The horrible economic conditions facing U.S. newspapers are causing rapid-fire turnover at the editor-in-chief and publisher levels.
USA Today, The Wall Street Journal, The Los Angeles Times, The Washington Post, The Chicago Tribune, The San Francisco Chronicle, The Baltimore Sun, The San Jose Mercury News and The Kansas City Star have something in common, aside from some of the biggest names in an endangered industry.
By the start of February, not one of them will have the same top editor it had when 2008 began. Most of them will have different publishers, too.
Go back just three years, and the list of newspapers that have changed editors includes The Daily News of New York, The Philadelphia Inquirer, The Miami Herald, The Star Tribune of Minneapolis, the Chicago Sun-Times, The Plain Dealer of Cleveland and The Sacramento Bee.
Each paper has its own story, and some would have changed leaders even in the most placid times. But upheaval in a business that is battling for survival has drastically shortened the shelf lives of editors and publishers at major papers, whether they leave voluntarily or are forced out. All have had to navigate waves of ownership changes, cutbacks, experimentation or all three.
“The primary explanation is the unremitting pressure on these guys to produce journalism at a lower and lower cost,” said Conrad C. Fink, a professor of newspaper management at the University of Georgia.
A flurry of buying and selling from 2005 to 2007, fueled by easy credit, put record debt burdens on many of the nation’s metropolitan dailies. Since then, advertising revenue has plummeted and layoffs have become common.
New owners arrived with new agendas, and some had no experience in the field, like Samuel Zell, the chairman of the Tribune Company, which filed for bankruptcy less than a year after he took over. Even longtime owners have made increasingly urgent demands to cut costs and produce some innovation that will engage readers and increase revenue.
Not so long ago, editors of major papers typically stayed for 7 to 10 years, sometimes much longer. But among the 20 highest-circulation newspapers in the United States, 19 have changed their top editors in this decade — several of them more than once. The lone exception is The Star-Ledger, in New Jersey, whose editor, James P. Willse, has had his job since 1995.
“The jobs of editor or publisher are a lot tougher, so people are less likely to cling to them,” said Paul E. Steiger, who retired in 2007 as managing editor of The Wall Street Journal, the highest newsroom position there. In his 16 years heading The Journal, he said, “my involvement in business concerns went from something like 15 percent of my time to about 50 percent.”
In Canada, this phenomenon has been most prevalent at the Toronto Star -- although I confess to a constipated, Toronto-centric view of the Canadian news media world these days. If someone from outside the bubble can help update my knowledge base, I'd be most grateful.