The Boston Phoenix
August 7 - 14, 1997
[Don't Quote Me]

Eclipse of the Sun

Dean Singleton's slash-and-burn style should serve as a warning to the Patriot Ledger. Plus, the Globe loses one to the Post.

by Dan Kennedy

Memo to Quincy Patriot Ledger publisher Scott Low: if you're as serious as you claim about not selling out to some cost-cutting bottom-feeder, then you can cross William Dean Singleton off your list right now.

A month ago Singleton's Denver-based, 137-paper MediaNews Group agreed to buy the Lowell Sun from the Costello family for an undisclosed sum ("Don't Quote Me," News, July 11). In what was seen as a reassuring gesture, Singleton flew to Lowell and made family scion Jack Costello his editor. At the same time, Singleton expressed interest in making a bid for the Ledger, the largest evening paper in the state and one of the few that's independently owned. The Ledger had been put on the block in May.

Now it turns out that Singleton is rebuilding the Sun the way Sherman rebuilt Atlanta. He "fired" all 380 full- and part-time employees; all but 20 were "rehired" and put on 90 days' probation. He dumped executive editor Jonathan Kellogg. He cut health, sick-leave, and vacation benefits. And he slashed the number of daily editions from five to three.

"If we knew these people were going to be bastards coming in," asks an angry newsroom insider, "how could the Costellos not know?"

Nicholas Coleridge, in his book Paper Tigers: The Latest, Greatest Newspaper Tycoons (Carol Publishing Group, 1994), describes Singleton's management style this way: "1. Buy newspaper. 2. Cut staff. 3. Cut quality. 4. Cut objectivity. 5. Hike advertising rates."

If that's not enough to persuade Scott Low to keep MediaNews' hands off the Ledger, here are a few highlights from Singleton's rather extraordinary career.

In 1992, Forbes reported that Singleton "gets a dreadful word-of-mouth within the business" because of his reputation as an abusive employer -- a reputation that was born in 1975, when, as a 24-year-old fledgling publisher, he shut down the Fort Worth Telegram just three months after reviving it. Singleton's newsroom speech to the troops was cut short when reporters hurled beer cans at him. And it wasn't the last time he closed a paper in Texas: two years ago he killed the Houston Post (after briefly considering a sale to the Reverend Pat Robertson), making Houston the largest city in the country with just one daily paper.

In 1994, Colorado Business magazine, in a generally positive piece on Singleton's rejuvenation of the Denver Post, called him "widely disliked" for "his reputation as a man who makes mincemeat out of newspaper budgets and staffs." Singleton's response: "You can be popular or you can be successful, but you probably can't be both."

In 1995, Singleton bought the Eagle Publishing Company, in Western Massachusetts, eliminating jobs and reducing pay at the flagship Berkshire Eagle and four satellite papers. Randy Holhut, who quit Eagle Publishing's Vermont paper the Brattleboro Reformer rather than accept the pay decrease, calls Singleton "a cut-and-slash proprietor" who "doesn't care about what goes in the papers."

Attempts to obtain comment from MediaNews headquarters were unsuccessful. In last Friday's Sun, Singleton was quoted as saying, "We have a philosophy that when we buy a newspaper, we prefer to make any changes up front so we don't have to make them again."

New Sun publisher Ken Wallace, a former editor and general manager of the paper who's regarded as a solid newsman, has evidently gone into the bunker, telling the Boston Herald that "morale is good" and declining to comment when reached by the Phoenix. In the Sun article, Wallace was -- well, sunny, saying, "Certainly, we are delighted the pains of the past few weeks are behind us, and that most of our past is still with is."

How did the Sun come to this? As a midsize daily in an economically troubled urban area, the privately held Sun could hardly have been wildly profitable, although employees had been told that business was solid. The real problem may have been debt. It's widely believed that the Costellos had borrowed heavily from the Providence Journal Company -- and that last year, when that company was sold to A.H. Belo, of Dallas, the Costellos were ordered to cough up.

It's too late for the Sun, so let's hope Scott Low learns from this sad tale. According to Ledger sources, Low has heard from a number of prospective buyers -- not just Singleton, but also Boston Herald publisher Pat Purcell, Brockton Enterprise publisher Jim Plugh, Fidelity's Community Newspaper Company, Dow Jones's Ottaway Newspapers, and the Journal Register Company, among others. The deadline for bids is reportedly August 15, with a final decision to be made by the end of the year.

"The purpose of this exercise is not to sell the newspaper, but to protect it and allow it to grow," Low said recently ("Another One Bites the Dust," News, June 6). He also called the Ledger a "public trust" -- a concept that, it should be obvious, is incompatible with the way Dean Singleton does business.


Boston Phoenix alumnus Mark Leibovich, a staff reporter for the San Jose Mercury News since 1994, will soon be moving to the Washington Post, where he'll cover technology for the Business section.

Leibovich says he expects to focus on the human and cultural dimensions of technology -- the harried engineers who are "editing things like sleep and family out of their lives," or the 40-year-old who's considered too old to be hired by an Internet start-up company.

Leibovich worked for the Phoenix from 1989 to 1993, rising from editorial assistant to Styles-section staff writer.

Before accepting an offer from the Post, Leibovich turned down a job at the Boston Globe, according to insiders at 135 Morrissey Boulevard. Editor Matt Storin was reportedly (and understandably) miffed. Leibovich -- a Newton native -- is clearly uncomfortable talking about his dealings with the Globe, except to say, "The Globe was great. The timing didn't work out."


Congress and Bill Clinton sign off on a tax-cut package denounced by progressives as a giveaway to the rich. The employees of Shaw's supermarket and UPS strike their profitable employers in order to preserve their pay and benefits. Inflation stays low at least in part because workers feel too insecure to ask for a raise.

And what does Newsweek put on its cover? "The New Rich. Their Lives. Their Deals. Their Toys. How the Roaring '90s Are Making Instant Billionaires -- And Changing America."

Call it the New Decadence.


Dan Kennedy's work can be accessed from his Web site: http://www1.shore.net/~dkennedy/


Dan Kennedy can be reached at dkennedy[a]phx.com


Articles from July 24, 1997 & before can be accessed here


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