By Kyle Kim
Voices
Detroit Free Press senior managing editor Jeff Taylor leads a Monday morning online news meeting. The Free Press and the Detroit News made changes from the seven-day home delivery model two years ago.
Two years after Detroit’s largest newspapers reduced their seven-day home deliveries, officials from the organizations say the drastic change has helped them stay afloat in an industry where flagship newspapers around the country are sinking.
The Detroit News and the Detroit Free Press scaled back delivery to just three days a week — Thursdays, Fridays and Sundays — in March 2009, as other newsrooms cut reporters to bail news organizations out of financial crisis.
On days when issues were not delivered to front porches and mailboxes, readers would have to go to newsstands and other retail locations or go online for the e-edition, a replica of that day’s print edition in PDF format.
A year later, the papers began offering daily home delivery through commercial paper carriers if readers opted to pay for a separate subscription plan.
The idea was that if the money saved from cutting down printing and distribution exceeded the losses from advertising and circulation revenue, it could prevent deep cuts to newsroom staff, according to Detroit Media Partnership officials.
“It was a very calculated risk, but it was a huge risk nonetheless,” said Joyce Jenereaux, president of Detroit Media Partnership, which jointly operates the business side of the competing, independent newspapers.
A major factor in the decision was forecasting that the papers were able to retain 77 percent of revenue, while trimming expensive printing and distribution costs during the rest of the week.
But the transition was not completely smooth.
“Of course, we had complaints, and, of course, there are people that still prefer to hold a newspaper in their hands,” said Free Press editor and publisher Paul Anger.
Detroit News union representative and metro reporter Santiago Esparza said many employees didn’t buy into the partnership’s reasons for the business change in 2009 and still fear one or both papers may close its doors in the near future.
On top of weeklong furloughs in 2010, bargaining unit employees for the two dailies also took pay cuts and health insurance concessions.
“People are miserable,” said Free Press union representative Jocelyn Faniel-Heard. “You got people doing more work for less pay and benefits. It gets tiring for folks.”
Both Anger and Detroit News editor and publisher Jon Wolman acknowledge their newsrooms have not been entirely immune to staff cuts, but they credit the changes to home delivery for keeping layoffs to a minimum and original reporting a priority. Both are delivering news across innovative platforms, such as mobile phone applications and e-readers for an increasing digital audience.
The Free Press had a 39 percent web traffic increase this year, compared with March 2009, according to a circulation report, while the Detroit News saw a 13 percent rise during the same time.
Officials caution, however, that the business model is not a one-size-fits-all solution for newspapers.
“The reality is, it works,” said Rich Harshbarger, Detroit Media Partnership vice president of consumer marketing and communications. “It might not work for every market, and it might not work for the industry, but it’s right for Detroit.”
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