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One of the little perks Frank Sennett was looking forward to in his new job as editor of Time Out Chicago was reconnecting with some of the old gang from New City. Sennett was that paper's managing editor in the mid-90s, James Porter was a staff writer specializing in blues and soul, Craig Keller a freelance writer, and Nicole Radja a freelance photographer. But last Friday Sennett got a call. Elizabeth Barr, Time Out's New York-based editorial director who's been running the Chicago edition pending Sennett's arrival, was on the line telling him that she'd just laid off five staffers. Three of them were his old colleagues Porter, Keller, and Radja. Also axed were Chill Out editor Danielle Braff and sales rep Bob Matter.
Sennett, who's been living outside Spokane, Washington, for the past several years, blogging for a Spokane paper and writing Chicago-based detective novels, reports for work at TOC on January 24; he'd known layoffs were coming but he didn't know who. "It feels terrible," he told me. "I'd heard that both Craig and James were very excited I was coming." (He barely knew Radja.) Of course he couldn't call them over the weekend and warn them -- "You're told these things in confidence," he said. He had to hope his old friends wouldn't, for some reason, call him.
And he's still excited about taking over the magazine. "I asked point blank if there were structural problems here and I was told in no uncertain terms there were no structural problems. Growth is very strong," Sennett said. The thing is, "Time Out is heading into its fourth year in Chicago, and most businesses try to pivot into the black in years four and five."
"It's obviously not the greatest thing to do," says Time Out publisher David Garland, "but a lot of people can relate these days." True that. Garland sounds a lot more sanguine about the subject than the people I've talked to recently at the Sun-Times, Pioneer Press, and Daily Southtown -- not to mention the Reader. According to Garland, TOC, launched in 2005, is still losing money but ad revenues last year climbed 25 percent from the year before and circulation rose by 11 percent.
Steve Timble, the magazine's founding publisher -- he left in 2006 and is now selling space for the New York Times in Chicago -- says the founders underestimated the competitiveness of the Chicago market and have been playing catch-up ever since. Time Out had triumphed in London and New York; perhaps the founders thought due diligence was just for beginners.
Reading your blog is having deleterious effects on my mental health.
-- SCAM
Once it goes under, hopefully the Reader will be able to start bouncing back a little.
Creative Loafing is a suburban media group?
When the article came out, there was no mention of me or my book, just all my facts with the writer's byline above the article.
I hope the whole magazine goes under.
http://www.timeout.com/chicago/articles/restaurant...
- Scott Smith, TOC Web Editor
As to staff cuts at newspapers, back in October/November 2007, the Spokesman Review went through a major axing of staff (some 50 staff and a million dollars in newsroom payroll). The way the reductions were announced and discussed and dissected and criticized on the various S-R blogs was fascinating reading.
Another fascinating detail of Frank's departure from Spokane is that 7 days after his last posting on his Hard 7 blog, a Spokesman-Review editor, Ken Paulman, removed all the postings made by readers to the blog over its few years of existence. Frank's postings are still there to read but the public forum that is a blog -- including substantive discussions by the public of topics of great importance to the community -- were summarily removed. In the process of remaking the newspaper in era of the internet, the question of the role of the newspaper and its related electronic manifestations as "the newspaper of record" for a town or region or country is one of serious importance for the future of free speech.
(To see my further comments on that topic in particular, see my latest posting at http://spokanepoliceabuses.wordpress.com
So why did they serve Porter his walking papers? I mean, sure, budget cuts, blah blah blah, but the real question is: why Porter, when there are plenty of uninspired, mediocre, and even downright bad contributing writers to choose from (has anyone read that godawful "Television" section, with the TV reviews? It reads like something an eighth grader would text message to her friends during study hall). Of course it's hard to say what's behind the decision without knowing more particulars, but it looks suspiciously similar to what's been happening in newsrooms for the last couple of decades: look at the readership demos, figure out what people care about the least, and then hand it over to a skeleton crew of hacks. I mean, is it possible that they would actually try to replace James Porter and put someone else on the 'roots music' beat? It seems far more likely that they'll farm that beat out to somebody who's more in sync with their 20-30-something young, white and single demographic. The thought of some Village-dwelling New Yorker pulling the plug on Chicago blues coverage is more than enough to give me the blues, I don't mind telling you.
Or maybe TOC removed Porter from his beat simply because he steps to the beat of a different drummer. Either way, the beat of Chicago blues goes on, regardless. It remains to be seen if TOC will stumble over itself trying to keep up.