A new era at the Union Tribune

Its Monday, and we have a new publisher in town. He’s newspaper veteran Ed Moss. Moss is now at the helm of the Union Tribune following its sale last week. The new owner, Beverly Hills investment firm Platinum Equity hired Moss from the Los Angeles Daily News. In a UT interview Moss said, “The challenges are great, what it demands is that you take a fresh look at the business model, a fresh look at how we do things today versus how we did them even two years ago.” Ok, lets give the boss time to implement that vision. I’m sure the first few weeks, even months will be chaotic. The UT faces a sharp down turn in advertising revenue, a drop in circulation, and employee moral is down-in-the-dumps.

Last week’s article was written by a staff reporter from the UT. The article posted some good information on Moss, his career, and dreams, but the questioning didn’t go far enough.. Number one, how are you going to save a paper while at the same time continuing to cut the work force? Companies, and their managers continue to believe they can cut their way to success. If you have no reporters digging stories in the community, you have no content. How is the paper going to balance that issue?

Number two, how are you going to get advertisers to spend money with your paper. Moss said, ”there’s been so much negative press about the industry, but it really is not a readership problem. It’s an advertising problem.” Advertising , or Circulation, which came first the chicken, or the egg? I thought advertisers follow the masses, and the masses or circulation determines that print ad's worth.

Number three, Moss said he doesn’t have a preconceived strategy for the Union-Tribune’s web site, signonsandiego.com.. To me, no clear strategy means management is making it up as it goes. I can’t blame them. This industry is changing quickly and newspapers are operating in uncharted waters. Lately most newpapers are sinking.. Are print reporters going to primarily write for the web, or the paper? Are they going to focus on video storytelling, or continue to take a printed story, and just cover it with video? Many newspaper sites run raw video, or video clips. Many of the full video reports are simply newspaper copy with pictures.

We invite Publisher Moss to detail his plans, and changes. If he believes much of the ad business can be won back we invite him to tell us how. In the past he’s credited with entering into an employment ad partnership with Monster.com,. In L.A. he created partnerships with television stations, what’s up for San Diego? Fred Hamilton of the Los Angeles Newspaper Group described Moss as “a superb leader” who assembled a strong management team in L.A. Companies hire leaders, in this case we not only need a leader, we need a visionary to guide the San Diego Union Tribune. Moss inherits a difficult situation, no doubt he’s been in his share of tough spots. However this paper, this economy, this challenge is formidable. A city, a region depends on this new UT to succeed.