Tiger in the Lions' Den

Why is everyone in such a hooha over Tiger Woods? He's front-page news everywhere because he apologized. Does everyone really care about his marital shenanigans? The press feeds our own prurience and turns millions of us into crazed voyeurs and exhibitionists. We have no actual stake in the relationship between Tiger and his wife.

Cover his performance on the golf course. That's of genuine, legitimate interest. But this other business is only of wide value if he's running for political office. Otherwise, who cares about his character? As far as we know, he's not a felon. He's just a jerk. It's time for the whoring news outlets to cover something with actual news value.

Fresh Ideas for Sacramento Bee Corner

Latest plan by McClatchy Co. to make money -- publishing newspapers doesn't seem to work these days -- is to sell the employee parking garage at the Sacramento Bee. According to publisher Cheryl Dell, the sale is "part of our ongoing review of all company assets in response to the challenging economy."

I have three ideas about how McClatchy can help its bottom line at 21st and Q Streets in Sacramento:

1. Restore the Buffalo Brewery. Actually, not a new idea. Conservatives long have wished for this in response to the Bee's so-called liberal editorials. The beermaker occupied the site and some of the existing Bee building for years prior to McClatchy buying it and bringing in the presses. People may not be buying newspapers, but they're still buying beer.

2. Start a brothel. The guards could remain to direct customers. Second-floor executive offices and the newsroom could house the top earners -- just like before. Editor Melanie Sill describes herself as "an advocate of fresh thinking on fundamental ideas" -- natch.

Sills also said, "We do need thinking in our newsrooms and organizations that is inherently entrepreneurial -- i.e., who's our audience, what are we doing for them, how do we provide value." Who would be the audience for the brothel? Politicians (Sacramento is a government town, after all), talk-show hosts, former newspaper editors, transients. What would they be doing for their audience? Obvious. The value? Average at best.

With this entrepreneurial effort, at least Bee employees will leave their careers and the building knowing where former top management will be spending the rest of their working days.

3. Tear down the building and put up a parking lot. Like the brothel, rates would be by the hour.

If you've got better ideas, send them to 21st and Q, Sacramento, California.

And the "Star" System Helped Kill Them

The Star system. What is it? It's a management-instigated system of preference and prejudice under which big newspapers were -- and are -- operated. It affects primarily the newsrooms. Executive management encourage only their favorite reporters -- the stars -- to spend all their time researching and writing in-depth series -- successive articles that focus on malfeasance in government or Liberal social causes, and that seek to raise consciousness or social or political change. They're generally boring for newspaper readers, the vast majority of whom just want the relevant news, the movie reviews, stock trading, or the police report.

It's cyclical. The stars are given every opportunity (and a lot of money) to write award-winning journalism. They're given the time and the assistance to complete series that may require months or even a year or more of work. All the while, their non-star colleagues are expected to grind out daily news -- the life's blood of a newspaper. The more awards these stars win, the more opportunities they're given to write yet more grand series of investigative journalism -- in short, to pretend they're staffers at the New Republic or the Nation.

The stars are coddled by the executive management, who give them by far the biggest raises and the best working conditions. Execs often move from paper to paper, and they often take their stars with them. Imagine what that does to employee morale. A new exec moves in and shakes things up, which is bad enough, but he brings along his favored group of star reporters, who proceed to kick back and enjoy their preferential treatment, once again, in this new environment, under the frustrated, seething gazes of the rest of the longtime staff.

This poisonous environment in the newsroom -- calculated and engineered to foment jealousy, greed, and extreme dissension among the staff -- has a direct effect on newspaper quality. The staffers in the newsroom watch their "special" colleagues rise to the top of the newsroom hierarchy, with better salaries, greater status, more freedom on and off work, and more opportunity to build glowing careers in every way.

The staffers get their noses rubbed in it, and justifiably figure, "Why should I bust out the work year after year with little or no recognition or reward while these stars are coddled like Cinderella's step-sisters?"

Newspapers Were Killed From Within

Up until the mid-80s, newspaper publishers and editors valued their readers, their customers, the people who were counted for ad rates. Every meeting we reporters attended was filled with assignments to get the readers involved. Then the new breed came in, led by executive and managing editors who wanted, as they said, to shake up things. They brought in reporters and sub-editors from papers in the south and east. The new hires didn't know the area, in my case, all of northern California, The Sacramento Bee circulation zone. If a story was good enough for Louisville or Baltimore, it was good enough for Sacramento, they said.

As a further example of what happened to change the dynamics of newsrooms, at my first meeting with a new editor (1986), I said I had been writing columns and stories because the readers liked this and they looked forward to that. Her comment was typical arrogant yuppie: "I don't give a shit what the readers want. I know what's best for them and that's what you're going to write." It wouldn't have been so bad if she had been the only editor to think that way. Instead, it was a mind-set among the new editors. We were ordered to write with attitude and to hell with what anyone thought, especially our customers.

That was the beginning of the end, I think. Yes, the internet has had a dramatic negative effect on newspaper bottom lines. But I really believe that if newspapers had continued to think about their communities, giving their customers what mattered most to them, things might be different today. Sadly, the yuppies ran it all and ran the business into the ground.