The Reborn Oakland Tribune p.

By: M.L. Stein

Staffers and most readers are happy it survived; now they must adapt to the newspaper being part of a chain sp.

THE "NEW" OAKLAND (Calif.) Tribune is off and running, followed by a horde of well-wishers, professional critics and complainers.
One reader/complainer, according to Tribune editor Pearl Stewart, "said he liked the old Tribune better because it was thinner. He wanted us to make our stories shorter. I'm happy to say that's one complaint we will not address."
The Tribune's expanded news hole, compared with its predecessor, is among the changes that Stewart and other staff members mention first when talking about the "new" paper. Although the adjective "new" is used only for promotional purposes and is not on the Tribune's flag, the paper's management wants to make it clear that Oakland and the San Francisco East Bay region have a new product ? not only in size but in more sweeping coverage.
Actually, there is something new in the flag. It is now "the Oakland Tribune.," adding the article and a period.
The period?
"A grace note," explained David Burgin, editor in chief of the Alameda Newspaper Group (ANG), which bought the Tribune from Robert and Nancy Maynard. "It's our way of saying the paper is stable and here to stay. You'll notice that the Wall Street Journal also uses a period."
Certain Tribune assets, including its name, circulation list and some equipment, but not the old Tribune Tower building, were sold to ANG by the Maynards, who had published the 118-year-old newspaper for 10 years. A reliable source told E&P that the sale price, including paying off the Maynards' debt to the Freedom Forum, was $20 million.
The new owners began publishing the Tribune on Dec. 1 of last year, the day after the sale was completed.
The switchover, although exciting, was not without problems.
"On the first day, we had reporters writing on deadline while learning a new computer system with technicians standing over their shoulders," recalled Stewart, a veteran Bay area journalist, who was a reporter and features editor for the old Tribune in the 1970s and more recently a San Francisco Chronicle reporter.
She is said to be the first African- American woman to edit a major metropolitan daily in the U.S.
The Tribune's new home is the third floor of a building that formerly housed the Port of Oakland Commission at historic Jack London Square. The newsroom of the redecorated facility has a sweeping view of the water ? a view that Bay area dwellers pay big money to buy.
The paper is printed at ANG plants in Hayward and Pleasanton, which accounts for the fact that the 80 people hired from the former Tribune's 630 employees came primarily from editorial.
About 60 of the hires now staff the Tribune while 20 were spread among ANG's four other dailies, the Hayward Review, the Fremont Argus, the Alameda Times-Star and the Tri-Valley Herald.
However, Burgin moved in a cadre of East Bay beat specialists from the other papers to flesh out the Tribune's reporting staff.
The Tribune, as its flagship paper, also became ANG's headquarters where Burgin and group publisher J. Allan Meath now have their offices. ANG is owned by the Houston-based MediaNews company headed by William Dean Singleton, who rescued the Tribune from probable extinction.
The reborn Tribune reveals the difference between printing on modern, high-speed offset presses and the worn letterpresses in the Tribune Tower. The typeface and design of the new paper are cleaner, brighter and literally more colorful.
Also demonstrated is what more money and group resources can accomplish. The new Tribune offers a bigger news hole and more local and sports news than the Maynards could provide, although the old Tribune will be remembered for its scrappy reporting that turned up many scoops and won several prizes, including a Pulitzer.
The esprit de corps that marked the old Tribune appears to have carried over to its revised successor, said managing editor Tim Schreiner, who was brought over from the Chronicle.
"I've been amazed at the energy over here when you consider what they've been through during the last decade at the Trib ? not knowing whether the paper was going to exist or not," Schreiner stated. "I've worked on newspapers that would kill to have these people."
Business writer Benny Evangelista, one of the carryovers from Tribune Tower, expressed satisfaction with his new employer, particularly because of its better equipment.
"It's nice to work on a computer whose manufacturer is still in business," he commented.
Columnist William Wong, who also was hired from the old Tribune, remarked, "I'm happy the paper survived. I think the new owners will continue the diversity that Bob Maynard practiced. What is different is that we must learn to adjust to being part of a chain."
The staff also is adjusting to not having a copy desk, being served by the one at the Hayward paper.
"I've never worked for a paper without a copy desk," said city editor Charles Jackson, whose experience includes the old Tribune, the Washington Post and the Dallas Times Herald.
Another difference, he observed, is that "The old Trib was a writer's paper. This is an edited paper and there are tight deadlines. There were really no hard deadlines at the Tower. Stories sort of trickled in. Of course, we make mistakes here but not the same mistakes. I still love this business."
"It's a lot better than the old Tribune in some respects," said another holdover, police reporter Harry Harris, who has spent 21 years on the Tribune.
"We're still feeling our way," he said. "Management is not afraid to spend money on big stories but they're still learning the community."
Publisher Meath said that advertisers are reacting well to the Tribune. Before the paper changed hands, he said, many advertisers were buying the four ANG newspapers but not the Tribune.
"When we bought the paper, we established a rate structure to entice major advertisers who could now be in all five papers," Meath said. "We made it reasonable for them to buy the Trib."
Asked if the Tribune were showing a profit, Meath replied, "It has to make a profit for a lot of reasons."
The publisher said that the Tribune, whose circulation is just over 100,000, is aiming at covering more of the populous and largely affluent East Bay than its one-time namesake, although its main concentration will be on Oakland and Berkeley, which have no hometown daily.
"Our newspaper is different," Meath contended. "Our story count is up and our intent is to serve all the people of the East Bay. There is a very strong ethnic mix here and we have to deal with rich or poor or whoever is making news. We're going to be more diversified than was the case previously."
Meath believes that the Tribune is strengthened by the input from ANG's other papers, which feed relevant stories to the metro daily.
Burgin called the arrangement a "journalism cooperative," which gives the Tribune "the resources to flourish and grow as never before, advantages its financially beleaguered predecessor never had."
The new Tribune has been greeted with a mixture of praise along with some carping, but even the critics are glad the paper is still around.
"The redesigned newspaper catches the eye," wrote San Francisco Examiner media critic David Armstrong. "Gone are the indistinct black-and-white photos and muddy pages churned out by the old Trib's antiquated presses."
Armstrong also lauded management for holding to such well-known Tribune columnists as Wong and Brenda Payton, but backhanded the paper's expanded sports section for giving too much space to "densely packed capsule summaries and the curse of newspaper sports ? stacks o' statistics."
Steve Stallone, editor of the East Bay edition of the weekly San Francisco Bay Guardian, rapped the Tribune as "simply a zoned edition of the ANG generic paper, and shows why people are already calling it the Oakland Daily Review," a reference to the Hayward Daily Review.
Still, Stallone conceded that the Tribune "has more stories on more pages."
Most observers generally gave the Tribune a good sendoff, coupled with an "It's too early to judge" approach.
Ben Bagdikian, a national media critic who lives in the East Bay, said, "There's more local news but it's not as intense and good as the old Oakland Tribune was in its first couple of years, although that diminished. But I would withhold final judgment until the Trib is farther along."
San Francisco Chronicle managing editor Matthew Wilson, whose paper claims a circulation of over 150,000 in the East Bay and is pushing for more, also compared the Tribune with the other ANG papers in terms of looks. "But that isn't necessarily bad," he added. "I wouldn't pass judgment yet on the paper."
Tom Goldstein, dean of the University of California, Berkeley, School of Journalism and a former New York Times reporter, said of the Tribune: "They've made an interesting start. There have been a lot of dramatic changes but there are several bugs to work out. I would give them another six months to see what they deliver."
Nancy Maynard called the start-up an "ambitious effort" and Leroy Aarons, the paper's former executive editor, said, "It's still finding its focus."
"There's a lot more space for news but on certain days the paper seems plugged with out-of-town stories," Aarons added. "Also, the old Tribune had more profiles and more lifestyle features, which is not in their format, but, eventually the larger ANG budget should work for them."
Singleton termed the Tribune a "very successful start" and scoffed at those who regard it as a look-alike paper.
"We obviously share typesetting and layout but I don't see anything wrong with that," he stated. "So what if the Tribune resembles the others in the group. Nobody reads any two papers. They read one."