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Tucson Citizen Folding Print Edition

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Associated Press reporter Art Rotstein, left, and Renee Horton ask Gannett spokeswoman Kate Marymount about the closing of the Tucson Citizen and the extension of its Web site. The Citizen publishes its last edition Saturday. (Credit: P.K. Weis/Tucson Citizen) 

Some at Gannett Paper Already Working Two Jobs

Asserting that it was unable to find a buyer, the Gannett Co. announced on Friday that Arizona’s oldest continuously published daily newspaper, the Tucson Citizen, will publish its final print edition Saturday but will continue operating online, as Arthur H. Rotstein reported Friday for the Associated Press.

"Kate Marymont, Gannett Co. vice president for news, told the newspaper’s staff Friday that the paper will continue with a Web site edition providing commentary and opinion but no news coverage," Rothstein reported.

While the Citizen had a mostly Anglo staff, at least 11 journalists of color worked in the newsroom of 65, staffers said.

They included Rogelio Olivas, entertainment editor; Steve Rivera, sportswriter; Gabrielle Fimbres, features writer; Josie Cantu-Weber, copy editor; and photographers Xavier Gallegos, Francisco Medina, Val Ca?±ez and Renee Bracamonte. All are Hispanic. Asian Americans included Eric Sagara, a local reporter, and Jennifer Lum, a page designer. Ken Brazzle, a sportswriter, is African American.

"Most people are pretty upset about it, but we’ve had some time to adjust to the idea of the paper going away," Sagara told Journal-isms.

"Some people already have jobs," Olivas said, even as they continue to work for the Citizen. A copy editor took a job at Wal-Mart after being laid off, he said. Others held two or three jobs, staying on at the paper to qualify for severance, he said.

"People are applying for any jobs they can find," he said. When there was an opening for three writing jobs at a Pima Community College, Olivas said, at least eight Citizen staffers who applied. Rachelle Howell, the college’s assistant vice chancellor for marketing, told Journal-isms she hired two Citizen staff writers and one who had already been laid off. "A good number of people from the Citizen" applied, she confirmed.

"Marymont said Gannett will honor the original severance package offered to employees, which is a minimum of two weeks and a maximum of 26 weeks, depending on years of service," Renee Schafer Horton reported in a story on the Citizen Web site.

"Marymont delivered the news to a newsroom that has been on hold since March 17, when Gannett said the planned March 21 closing would be postponed due to negotiations with buyers.

"She told staff that employees would know by the end of the day if they would be laid off, kept on a short term transition basis or if they were hired full time.

"Employee questions regarding negotiations with buyers were met with Marymont saying, ‘In the end, there were no buyers.’"

But the story continued, "Stephen Hadland, CEO of the Santa Monica Media Company, which publishes five weekly newspapers in the Los Angeles area, was the final bidder in negotiations with Gannett.

"Reached by phone Friday morning, he called Gannett’s decision ‘the biggest perversion of the Newspaper Preservation Act that I have ever witnessed.’

"’We were, we are and we remain a [bona fide] buyer,’ Hadland said. ‘We made a substantial cash offer, we later amended the offer to close to half a million dollars and were told that nothing less than $800,000 would be acceptable.’"

Olivas, 45, told Journal-isms he would like to stay in entertainment journalism but might have to move to Los Angeles. He said he had been at the Citizen on and off for 18 years.

Sagara, 31, said, "Part of me wants to stay in journalism, but the industry isn’t looking too good. I thought about moving on to another paper, but I’m worried that if I move across the country to another paper," and it folds, "what do I do then?" He specializes in computer-assisted reporting.

"The Citizen has struggled for years against the Star, a 117,000-circulation newspaper. During the Citizen’s heyday in the 1960s, circulation was about 60,000, but it had fallen to 17,000," the AP said.

Newspapers Lost $18.7 Billion From 2006 to 2008

"Much attention has been focused on the decline of major American newspapers, and it’s common knowledge that print advertising revenues have plunged over the last couple of years. But exactly how much money have newspapers lost in their print operations? An estimated $18.7 billion from 2006-2008," Erik Sass wrote Wednesday for the Media Daily News.

"Those calculations are based on annual and quarterly figures from the Newspaper Association of America.

"To put $18.7 billion in perspective, it’s more than the gross domestic product of Iceland, pegged at $17.55 billion by the International Monetary Fund in 2008. On the other hand, it’s only about one-third of the value of Bernie Madoff’s securities fraud, estimated at around $50 billion.

"Many in the newspaper industry have counted on their online operations to salvage the bottom line, but that may be quixotic. During 2006 to 2008, total Internet revenues amounted to $8.9 billion ‚Äî less than half the losses on the print side. What’s more, after anemic growth of $500 million from 2006-2007, Internet revenues actually declined in 2008, subtracting about $50 million."

"Thank God we are not competitors for the same jobs — yet," Sam Fulwood III writes of himself and his daughter, Amanda. (Credit: Marvin Joseph/The Root/ Washington Post)

Both Jobless, a Dad Bonds With Graduating Daughter

"When Amanda Fulwood accepts her well-deserved sheepskin Sunday at the University of Virginia, I’ll be the proudest father on campus. Since the day my daughter was born, I’ve dreamed of this moment, when I could look through teary eyes at her toothy smile and send her off to find a career and make her way in the world," Sam Fulwood III wrote Thursday on theRoot.com.

"I never in a million years thought I’d be out there trying to make my way with her. Like many seasoned professionals hit by the recession, I am out of work. By one reliable account, nearly 16,000 journalists — including me — lost their jobs through layoffs and buyouts at U.S. newspapers in 2008. So far this year, almost 9,000 more have been let go.

"Amanda’s job prospects are similarly discouraging. Just as she entered her senior year, the Bureau of Labor Statistics reported that the number of unemployed people with college degrees rose to 1.413 million from 1.411 million the previous month.

"So now Amanda and I find ourselves in the job market together, each consumed by our bleak prospects. This isn’t exactly the kind of father-daughter bonding I thought we would be engaging in at this point in our lives. But, oddly, it’s not too bad. We’ve actually become quite a team."

Fulwood, left the Cleveland Plain Dealer in November and returned to Washington, where he had worked in the Los Angeles Times Washington bureau.

NAHJ Names Rivera, Duron, Gonzales to Hall of Fame

"Three enduring pioneers for equality and truth in storytelling will be inducted into the National Association of Hispanic Journalists’ Hall of Fame during the NAHJ Annual Convention in San Juan, Puerto Rico next month where hundreds will converge to create a critical mass of journalists skilled in multimedia," NAHJ announced.

"Geraldo Rivera, host of Fox‚Äôs newsmagazine ‘Geraldo-at-Large’; KRON ‘Weekend Morning News’ anchor Ysabel Dur??n; and founder and editor of El Tecolote newspaper and professor of journalism at City College of San Francisco Juan Gonzales will be inducted into the NAHJ Hall of Fame. This year‚Äôs Hall of Fame Gala starts at 7:30 pm on Friday, June 26 at the Puerto Rico Convention Center during the 27th Annual NAHJ Convention and Media & Career Expo in San Juan set for June 24-27, 2009."

Aid Rushed to Journalists Caught in Fight With Taliban

"More than 30 journalists and their families have had to seek refuge in Peshawar, Pakistan, and other cities since the Pakistani army launched its offensive against the Taliban in the Swat valley bordering Afghanistan, Reporters Without Borders said on Friday.

"The valley’s newspapers have had to stop publishing and most of their journalists are now without any means of support." it said. 

The organization announced it had sent emergency funds to help the journalists.

Before that action took place, Aurangzaib Khan, manager of media development for Internews, an international media development organization. said, "We see how daunting it is to work as a journalist in a region torn by militancy, where both the militants and the state want to control the message. You are always between the devil and the ditch because your mandate is to speak the truth on behalf of people reduced to collateral damage. Reporting on a region where the fate of the international ‘war on terror’ will be decided is not a job for the faint of heart."

Khan, based in Peshawar, was describing the North West Frontier Province and the Federally Administered Tribal Areas, one of the world’s most insular regions,

"But there are several success stories," he continued. "Radio newsrooms are coming up that offer news and information in local languages, more people are joining journalism schools and many more are taking up media as a career despite the growing insecurity and direct threats to their well-being.

"The challenges are immense. First of all, low media density: creating and supporting media space in a tribal region — there are only 4 FM radio stations in FATA for a population of four million and just 11 FM stations for a population of 20 million in NWFP. Then there is a lack of professionalism — few trained journalists and major technical inadequacies that are stunting professionalism.

"Also, the region boasted more suicide bombings and terrorism-related casualties in 2008 than Iraq and Afghanistan combined. Growing security woes are feeding into the xenophobic tribal mindset that frowns on information-sharing and investigation as suspicious activities."

"Nearly Half of Children Under Age 5 Are Minorities"

"The 2008 census results are out! And scanning local headlines, it looks like minority populations are growing at warp speed," Jane Kim wrote Friday in Columbia Journalism Review.

‚Äú’El Paso County population at 742,062; Hispanic majority grows to nearly 82%’ is the headline at the El Paso Times. ‘Hispanics fuel Nevada‚Äôs recent growth,’ writes the Reno Gazette-Journal. ‘Wisconsin‚Äôs Hispanic population increases 48%,’ reads the headline for the Milwaukee Journal-Sentinel. The New York Times, adopting the local paper mantle to cover New York City, trumpets, ‘Hispanic Population‚Äôs Growth Propelled City to a Census Record.’ Fuels. Propelled. Record. Tie back your hair; these are full-speed-ahead headlines.

"The following characterizations, meanwhile, suggest that while the car is still moving forward, it‚Äôs also shifting into second gear: ‘Growth of Hispanic, Asian Population Slows Unexpectedly, Census Reports’ (Associated Press); ‘Asian and Hispanic Minorities Growing, but More Slowly’ (The New York Times); ‘Downturn Slows Growth of Hispanics, Asians in U.S.’ (The Wall Street Journal).

"Different papers, different pictures. That’s not all that surprising, given that increases in local minority populations are more likely to resonate with local readers than analyses of an overall slowdown in growth. Meanwhile, the latter gets touted in national headlines because of its implications for, among other things, assessing the tipping point of the majority minority — for demographers, the almost mythological moment at which the minority population will become a majority in this country."

"But it’s interesting to see what each camp tends to exclude. . . ."

Vu Nguyen, reporter at the Torrance (Calif.) Daily Breeze, interviews Pau Gasol of the Los Angeles Lakers at an elementary school on March 16. (Credit: Brad Graverson/Daily Breeze)

California Reporter, 34, Hospitalized and in a Coma

"Daily Breeze education reporter Vu Nguyen, who suffered cardiac arrest during a weekend soccer game, remained hospitalized in a coma Thursday in Harbor City and was not expected to survive," Larry Altman wrote Thursday in the Torrance, Calif., newspaper.

"The 34-year-old Long Beach resident’s wife of six months, his parents, brother and friends kept vigil at his bedside in the critical care unit at Kaiser Permanente Medical Center.

"’The doctor said most likely he will not wake up from this,’ said his wife, Heather Hua. ‘It’s very hard to let go of him.’"

"Nguyen kicked two goals while playing a soccer game with friends Sunday in a Santa Monica park and collapsed as he ran with his arms outstretched like an airplane down the field.

"Friends tried to revive him and summoned paramedics from a nearby fire station. Nguyen, who had shown no signs of ill health, suffered irreversible brain damage.

". . . Born in Saigon, Vietnam, on Feb. 20, 1975, Nguyen was 2 months old when his father, attack pilot Chuyen Nguyen, and mother, Ngoc Thuy Nguyen, were among the first refugees to escape and come to the United States.

"Raised in Garden Grove, Nguyen decided early on he wanted to be a reporter. An editor at Rancho Alamitos High School in Garden Grove, he went to work as a reporter for the Seattle Times, Orange County Register, Nguoi Viet 2 in Westminster and The Associated Press in Springfield, Ill.

"The Daily Breeze hired him in August to cover South Bay school districts. His most recent stories have chronicled the financial struggles of school districts dealing with significant cuts in funding."

Nominations Open for 2009 Ida B. Wells Award

Nominations are being accepted for the 2009 Ida B. Wells Award, presented annually to a media executive, manager or journalist who has made outstanding contributions toward making American newsrooms and news coverage more accurately reflect the communities they serve.

Administered jointly by the National Association of Black Journalists and the National Conference of Editorial Writers, "the award seeks to give tangible and highly visible recognition to an individual or group of individuals who have provided distinguished leadership in increasing access and opportunities to people of color in journalism and improving coverage of underrepresented communities," the judges said. Nominations should be made by June 1.

"First bestowed in 1983, the award is named in honor of the pioneering 19th and early 20th century editor and publisher who was a champion of integration and whose crusade against lynching earned her acclaim on two continents. Professors at the Medill School of Journalism serve as curators of the award.

"Eligibility: Any news executive, manager or journalist who has made significant contributions to newsroom diversity and/or improved coverage of communities of color is eligible for the award.

"Nominations: Any person may nominate a candidate for the award by completing a nominating form and submitting it along with supporting statements to m-awards (at) northwestern.edu

"Presentations: The award is presented alternately at the national conventions of the sponsoring bodies. The 2009 award will be presented at the 33rd annual convention and career fair of the National Association of Black Journalists, which will be held Aug. 5–9 in Tampa, Fla."

Past recipients of the award include Jay T. Harris, former publisher of the San Jose Mercury News, Reginald Stuart, corporate recruiter for Knight Ridder, Steve Capus, president of NBC News, Donald Graham, publisher of the Washington Post, and Johnita P. Due, senior counsel and Diversity Council chair of CNN.

To download the nomination form, click here.

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