When the story of why our daily newspapers died is finally told, Ed Moss will deserve more than a passing mention.
He already is the first and last chapter of my book "Who Killed the LA Daily News."
The newspaper where I spent half my
adult life was born in 1980 out of the world's most successful throwaway shopper, the Valley News and Green Sheet. There were 14 localized editions thrown on lawns four times a week. It was thick with community news and classified advertising and everybody remembers it fondly for their names and the names of their children being in it frequently.
I saw it surge in paid circulation to over 210,000 by 1990 and become an important source of news in the city and region with a newsroom staff of 265. And I saw it start to decline because of a long series of terrible management decisions.
Today, it is a thin imitation of what it once was, of what it could have been.
Many are responsible for what went wrong. But Ed Moss, and the owner who put him in place, Dean Singleton, bear the heaviest responsibility.
Moss sucked the spirit out of the paper and left it to die. On Wednesday, he resigned to become publisher of the San Diego Union-Tribune, which was recently bought as a real estate deal for its Mission Valley plant by Beverly Hills-based Platinum Equity
Sending Moss to fix a struggling paper is like sending a mortician to treat an ailing patient. He will do the only thing he knows how to do: Cut, and cut, and cut some more: When he's done with his handiwork, the U-T will be ready for embalming and burial much like the Daily News is
Moss arrived at the Daily News nearly two years ago when it still had fight in it and immediately was dubbed "Little Napoleon" for his short stature, imperious manner and inability to engage in any kind of intelligent discussion of strategies that might save the paper.
He's a man who speaks in vapid cliches and offers no leadership.
"I'm all about local, local, local - local news, local advertising," Moss told a reporter for the Union-Tribune on Wednesday. "That's our niche. The way to differentiate ourselves is to be as local across the company as we can."
Moss seems like an unusual choice to be publisher of a newspaper like the U-T, a dominant newspaper in a healthy community. It is struggling like all papers but has the resources to reinvent itself in the Internet age.
For one thing, Moss doesn't like people very much, which is why he is virtually unknown to anyone in the Valley community although glad-handing is an important part of a publisher's job. For another, he seems almost proud of the fact he knows little about advertising or circulation and certainly nothing about journalism.
What Ed knows is how to cut, a skill that is attributable to his ruthlessness and lack of respect for the people who work for him.
In his 23 months at the Daily News, the editorial staff -- already reduced by half in previous years -- was slashed by two-thirds. There's now only nine news reporters and a staff of barely 40 to produce the paper which has shrunk to the point most days that it gives new meaning to the idea of a fast-read newspaper.
Almost every department of the paper from circulation to sales has been eliminated or gutted to the point of dysfunction.
There are no assets. The offices were sold and so were the presses. How the journalists who are left get the paper out is a miracle, proof of what I knew from my 23 years there that the staff of the Daily News was the hardest-working and most dedicated I had ever seen.
They got no respect for their efforts from Ed Moss. He was too afraid or too uncaring to ever come by the newsroom.
I've never worked for anyone worse in my 44 years at nine different news organizations.
My contempt for Moss isn't personal. I'd been fired before but never by someone who had to fly in a surrogate from out of town to do it. I'd crossed wits with many bosses before over differences in journalistic values and vision but I never anyone quite like Moss who had neither journalistic values nor vision.
When I refused to reduce the staff below 100 unless we redefined the mission for the paper and developed a new strategic plan, Moss cut off all discussion with me, mistaking passion for anger.
Moss is a man without a plan, an empty suit, a destroyer without any creative imagination.
It says a lot about the state of the newspaper industry that someone like him can land a plum job in a vibrant town like San Diego where the paper could be saved while so many skilled people I know in circulation, advertising and journalism are out of work.
My heart goes out to my colleagues still at the Daily News every time I pick up the paper and see what Moss' leadership has done to it. Somehow I hope it will be different in San Diego but I doubt it.
For an industry that has shown so little imagination over the last 60 years -- half the daily newspapers in the country went out of business when television arrived and the rest are danger now with the triumph of the Internet -- Ed Moss seems like a man for his time.
Who better to kill a newspaper than a journalistic mortician.
He already is the first and last chapter of my book "Who Killed the LA Daily News."
The newspaper where I spent half my
adult life was born in 1980 out of the world's most successful throwaway shopper, the Valley News and Green Sheet. There were 14 localized editions thrown on lawns four times a week. It was thick with community news and classified advertising and everybody remembers it fondly for their names and the names of their children being in it frequently.I saw it surge in paid circulation to over 210,000 by 1990 and become an important source of news in the city and region with a newsroom staff of 265. And I saw it start to decline because of a long series of terrible management decisions.
Today, it is a thin imitation of what it once was, of what it could have been.
Many are responsible for what went wrong. But Ed Moss, and the owner who put him in place, Dean Singleton, bear the heaviest responsibility.
Moss sucked the spirit out of the paper and left it to die. On Wednesday, he resigned to become publisher of the San Diego Union-Tribune, which was recently bought as a real estate deal for its Mission Valley plant by Beverly Hills-based Platinum Equity
Sending Moss to fix a struggling paper is like sending a mortician to treat an ailing patient. He will do the only thing he knows how to do: Cut, and cut, and cut some more: When he's done with his handiwork, the U-T will be ready for embalming and burial much like the Daily News is
Moss arrived at the Daily News nearly two years ago when it still had fight in it and immediately was dubbed "Little Napoleon" for his short stature, imperious manner and inability to engage in any kind of intelligent discussion of strategies that might save the paper.
He's a man who speaks in vapid cliches and offers no leadership.
"I'm all about local, local, local - local news, local advertising," Moss told a reporter for the Union-Tribune on Wednesday. "That's our niche. The way to differentiate ourselves is to be as local across the company as we can."
Moss seems like an unusual choice to be publisher of a newspaper like the U-T, a dominant newspaper in a healthy community. It is struggling like all papers but has the resources to reinvent itself in the Internet age.
For one thing, Moss doesn't like people very much, which is why he is virtually unknown to anyone in the Valley community although glad-handing is an important part of a publisher's job. For another, he seems almost proud of the fact he knows little about advertising or circulation and certainly nothing about journalism.
What Ed knows is how to cut, a skill that is attributable to his ruthlessness and lack of respect for the people who work for him.
In his 23 months at the Daily News, the editorial staff -- already reduced by half in previous years -- was slashed by two-thirds. There's now only nine news reporters and a staff of barely 40 to produce the paper which has shrunk to the point most days that it gives new meaning to the idea of a fast-read newspaper.
Almost every department of the paper from circulation to sales has been eliminated or gutted to the point of dysfunction.
There are no assets. The offices were sold and so were the presses. How the journalists who are left get the paper out is a miracle, proof of what I knew from my 23 years there that the staff of the Daily News was the hardest-working and most dedicated I had ever seen.
They got no respect for their efforts from Ed Moss. He was too afraid or too uncaring to ever come by the newsroom.
I've never worked for anyone worse in my 44 years at nine different news organizations.
My contempt for Moss isn't personal. I'd been fired before but never by someone who had to fly in a surrogate from out of town to do it. I'd crossed wits with many bosses before over differences in journalistic values and vision but I never anyone quite like Moss who had neither journalistic values nor vision.
When I refused to reduce the staff below 100 unless we redefined the mission for the paper and developed a new strategic plan, Moss cut off all discussion with me, mistaking passion for anger.
Moss is a man without a plan, an empty suit, a destroyer without any creative imagination.
It says a lot about the state of the newspaper industry that someone like him can land a plum job in a vibrant town like San Diego where the paper could be saved while so many skilled people I know in circulation, advertising and journalism are out of work.
My heart goes out to my colleagues still at the Daily News every time I pick up the paper and see what Moss' leadership has done to it. Somehow I hope it will be different in San Diego but I doubt it.
For an industry that has shown so little imagination over the last 60 years -- half the daily newspapers in the country went out of business when television arrived and the rest are danger now with the triumph of the Internet -- Ed Moss seems like a man for his time.
Who better to kill a newspaper than a journalistic mortician.
Ron Kaye is the former editor of the Los Angeles Daily News where he spent 23 years helping to make the newspaper the voice of the San Fernando Valley and fighting for a city government that serves the people and not special interests.
Twice in recent years, Los Angeles Magazine listed Kaye among the city’s most influential people, specifically in the area of politics. Kaye has been variously described in the media as the “accidental anarchist,” “the Patrick Henry of the San Fernando Valley” and a “passionate populist.” He is now committed to
carrying on his crusade for a greater Los Angeles as an ordinary citizen. Previously, Ron worked at the Los Angeles Herald Examiner,
Associated Press, Cleveland Plain Dealer and The Australian as well as papers
in Fairbanks, Alaska and Yakima, Wash. He also wrote for Newsweek magazine, The Guardian in London and the National Enquirer.
So the mortician 'kilt' my Daily News, but what will Fred Hamilton and Liz Gaier bring to the DN's news table now?
A lot, I hope. The Valley has well over a million people, who can more than support a daily paper, and who are hungry for local news; local politics; who miss not having an opinion section at least six days a week if not seven; and who simply miss the 'old' Daily News.
Ron,
very well said and from my first hand experience in dealing with ed moss, spot on. no leadership, no respect for people, no vision, no personality, no revenue knowledge, no track record of success. Boy, I would sure want to hire him to turn around my newspaper.
Sadly, Moss sounds exactly like my boss now. She's going to run what was a healthy non-profit with a desparately needed mission straight into the ground.
Where do these clowns come from?
It's sad to see how ownership and Ed Moss has ruined a good paper. I wish the best of luck to the remaining staff. Each morning I go for the paper and find it has been getting smaller and smaller with poor content. I will give it 90 days for new management to try and turn it around or I'm going to cancel my home delivery. I will then get my news from the Internet until Rupert Murdoch tries to set a trend and ruins that by charging subscriptions for news content.
Thank God McCarthy's still there.
To meterman who says he will now get his news "from the Internet." Where do you think that news comes from? Largely from journalists working for small to big newspapers across the country. Those papers pay their journalists and give them the resources to find the news and present it. God help us if newspaper companies go away. Bloggers and "citizen journalists" will not fill the void.
Got a call from the circulation department of the DN yesterday, about renewing my susbscription, which without my knowledge expired over a month ago (despite no break in deliveries). The woman offered to renew it at the same pre-paid six month rate as last year, which in fact was twice of what I actually paid. I expressed my displeasure over what the paper had become in the last year and the fact there was almost no local story originations these days. I told her I was non-renewing, and she offered no objections.
My suspicions are even the circulation staff are totally beat down, and will no longer even make the effort to beg and plead to keep subscribers.
True, he was/is an unknown with the local, local, local public he pretends to serve. The truth is he was an unknown in his organization. He rarely came out of his office. He was a passive/aggressive bully in meetings and chose to admonish those who didn't not think like him.
The product and the people suffered as a result. The advertisers showed their displeasure with reduced dollars. The staff uses the blogs to tell their story. The clearest perceptions of the man have come from those he didn't even know, never met and gleefully fired to make his Wednesday conference calls a little less painful for him. The only word I can think of is gleeful. He was not a pained publisher working late and struggling with which direction to take? There was, and will be only one direction in his new assignment.
Cut it. Cut it deep. Get out of the way.
I laughed out loud at the press release calling him a 32 year advertising executive. I rarely heard him speak of advertising. He made no sales calls preferring to have his managers in the building.
How can Platinum Equity not see this? Wouldn't a smart company in its process to find their savior, their leader, do a little more research to see if this guy has what it takes to SAVE A NEWSPAPER?
It is funny, Moss joining DN being greeted whole heartedly the way we've greeted everyother new publisher/ceo over the last decade, giving a warm speach, then disappering into a very quiet back room, never to be seen publicly again... hmmm, I remember when The Man would buy you a cup of coffee if he saw you in the lunch room or trade you his parking space if you were pregnant, even bum an occasional cigarette just to "talk Dodgers". Not Moss, it seemed like he would hide out in his car just so he wouldn't have to pass you at the entrance, and practically run you over in the parking lot so he didn't have to look in your eyes or open a door for you. If you happened to get in an elevator with him, you would crawl out of your skin... Moss was so impersonal it was weird. I once read he was the father of four or five. You would think he might have, or dream, of a vision for our future.... It's with lots of saddness that I've seen his changes uneffective and only hurting DN more. Hopefully the next round will get it right. Ron Kaye, please come back - it isn't the same without you!
Ron --
I never worked at the Daily News, but I think I probably worked for someone equally bad or worse from 1984-86 in St. Louis.
Jeffrey Gluck, the final owner of the St. Louis Globe-Democrat, bought a major metro paper for $50,000 down at a time when papers still made money.
He cut staff, bounced paychecks, delayed them, stole our vacation time and essentially put the final nails in the coffin of a paper that had been around for more than 100 years.
True, it was on its last legs when he bought it, but he never had the money to try and build it up. He was a classic Reagan-era "entrepreneur," and I'm sure what money was made wound up in his pocket.
I don't know if newspapers are dying, but they aren't going to be saved by money men and bean counters.
I spent 29 years in the business before being fired by LANG on trumped-up charges. My chief sin was being too well known and making too much money.
Oh well.
I still love journalism and I wish you well in your endeavor.
Well said Ron. The DN's problems are now bigger then any one publisher, manager or writer. To think Ed replaced a great newspaper believer and passionate leader like John McKeon. That was a joke. I was an ad sales manager and never met Mr. Ed. Never had an invite to his office, a phone conversation or an email from him. His acknowledged gift is that he can stare into an Excel spreadsheet for uninterrupted hours. My question to San Diego is why Ed Moss? What success of Ed's are you looking to duplicate in your market..,that only he can pull off?
ed moss is a joke and will always be an empty suit. he is a coward as ron mentions, afraid to do his own dirty work. the people he brought in to help are no talent clowns who in great part drove revenue further in the toilet. can anyone think of a revenue generating idea that worked under little eddie's leadership...all failures just like his time here. good luck san diego...whatever chance you had of coming out of this is now history.
Ed was too chicken to come talk to the DN newsroom when ron had to lay off 25 people. He came and addressed us after the carnage but only after being coaxed. Then tells us he wouldn't be spending $3 million in renovations on the new building if he wasn't confident. Apparently since the staff got to the new building, there have been monthly cuts. Ed was not a people person nor did he even address any department after cuts. Not once did he swing by and visit the newsroom. Tracy Rafter was a class act!!!
Good luck San Diego your gonna need it
This sounds just like what the San Diego Union-Tribune needs! It is a terrible paper and the best we could ask is for it to be completely run into the ground and for other, more competitive and informative media (i.e SDNN, Voice of San Diego, even CityBeat!) to fill the space it vacates. This could be a great thing for our community!
Hey, anonymous. You are a moron.
Hey, anonymous. You are a moron.
Re: "This could be a great thing for our community."
What a laugh! I guess you like the way Randy "Duke" Cunningham was running things in Washington. He'd still be there without the Union-Tribune. It's true that the paper has had its flaws, but I don't see the Voice of San Diego winning any Pulitzers anytime soon.
Ah, the Valley News and Green Sheet. What a thread I unfortunately share with Moss.
My first job was delivering the VNGS on my bicycle in Northridge. I lucked out because many of the residents on my route actually paid me, which was optional. Some even gave me a tip. I earned enough to buy a motorcycle and deliver from it. Then a friend gave up his route, so I ended up with his and one other route. By then I had saved enough to buy a '56 Bel-Air station wagon, and delivered from it.
I delivered for about three years. I majored in journalism at Cal State Northridge and eventually ended up as a staffer at The San Diego Union for seven years. I was downsized in '92 when the Union merged with the Tribune. Have worked mostly in PR since then, luckily in San Diego, now my hometown.
Sad to hear about Moss. I really feel for the remaining editorial staff at the U-T. Looks like its days are numbered unless some miracle happens.
Wow. Sounds just like my ex-boss, a managing editor at a struggling San Diego newspaper. Well, good luck to all of you good reporters, columnists, photographers and designers at the UT. Looks like you'll need it just to keep your jobs.
Great article. Thanks for the information and insight into what is happening in the Valley. I was a resident of the Valley in the good ole' early days and have seen it deteriorate over the years. The newspaper is just one part of this downtrend. Whoever the powers that be that hired him... knew they were hiring a hatchet man, not someone to help journalism. You Ron Kaye, act and sound like a true journalist, wish there were more like you.
If you wanted to hire someone to demoralize a staff, who lacks vision and leadership attributes, who doesn't understand sales, won't get involved in the community, who regards people as problems, has the hiring instincts of a punch drunk fighter, and who will run that newspaper into the ground...congratulations San Diego, you found your man.
Moss sounds like the male equivalent to the principal I worked under in my first teaching position. Incapable of hearing any ideas but her own.
I am very sorry and sad for what has happened to the Daily News and to so many other newspapers in the country. I think newspapers must fervently appeal to the government to help them become established as non-profits. They are the lifeblood of our democracy and must not be allowed to die. My god, has anyone ever thought where we would get our news if a 7.5 earthquake hit? It wouldn't be from TV or the Internet--no electricity for days. It wouldn't be by text message---no cellphone use for days. It would be by newspaper and radio.
That's not the only reason to fight for newspapers to be supported the way we support public TV, but this technology we worship won't get us through everything!
TO G> GRUNT - A former weekly in SD "NewsLine" run by Larry Remer, wouldn't ring or bell or two - would it? Then The SD [COPLEY!} 'T' merged with the 'U' - a lot of excellent writers were lost --- then the primo editor of them all was given 'a column' as horse meat @ the U-T to keep him inside th tent pissing out, rather than visa versa. NIEL WAS FABULOUS! One 'U' writer turned columnist was /is Gerry Braun, who was my editor @ the Del Mar News-Press Group [asfter George Gorton & FOrd son sold it] where I did ad sales, then also did a weekly column - BUSINESS BEAT 'as Omar Q. GOgosian' [a nom de plume which has stuck]! When I was fired from ad sales 9 having booked 85% weekly of all billings - making four La Jolla princesses look bad - Gerry leaked the story to "The SD Reader" and my on- record interview was published in 'City Lights' column. Bottom line: Reason I was fired: [Per ad sales girlfriend of new publisher] " ..didn't follow policy" - TRANS: Would not lie, cheat nor steal. One of my clients was a Rancho Santa Fe realtor -- who trusted me to point wher I gave him a copy of the ad proofs before publication. One ad appeared in a special edition on reality with a $350,000 erronaeous mark-down on his lead hot-to-go listing. He screamed and so did I - the paper ran a "correction" after damage had already been done! I was fired. NEVER SINCE TOOK A SALES JOB - too many ways for a good ad salesman or marketeer to be scre**d! TOO DAMNED MANY WAYS even or even especially today. I still listen to radio ads then ask: If business is so good, Dude -- why are you advertising? WORD O' MOUTH!!!
Hey, "anonymous' double poster. WHICH anonymous poster is a moron -- you or someone else, DUDE? Get a life, find a rock, crawl under it or return to the 'mushroom farm' from which you originated. This is a print journalism shop talk blog -- get out of our ways, s.v.p.????? [Read/speak FRENCH]?
People it's a job in the eyes of the owners, nothing more. If you have any heroic notions about what it means to be a publisher with these owners, get over it. Ed knew this. He's not an evil person.
Ed had his marching orders. If you're going to be in that roll you have to do what you're told, period.
The industry has not innovated quickly enough and everyone needs to get on board with the needed changes. May not happen though, there is a mass brain drain of relatively young and talented (Adverstising)Executives from the industry overall and this particular operation is a good example.
11:35 poster, you are dead wrong. Ed wasn't a nice guy. He never left his office, never bothered to learn any names of the people he worked with...and I am not talking about those who were right under him. There are several instances of documented falsehoods he pitched, and his track record of doing the same job at his past locations speaks volumes. Nice guy? I don't think so. You can accept a job that isn't pretty, however, you can communicate, hire talent, listen to those you work with, keep great employees over poor ones etc. Ed was zero for all and more. It was a sad, sad, effort.
5/19 at 11:35AM
Renee: You should learn to spell "Advertising".
It's also role, not roll.
4:19...very funny and most likely accurate. If not Renee, there are a few others that hoped Ed didn't stop to quickly,