (R.C.) Hoiles, who founded Freedom 66 years ago in Bucyrus, Ohio, and his sons, Clarence and Harry, who carried on their father's Libertarian convictions in building up the chain.
Clarence died several years ago and Harry is retired in Colorado Springs, Colo., but Freedom papers still profess Libertarianism in their editorial pages. At one time, certain references to government and public schools were taboo in the pages of Freedom newspapers, a practice that ceased several years ago.
R.C. described his Libertarianism as a belief in the "Commandments, in the Golden Rule, in Natural Law, in God . . . free enterprise" and "faith that life is good."
In practice, Freedom newspapers have editorially espoused the idea that less government is better.
Asked if he were a Libertarian, Rosse, who has a Ph.D in economics and mathematics from the University of Minnesota, replied, "I am an economist who strongly believes in the operation of competitive markets and free political institutions. Although I am not a Libertarian by definition, the Libertarian philosophy is quite congenial to me."
Philosophy, however, does not appear to be Rosse's main preoccupation. He is much more concerned with the hard realities of newspaper survival in the 1990s.
One of Freedom's "significant challenges" today comes from "our friends across the county line," Rosse observed. This was a reference to the Los Angeles Times, which is fiercely battling Freedom's flagship newspaper, the Orange County Register, for circulation and advertising in the affluent but racially changing county.
Although the Times was not among his consulting clients, Rosse said that about 10 years ago he acted pro bono on behalf of the newspaper in its litigation with the Federal Trade Commission over allegations of discrimination in advertising.
"I prepared and sent some materials to the FTC but I never even got a letter of thanks from the Times," Rosse recalled with a rueful smile.
At Freedom, Rosse said he plans to exercise overall management but will give editors and publishers a generally free hand in determining news and editorial policies.
Acknowledging Freedom papers' strongly conservative editorial position ? the Register's op-ed page is dominated by such right-leaning pundits as William F. Buckley Jr., Mona Charen, George F. Will and Ken Adelman ? Rosse commented, "I believe a paper's editorial policy should lie in the hands of those who are managing those papers in particular markets. I have told my publishers that I expect their editorial policies to be straightforward and designed to improve the community and reflect a free market, free political system philosophy as part of the Freedom heritage.
"I have no intention of telling them how to exercise what I believe is their responsibility."
Still, Rosse, who reads the Register daily and samples the other papers, allowed that "I will send a note to an editor if something bothers me particularly."
Rosse defines his principal role as balancing headquarters support and management with the independent status given the Freedom properties, which stretch from coast to coast.
"I don't think you can run a newspaper and broadcast group purely out of headquarters," said Rosse.
Nonetheless, the stiff challenges of competition and keeping up with production developments require a helping hand from Irvine, Rosse pointed out.
"Our paper [the Sun Journal] in New Bern, N. C., for example, just doesn't have the resources to deal with the demands of the technical age, where big bucks are required to play at the gambling table," he contended. "I like to think of headquarters as being a support office for the managers in the battlefield."
So far, Rosse has visited about half of Freedom's newspapers, although not without effort, he reported.
"It is said of R.C. Hoiles that he never bought a paper that was easy to get to by airplane," Rosse joked.
Besides California and North Carolina, Freedom publishes community newspapers in Texas, Ohio, Florida, Indiana and New Mexico. Its television units include the Orange County News Channel and broadcast outlets in Chattanooga, Tenn., Schenectady, N.Y., Beaumont, Texas, Medford, Ore. and New Bedford, Mass.
Despite their monochromatic editorial pages, Freedom newspapers, for the most part, offer readers a sprightly package of frequent color photos, bright design, lively feature sections and solid local news, sports and business coverage, although investigative and in-depth reporting are not among their strengths.
In recent years, the Register has stood out among American newspapers with its generous use of color, eye-catching graphics, intense concentration on local news and innovative changes in beat reporting under the leadership of N. Christian Anderson, who recently was promoted from editor to associate publisher.
With such a prosperous m?lange of properties, Rosse has not initiated any drastic shake-ups and there seems little likelihood that he will in the forseeable future.
"I'm not a revolutionary kind of guy," he said. "We're gradually changing some of the ways we do business, but I have made it clear that I want to give the individuals with responsibilities a great deal of latitude. The better job they do, the less I have to worry about."
Rosse recalled that some Freedom people were "genuinely curious" when he came aboard from academia.
"Very few around here knew of me so I had to help them understand that this job was bringing together two strands of my life," he said. "I had developed a strong sense of strategic thinking about media through my research and, on the other hand, I had developed a lot of management experience and skills as a university manager.
"When people began to realize I knew my way around media and management, my being from Stanford was never an issue."
According to Jon Segal, Freedom's senior vice president for Community Newspapers East, Rosse is fitting nicely into the organization.
"His analytical background and knowledge about newspaper markets are a big help to a family company," said Segal. "Perhaps because of his academic background, he has a knack for building consensus. He has a very sharp intellect."
However, there is still a touch of the professor in Rosse, Segal went on. He told of the time when a serious concern about earthquakes drifted through Freedom's corporate offices.
Rosse, who had experienced the 1989 Northern California quake that badly damaged the Stanford campus and his own home, invited the staff to meet him for lunch in the office dining room for a briefing on temblors.
"He had a tremendous knowledge about earthquakes, which he delivered in one of the most interesting lectures I had ever heard," Segal recollected. "Yet it was on a down-to-earth level that allayed a lot of fears."
Robert C. Hardie, publisher of the Marysville (Calif.) Appeal-Democrat and chairman of the Freedom board, described Rosse as a "very well-informed and interesting man.
"He's a little more structured than Freedom is used to but maybe that's something we lacked," he added. "We must become more centralized and Jim is doing a good job in that respect."
Register publisher R. David Threshie also believes Freedom picked the right person as its chief.
"He's low key but very bright and an up-front type of individual," Threshie said. "He's a very comfortable type of manager for us and his management expertise is well-suited to the operation."
Rosse, who described himself as a "software junkie," works out some of Freedom's problems on his Macintosh, which is linked to another Macintosh at his home.
He said he used to do his own programming but has little time for it now. "I use the computer as a tool to structure my thinking," he said.
Rosse said newspapers "will continue to occupy a crucial niche in the communications spectrum....This is a niche where the economies of large-scale publications can be matched with communities of interest."
He said that "pieces of that niche will be peeled off by other media as they develop. That's been the history of the industry for 90 years. This is a cyclical business and we must live with that." Rosse said he does not expect newspapers to get a larger share of the advertising pie but is confident they will recover from the recession and increase their total revenues despite losing a share of the market.
Rosse said that newspapers need a 12 to 15% profit margin to survive "and in many markets they should be doing better than that."