The Oregonian vs.
the Portland Business Journal

The Oregonian, a 24-inch broadsheet, is considering a new shape.

In 1999, the paper shaved an inch off its width in a major redesign, and in 2007, it trimmed another half-inch. But according to employees at the paper, Publisher Chris Anderson has talked of the possibility of a smaller format closer to the size of the Portland Business Journal, which, like The Oregonian, is owned by Advance Publications.

It's unclear whether The Oregonian would use the same dimensions as the Journal, but the PBJ's measurements are 22.75 x 15 inches, while The Oregonian measures 24 x 22.75, both papers being unfolded. The PBJ's format is considered a tabloid, or, in parlance less evocative of the National Enquirer, a compact.

A reader of Jack Bogdanski's blog reveals questions they were asked in a telephone survey about the paper:

The big news is that the Oregonian is considering going to a tabloid format. The interviewer did not use that term but she asked if I read the paper on a table or by holding it in front of me. She also asked me to rate how well I liked:

-- smaller easier to hold format;
-- same or more pages;
-- pull out sections on sports, entertainment, business, local news -- depending on the day;
-- the sections being shaped like a magazine and stapled together;
-- color printing on nearly every page.

She also asked about my commuting habits regarding the various TriMet modes.

Another reader tells us that they have participated in a similar online survey.

Anderson has also discussed stapled pullout sections, according to Oregonian employees. The publisher declined to comment for this story.

The Oregonian has announced its new publisher: Chris Anderson, former Orange County Register publisher and CEO. He succeeds veteran publisher Fred Stickel, who retired last month, and interim publisher Patrick F. Stickel.

In 1972, Anderson graduated from Oregon State University, where he edited The Barometer. He then became city editor at the Albany Democrat-Herald, managing editor of the Walla Walla Union-Bulletin, associate managing editor of The Seattle Times, and, in 1980, editor of the Register.

After leaving Orange County for Colorado Springs in 1994 to publish The Gazette, Anderson returned to the Register 1999 as its publisher and CEO. He left again in 2007 under a cost-cutting reorganization, and has since been a consultant for media companies and private equity investors. The Register earned two Pulitzer prizes under Anderson's watch, and, in 1989, he was named Editor of the Year by the National Press Foundation.

Read more about Anderson from The Oregonian.

The Oregonian's circulation is down 12 percent from last year, according to Audit Bureau of Circulations figures published today. The paper sold an average of 249,163 copies of its Monday through Friday editions in the six months ending in September. That compares to 283,321 copies in the same period last year.

The numbers may result not only from reduced interest in print editions, but also from a price hike on single-copy sales in July. In the Portland Metro area, The Oregonian's newsstand price increased from 75 cents to $1.00. That increase is part of a national trend among papers to try to boost revenue from newspaper sales as ad sales slump.

The average US newspaper saw a 10 percent circulation decline. Reduced distribution and fewer editions are other factors that can negatively affect newspaper sales. But circulation does not reflect the number of readers per copy, online readership or the level of reader engagement with a paper.

We'll have numbers for additional Oregon publications when the full report is made public, and when the Audit Bureau website comes back online after failing this morning.

Mike Francis, a military reporter and blogger for The Oregonian, will soon be filing stories from Iraq.

Francis will be in the country for about a month, and will travel to different cities to report on the 41st Brigade of the Oregon Army National Guard.

"I've learned that one of the best things I can do is to bear witness to the lives of soldiers far from home," Francis writes, "even if it's only to record a snippet of conversation about a candy bar." He was in Iraq for over three months in 2004 and 2005.

Oregonian Managing Editor JoLene Krawczack says that Francis will provide stories, photos, multimedia, blog posts and Twitter updates from his travels.

Francis has been with The Oregonian since 1989 and is a member of the paper's editorial board.

(Profile photo courtesy Mike Francis/Twitter)

A memo from Oregonian executive editor Peter Bhatia today outlined a reorganization plan in which many teams of reporters focused on traditional coverage areas will "cease to exist" in favor of two larger teams. A separate group will handle editing and production.

The memo makes reference to the buyout offer made last month and presumes a smaller workforce. It does not mention newsroom layoffs, though previous memos have made that possibility clear.

"We will not abandon our foundation of beat reporting," the memo says, "but beats will be redefined along areas of expertise of most interest to our readers. Some beats will be eliminated because with fewer people we cannot cover everything that we have in the past."

With "some small exceptions," teams on the fourth and fifth floors of the Oregonian building will be dissolved. Those include online, business, photography, news teams, copy desk, features and A&E (O!). Other teams on those floors — sports, Homes & Gardens, FOODday, travel and editorial — will remain separate.

Eliminating these smaller groups does not mean that their corresponding newspaper sections will be eliminated, sources at the paper confirm.

One of the new, larger groups, titled "Local Expertise and Enterprise Reporting," will include 60 to 70 reporters, editors and support staff. Beats will include politics and government, sustainability, business and economy, and arts and culture. This group will also cover breaking news, watchdog and investigative reporting, and narrative storytelling.

The other group of reporters, titled "Community," will cover zoned content (stories focused on, and printed for, specific geographic areas) as well as hyperlocal websites that are in development. But community webpages will not only be geographically specific. "Community more and more also means communities of interest," the memo says, "and hyperlocal topic pages will be a key part of our Web work."

"For most reporters," the memo continues, "beats will still be the primary focus, creating the enterprising journalism we value. With a smaller staff there will be increased expectations of productivity, flexibility and greater responsibility for Web work. Reporters will need to jump in on issues that require our attention more often than has been the case and work different hours as news and Web needs dictate."

The memo also lays out changes to the editing process, a reduced focus on the evening print deadline, an increased emphasis on audience interaction, and the primary differences between print and online. Read the memo in full after the break. Bracketed explanations are ours:

Interim Oregonian publisher Patrick Stickel announced a new voluntary buyout offer today for newsroom employees and select business staff. The program provides two weeks of pay for each year of service to the company, plus health care benefits. The offer is capped at six months of payouts, or, by our calculation, 13 years of employment.

A buyout offer announced in August of last year extended a full two years of pay and health care to, among others, newsroom employees with at least 10 years of experience.

"Our financial situation remains critical," Stickel said in a letter to employees today, "and will require, among other measures, further staff reductions before the end of this year." The company's longstanding "no layoffs" pledge for newsroom employees expires February 5 of next year.

"If a significant number of you accept the offer it could minimize or eliminate the need for layoffs down the line," Stickel wrote.

Patrick Stickel became interim publisher after his father, Fred Stickel, stepped down from his post one week ago.

UPDATE (9/26, 7:25am): Read the full letter below the break. Attached is the agreement form (DOC).

The Oregonian's editorial board is coming under fire for endorsing a candidate who wasn't running for a position that wasn't open without consulting the people who had expressed interest.

When the Multnomah County Board of Commissioners appointed state Representative Chip Shields to fill a vacancy in the state Senate yesterday, that opened up a new vacancy for Shields' seat in the House. The appointment was made early Thursday afternoon, but in an editorial dated Wednesday evening, The Oregonian had already endorsed someone for Shields' still-occupied House seat.

That someone is Karol Collymore, a now former candidate for the Senate who says she has yet to determine whether she'll run for the House. "I'm taking the weekend to decide," she says, as she weighs the financial considerations of a run.

The endorsement "was a surprise," she adds. "I'm honored they were impressed enough to recommend me for a seat that wasn't open." Collymore is the communications and project manager for County Commissioner Jeff Cogen.

But Jo Ann Bowman, who ran for the Senate seat, tells OMC, "I received no call regarding an endorsement interview." Bowman is the executive director of Oregon Action, involved in community organizing and progressive political activism. She takes issue with how she was described by The Oregonian.

The editorial labeled her a "social worker-activist," but she says, "I've never been a social worker." Editorial page editor Bob Caldwell told The Portland Mercury, "The fact remains that she's director of an agency that does social work, so it's not fatal."

Bowman says she's "never worked for a social service organization," either. She also disputed The Oregonian's characterization of her as an "uncompromising, polarizing force" during her three terms in the state legislature, telling OMC she had "strong relationships" with members on both sides of the aisle.

'All things are not equal'

The issue of race has been present throughout the appointment process. Shields is filling the seat of state Senator Margaret Carter, one of only two African Americans in the legislature at the time of her resignation. Two-thirds of Portland's black population resides in her district, Senate District 22.

Shields is white, while his former opponents for the seat, Collymore and Bowman, are black.

"All the Oregonian has done in this race is talk about race," Bowman told The Mercury yesterday. "And then lo and behold in this morning's paper they're making an endorsement and just talking about race again."

But Bowman and The Oregonian have at least one point of agreement. Both say that "all things are not equal," referring to the factor of race in the appointment. The Oregonian wrote it in their editorial, and Bowman said it during the Board's appointment process.

The Oregonian noted that Carter was "the first African American woman elected to the Oregon Legislature." The editorial board then proceeded to choose between Bowman and Collymore to replace Shields.

But Lew Frederick, who, unlike Bowman or Collymore, is actively vying for the House seat, took exception to being overlooked. Like Bowman, he says the editorial board did not call him. Frederick told the Mercury that The Oregonian "developed this meme, which was that they needed an African American woman to run for something, but the fact is, we've not had a black male in the state legislature since 1998, or a black person in the city or county offices since 1992." Frederick is black and has 14 years of experience in Portland Public Schools and the Oregon State Board of Education.

He continued to lay a heavy charge, telling the Mercury that a "fear that a lot of black men in Portland have, frankly, is the attack by the Oregonian on anybody who sticks his head out."

Was Frederick referring to the candidacies of other black politicians?

"I was speaking about the issues of race generally," he tells OMC. "There have been few Black men running credible political races during the last decade or more. Folks make it clear they will stay below the radar if possible because they become targets." Frederick did not respond when asked if he could point to an instance of The Oregonian making the type of attack he referred to.

Confusing the candidates?

Mercury news editor Matt Davis asked Caldwell why he didn't call Bowman or Frederick before endorsing Shields and Collymore.

Caldwell described Bowman as a "known quantity" who has a public record and whom they had met with "a number of times." Frederick, he said, "had already been eliminated by the party from the race."

But the only race that had existed at that point was for the Senate. Frederick did not run for the Senate. He is interested in the House.

Questioned on the point by Davis, Caldwell replied, "It says what is says ... It's an opinion." He said Frederick is also a "known quantity."

Frederick told Davis that Caldwell "sounds like somebody becoming defensive because they got caught on bad facts."

Davis tells OMC he agrees. "I know how that feels, because I do it all the time. But then, I'm not the editorial page editor of the state's biggest daily newspaper. Perhaps I'm more qualified for that job than I realized."

"It's comical when the Portland Mercury is the shining beacon of responsible journalism in this city," he adds. "But we'll be interviewing all the candidates in the race before making an endorsement, as I think most Portlanders would expect."

Caldwell did not respond to Oregon Media Central for this story.

UPDATE (9/25, 4:56pm): Lew Frederick responds:

I've watched folks I worked for and with succumb to drummed up attacks by reporters believing that they needed to score a takedown in order to advance their careers.

Look around. How many Black males do you see regularly interviewed on local news or in the paper? How many are out there? And they are not all in "Diversity" or Human Relations jobs. There is a robust Black Engineers group in Portland. Doubt many know that. If you paid attention to the media in this town you'd think there were no Black males in the upper or middle class strata. A gathering last Saturday night would easily put that myth to rest. But they know, and they've told me for decades, that the best way to remain in the middle class in this town is to avoid the media at all costs. So they do.

So. It would not take much to see which Black males have been the target of attacks in the Oregonian and who has been left out of the discussion.

The Oregonian wrongfully denied veteran employee James Bixler the company's 2008 buyout offer, a lawsuit against the company claims.

Willamette Week's James Pitkin uncovered the suit, which largely centers on one's reading of this phrase, with The Oregonian's underline:

All salespeople with less than 25 years of service.

That is one item in a list of people to be excluded from the buyout offer. Both parties appear to agree that Bixler was employed in sales for approximately 24 years and 10 months.

But Bixler contends that his service to the company includes his work as a paperboy, which began in the 1970s. He also alleges that the 25-year exemption was crafted specifically to exclude him from the offer.

The suit claims Bixler later received a 10 percent pay cut and the suspension of retirement fund payments.

Willamette Week was unable to get a comment from The Oregonian. OMC could manage nothing for the record.

Willamette Week has PDFs of the lawsuit and the buyout offer on their website.

The Oregonian rolled out a new feature today for readers in suburbs southwest of Portland. On Wednesdays, Thursdays and Fridays, the paper will be running centerpiece packages on the front page of the Metro section focusing on Lake Oswego, West Linn, Tigard and Tualatin. Wilsonville and Sherwood will be featured on occasion.

Managing editor Susan Gage writes that the effort is "part of a strategy by the newspaper to get back to giving readers daily news and information that's more specifically targeted to their part of the world -- where they live, work, have kids in schools."

The Oregonian is also working toward city-specific pages on OregonLive.com.

In a video uploaded to OregonLive.com last week, retiring Oregonian publisher Fred Stickel reflects on what he's most proud of:

Professionally, he says he's most proud that he "started knowing absolutely nothing and wound up as the publisher of one of the very major regional newspapers in the country."

"Don't ask me how I did that," he adds.

On the future of print, he says, "I don't think the print newspapers are going to go away. Not in my lifetime, not in your lifetime."

He says, "We are what we are because we're printed and published here in Portland," which he calls "one weird friggin place."

But above all, he's most proud of his wife, children and grandchildren.

Stickel ends 35 years of leading The Oregonian on Friday.