 |
Home | Search | Browse | About IPO | Staff | Links |
|
Home | Search | Browse | About IPO | Staff | Links |
|
The Media
By TOM LITTLEWOOD
FAMILIAR busts of the founders still grace the lobby of the Daily Pantagraph building in downtown Bloomington. There is nothing to visibly celebrate the passage of this historic Illinois newspaper a year ago to the owners of the San Francisco Chronicle. The man who was sent out to the cornfields to oversee the investment is sitting in the publisher's office — Peter Erhling Thieriot (pronounced Teriat), great-grandson of the founder of the Chronicle and one of four cousins who now run the controversial company. The Chronicle is controversial because of its glaring preference for entertaining fluff over news and because of a market-sharing agreement with the Hearst group that led to antitrust litigation in the San Francisco Bay area (see "Media" column, Illinois Issues, June 1980). Thieriot blames the low professional esteem in which the Chronicle is held on "egghead types" who don't understand that only a screwball newspaper can reflect a screwball community. He is quick to point out, however, that Bloomington is not Baghdad-on-the-Bay and the Pantagraph will not set out to mirror the Chronicle. Already, however, the paper is notably more lively than the staid if respectable Pantagraph of old. The comic strip "Doonesbury," Chronicle humor columnist Art Hoppe, and a sense less feature called "Grab Bag," all on the op-ed page, do not always slide down easily at the Rotary Club. Though quickly accepted as a regular at the Lucca Grill gathering place for local movers and shakers, the new publisher is not likely to be mistaken for an old-line Rotarian. He is a tall, jaunty man of 38 with dark, flashing eyes, a short beard and hair long in the back. Put him in a floppy hat and Thieriot could pass a screen test for a California gold prospector. He said the family was looking for a paper with a solid image in a growth market with weak labor unions. The rumored price of $55 million would make it the most expensive newspaper transaction (per subscriber) ever. Under the new management the Pantagraph is aggressively pursuing circulation in the outer reaches of its large regional territory, bumping up against competitors from Peoria to the west, Springfield and Decatur to the south, Champaign to the east and Streator and Pontiac to the north. With such a large rural readership, some of the traditionalists on the staff were alarmed when the city-slicker boss changed the farm page into a farm-business section. But Bloomington-Normal's commercial activity and the modern nature of agri-business made it a wise decision. Like so many publishers without newsroom experience, Thieriot is more interested in appearance than substance. The paper has a cleaner modular look now. Space devoted to editorial content has been running about 8 percent above a year ago with much of the increase devoted, as might be expected, to features and other "soft news." No longer, says Thieriot, is the Sunday paper "the garbage-can you shovel all the leftovers into." A consultant was brought from San Francisco to design the Saturday entertainment magazine "Preview," an attractive package with, among other features, "The Underground Gourmet," which rates central Illinois restaurants. Some of the more grossly underpaid editorial employees were given raises. Star reporter Bernie Schoenburg was sent off on a trade mission junket to Japan. Thieriot promised there would be no firings, but the 58-year-old night wire editor was "retired early" after 18 years of service. One of the three photographers was not replaced when he left. And the publisher is looking outside the staff for "a hard-charger, a guy with fire under him" to be an assistant managing editor — one of two newly created posts under the well-liked veteran managing editor Gene Smedley. The problem with any medium-sized paper operating over such a large area is how to cover the region in any depth given the limited advertising base and space for news. One of the steps under study is converting to an all-morning paper, possibly with zoned editions. The afternoon edition home delivered in Bloomington-Normal now accounts for well over half the Pantograph circulation, so the changeover would be a test of managerial wizardry. Update: Alton libel case If you are sued in the Illinois courts and a jury awards damages, you cannot appeal the judgment, no matter how unjust, until you post bond for the amount of the judgment against you. The runaway jury's totally unreasonable award against the Telegraph was far in excess of the newspaper's libel insurance or any other available credit. In January, the Appellate Court in Mount Vernon refused to relax the appeal bond requirement and the owners of the Telegraph were left pondering how they could proceed with the appeal. Surely, you might ask, are not the wealthy members of the American Newspaper Publishers' Assn. standing in line waiting to lend financial assistance to their troubled brethren in Alton? Sadly, the answer as of this writing is no they are not. April 1981/ Illinois Issues/ 41 |
|
|
