The LA Times is calling it the Manhattan Project: They have sent three reporters and six editors on a two-month mission to investigate new ways to engage readers both in print and online.
“The newsroom is energized about innovation,” Mr. Hiller* said. “And having the code name of the Manhattan Project captures the sense of significance and urgency that I think is altogether called for.”
* David Hiller is the new publisher, just appointed by the Tribune Co. The parent corporation of the LAT fired former publisher Jeffrey M. Johnson, who refused to impose HQ-mandated cuts on the paper.
The name refers, of course, to the American effort to develop an atomic bomb during World War II, an-exaggerated-for-effect overstatement of the problems facing ink-on-paper newspapers: declining circulation, stagnant ad revenues and rising costs. While visits to newspaper Web sites are increasing, they account for a small part of revenue and do not draw enough advertising to support newsroom operations.
The Los Angeles project sprang from recent turmoil at the paper, when Mr. Baquet and the previous publisher, Jeffrey M. Johnson, said in the pages of the newspaper that they would not go along with cuts ordered by the corporate parent, the Tribune Company. Tribune has cut more than 20 percent of the 1,200 newsroom employees since it bought the paper in 2000.
The company dismissed Mr. Johnson last week. Mr. Baquet said he agreed to stay because he was convinced he would have the chance to make a new case for shoring up both his staff and his budget.
Those involved in the project said they did not want to be passive by-standers as their paper, like many metro dailies, struggled to transform itself in the Internet age.
“We shouldn’t be waiting for corporate headquarters or a think tank or a consultant to come up with ideas to secure our future,” said Marc Duvoisin, an assistant managing editor who will direct the investigation.
The project underscores just how focused many newsrooms have become on the business side of journalism, especially as Wall Street has shown little confidence in the industry and as share prices of most news organizations have dropped.
“We realized we had to act fast or we wouldn’t have anything to act for,” said Vernon Loeb, the paper’s California investigations editor, who helped originate the idea.