The announcements at the Mercury News yesterday went about as to be expected. No one from Knight Ridder, McClatchy or MediaNews was going to say much of substance…there are too many complications and legal issues which still have to be dealt with.

I mostly believe Dean Singleton when he says there are no changes planned. He has not had time to plan any changes. But once the deal is done people will start to look for ways to improve revenue and profit and drive efficiencies.

For instance, right now the Mercury News and Contra Costa carry far more national and recruitment advertising than the papers in Singleton’s Northern California Partnership. Using the sales force at the Mercury News to sell this advertising into the partnership papers can drive big percentage gains in revenue with no staffing additions and little incremental costs.

This is just one example. There are smart people in these ad departments and they will think of many more.

I want to share some of the emails I’ve had concerning the announcements at the Mercury News on Wednesday.

Singleton is widely quoted as saying no layoffs and no big changes. That’s the kind of thing you say when you are in the full glory of having made the deal. As one of my far-flung correspondents said in an email:

What I’m hearing is that Dean met with Tony and the Merc people to assure them he would keep things as is, for a while. That’s good strategy in terms of keeping the union off balance and upholding morale.
He’ll have plenty of time to find “economies” in the Merc and Times newsrooms later.

A couple of people emailed input about the involvement of Hearst:

First

I wouldn’t be shocked to see the Chronicle become part of the partnership (in some fashion) in a year or so.

And from another FFC

What the buy-in by Hearst does is give them some revenue as the Chronicle continues to hemorrhage, and presents a partner for management of the Chronicle when Hearst tires of the debacle. They get rid of the guild, other problem unions, have a ready made press site in CCTimes, and back to making money.

Also, there is no perfect way to make complex announcements like these but there are some sore nerve endings at the Mercury News. The front line folks did not get official word of what happened until more than an hour after the press release went out. Not the best way to start.

I have had three emails from people who attended the newsroom and/or senior manager meetings with Dean Singleton, Tony Ridder and others yesterday at the SJMN:

Message One

First, the Q&A with Singleton done by Pete Carey in today’s Merc is a transcript of our meeting with him. Those were the questions asked by staff members.

Interesting that the CCTimes staffers reportedly gave him a standing ovation as he arrived at their meeting. That didn’t happen at the Merc. In fact, there was very little applause at the end. I’m surprised there was any at all.

Second, as indicated in Pete’s story, the sale didn’t ease a lot of feelings that more rough stretches are ahead with the contract negotiations coming up. Singleton referred more than once to “local management” making decisions about staffing, saying if they thought staff cuts needed to be made; they’d make those decisions, not corporate, which also didn’t ease everyone’s thoughts about that possibility.

A lot of people wore “I am the Union” buttons to the meeting yesterday, underlying their concern. The Guild has an emergency membership meeting tonight.

Message Two

… Singleton’s rhetoric about the Mercury News being the “crown jewel” of KR and his happiness at acquiring us seemed like typical political bull****. His answer to questions regarding the status of salaries, benefits, and staff levels on sounded good on the surface but I don’t think anyone thinks things will be a bed of roses. Your FFC’s comments about future changes seems dead-on.

Singleton was also asked if he would honor existing union contracts. He answered that it would be a moot point because the contracts expire before MediaNews takes over. He went on to say that all contracts would be negotiated locally by Mercury News management … in other words same as it’s always been. The questioner probed further and added that the contracts have an evergreen clause that keeps everything the same until a new contract is agreed upon. Singleton then hedged saying that he wasn’t familiar with the contract and that it wasn’t something he could get into.

Later he said the MN business model, profits, targets, etc. were not an issue with him because they are actually a bit more aggressive he’d probably have set himself.

Anyway by the time all the legalities and paperwork gets done he won’t be at helm of the place until probably September, and then I suspect a few months more before anything of note would change. I don’t plan on wringing my hands until then and I doubt many other people will either.

The first thing that needs to be dealt with is the labor contracts. We’ll see what transpires at tomorrow’s Guild meeting. I’m sure an aggressive course of action will be laid out soon.

Message Three

Dean did a great job with the communication that George is going to be running things, sets up lots of opportunity for us to be more efficient and better compete against the Chron, TV, radio, Google, Craigslist, etc.

And a message from this afternoon about how people are doing today:

…it’s been fairly quiet today. All of the managers seem to have been a bit dazzled by Singleton and feel that everything is going to be good.

I guess I’m just a bit cynical and am wondering how Media News will keep it’s 20% profit rate when their newly acquired acquisition–the SJMN currently is running at (at whole lot less) …(and)… I don’t know what CCN is running at, but would venture a guess that it’s also not in the 20% range.