Rarely does Black involve himself in what gets covered by his newsrooms, nor does he use his opinion pages as sounding boards to expound on his political beliefs—in contrast, for instance, to Frank Blethen, who routinely uses The Seattle Times' editorial pages to rail against the inheritance tax and media consolidation by the FCC, two issues of remunerative interest to the family-owned chain.
During his purchase of the King County Journal and Reporter newspapers, Black offered to purchase Blethen's Issaquah Press. After that proved futile, a new Reporter publication was started to compete with the Times-owned property. To counterpunch, the Times launched the Snoqualmie Valley Star, a free mailer, to compete with Black's Snoqualmie Valley Record. Blethen and Times management declined to be interviewed for this story.
Louisa Bertman
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The growth of Black's empire has not come without criticism. About half of the publications affiliated with the Washington Newspaper Publishers Association (WNPA) are owned by Sound Publishing, and Bob Grainger, COO of Black Press, says there are still a few more acquisitions the chain would like to make before rounding out its Puget Sound cluster (insiders claim Black has made multiple offers to the Scripps Howard chain to purchase the Kitsap Sun, a Bremerton daily with a circulation of 40,000). Such consolidation has made some local newspaper publishers, Blethen among them, nervous.
Liz Brown, administrative officer for the Pacific Northwest Newspaper Guild, states that from a strictly business perspective, Black's formula appears to be successful. The papers are filled with advertising, and circulation numbers are high. But Brown includes a cautionary note with her praise: "Turnover in [his] papers is very high," Brown says. "We know from people who we used to represent, some didn't stay long because of working conditions."
Across the chain, about one-third of Black's newspapers are unionized, with the majority of those employees in Hawaii and Vancouver. On the whole, his papers are thinly staffed. At his non-daily properties, you'll generally find an editor, a reporter or two, and maybe a photographer. Hence, after conducting an interview, young writers a couple of years out of college are likely to set their notepads aside and un-sling a camera to snap a few shots of their subjects.
A reporter working for Sound Publishing in Washington makes around $27,000, an average annual salary generally higher than those offered by competing community papers and even some small dailies (compared to job openings posted by the WNPA or at journalismjobs.com, among other sources). Generally, two different types of journalists are attracted to Black-owned papers. There are doe-eyed cub reporters, fresh out of journalism school, wanting to get experience and build a portfolio of clips. They stick around for a couple of years, grouse about covering homecoming games and community parades, and typically move on to bigger newspapers.
The other breed is gray-haired veterans, content to put themselves out to pasture. They're tired of the deadlines at dailies, tired of following breaking news from Portland to Idaho to Los Angeles, sleeping in cheap motels, and not coming home to their spouses and children until late at night.
The culling of the King County Journal resulted in the layoff of a significant percentage of its newsroom staff. Those who remained, however, have fared better under Black than under the previous ownership group. Editorial staffers with the Reporter newspapers confirm that they were given raises, upgraded computers, and cameras, and that new Web sites were created to finally give the papers an online presence.
"In the Northwest, we've had to do that in order to attract and keep decent reporters," says Grainger. "At one time, we were probably a little low down there until we realized it was more important to keep the longer-term employee."
One key to Black's success comes from the cluster strategy employed by his empire. In a given region, a centralized press services an orbit of papers, while bookkeeping, payroll, and other operating overhead costs are shared across mastheads as well.
"It occurred to us after we bought a few papers and started to tie them together, we found there was a little extra profit in this," Black says. "It was obvious the cluster strategy was the way to go."
After getting a cluster of papers in place, the company devotes itself to getting as many eyes as possible to scan the papers and their ads. In Washington and British Columbia, Black Press accomplishes this by delivering straight to readers' doorsteps, free of charge. This runs contrary to the standard operating practices of traditional publications, which attach a certain amount of prestige to their paid circulation.
But Black has little time for circulation prudery. Newspapers make money primarily by selling advertising, he reasons. And while, by and large, daily newspapers have priced themselves out of the classified-ad business as sites like Craigslist have emerged, Black's ads are generally still affordable, allowing him to undercut the dailies with cheaper rates. (Black Press has itself made a foray into the world of free online advertising, launching the UsedEverywhere.com chain of Web sites. Run by Black's son-in-law, the chain has had a degree of success with UsedVictoria and UsedVancouver.com; UsedSeattle recently launched but remains in its infancy.) Although his papers have not been immune to the competition posed by online advertising, Black maintains that because of his free-circulation model and community-focused niche, his papers have been somewhat sheltered from the Internet storm.
