With all the upheaval going on in the newspaper business, the sale of Freedom Communications piece by piece is getting relatively little notice. Warren Buffett wasn’t the buyer and staff cuts were not as dramatic as those going on at Advance Communications.
But I noticed.
In my three years at the American Press Institute, Freedom was by far my leading client. I led regional seminars for newsroom staff members in Destin, Fla.; McAllen, Texas, and New Bern, N.C. I spoke at editors’ conferences in Dallas, Tempe, Ariz., (publishers joined that conference) and San Antonio. I spoke at a National Writers’ Workshop in Fullerton, Calif., hosted by the Orange County Register.
For more than two years, I wrote a quarterly review of Freedom work (called the “eTuner” for reasons that I don’t recall if I ever knew them), requiring me to review content from dozens of newspapers and websites, a chore that always took a week or two. (The eTuner might have been the first place I wrote about the importance of Twitter for journalists.) I coordinated the work of judges who performed annual evaluations of every Freedom paper.
Jonathan Segal, then president of Freedom Newspapers, was an API board member and his company believed in the value of training staff and improving journalism more than any company I knew of in the newspaper business.
I knew the work, the leaders and the staffs of Freedom’s newsrooms better than those of any company other than those I worked for. They did a lot of good journalism for a lot of communities and I was proud to work with them (and had some great times with them over dinner and drinks at those conferences and seminars).
The Libertarian bent of their editorial pages on national issues never won me over. But I saw a lot of strong leadership on local issues that reflected thoughtful local examination of issues, rather than an ideological approach dictated from headquarters.
Like too many former giants of our industry, Freedom ended up in bankruptcy. And it’s been sold in more pieces than any other newspaper company I’ve noticed. In at least six transactions this year, the Texas papers went to AIM Media, the Florida and North Carolina papers went to Halifax Media Group, the New Mexico newspapers sold to Clovis Media, the Seymour (Ind.) Tribune sold to Home News Enterprises, four other Midwestern papers sold to Versa Capital Management and the California papers, Colorado Springs Gazette and Yuma (Ariz.) Sun were sold Monday to an investor group. The 2009 Pulitzer Prize-winning East Valley Tribune was sold (after nearly closing) in 2009. And the TV stations, which I had no interactions with, went to Sinclair Broadcast Group. I might have missed another deal or two, but Freedom has scattered more thoroughly than any media company that I’ve noticed.
I don’t have time (or a good enough memory) to salute all the good journalists I worked with and recount all the good journalism I reviewed for Freedom. But I’ll say a special thanks to Lee Lerner, who was my primary contact with Freedom, and to Skip Foster, who was editor of the Shelby Star when we first started working together and later became publisher. Skip leads an amazingly innovative small staff in Shelby and led discussions for some of the API seminars I led, blowing away the we’re-too-small excuse too many newsrooms use.
Oh, hell, I’m going to name more names anyway (recognizing up front that I’m going to overlook some good ones). I’ll send out thanks and best wishes to other Freedom colleagues, some of whom have moved on, some of whom lost jobs in this upheaval and some of whom will continue serving the same communities under new owners: Dan Brannan, Hunter Bretzius, Cyndi Brown, Ken Brusic, Marci Caltabiano Ponce, Dan Davis, Laura Dennis, Steve Fagan, Glen Faison, Jim Krumel, Len La Barth, Julie Moreno, Pat Rice, Jim Ripley, Ernie Rodriguez, Kevin Sablan, David Stevens, Madison Taylor, Jeff Thomas (who might have been the first person to joke about my tendency to tweet about travel delays), Rick Thomason (who became a Digital First colleague), Larry Welborn.
My dealings with Freedom were a pleasure and a fond memory. I hope the people and newsrooms of Freedom thrive with their new owners.
Thanks for the kind words and all of your support over the years.
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Steve: Many thanks for including me in that august group. I’d just like to mention that, speaking of innovators … YOU are responsible for forcing me (and many others in Freedom) to Twitter and Facebook. You were so far ahead of the social media strategy for journalism, it gives me a nosebleed to consider it. Many thanks for all you’ve done for Freedom, and for journalists everywhere.
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Thanks for the kind words, Marci. But I urged. I didn’t force. 🙂
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Regardless of the reasoning behind the name, never underestimate the impact of the eTuner on a 23-year-old cub reporter in Marysville when he sees his work getting an eye in something being sent out company-wide. Thanks for the work you put into those, Steve.
Unfortunately, it looks like, according to an LA Times report, 2100 Trust wants to sell of all the papers but the Register. So the uncertainty for my old colleagues continues.
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Steve, thanks for noticing, thanks for the kind words and thanks for your hard work.
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Reblogged this on Len La Barth and commented:
Kind, thoughtful words from Steve Buttry, whose critiques helped make a difference in Freedom newsrooms.
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The eTuner was so named after the original printed version in the 80s, The Tuner. The eTuner was the attempt at reviving that very instructive aid without the cost of printing and postage. Back in my days in Indiana, staff members were rewarded with $1 for each positive mention with a deduction for every boo-boo.
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Thanks for enlightening, John!
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I knew a number of Freedom folks who did good work, and I was always impressed by the emphasis on staff training and education at their papers. This is just one more epitaph for a business that has withered away with warp speed.
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[…] who at the time was with the American Press Institute. I came to know Steve over the years through Freedom’s annual editor’s meetings and continue to engage him today via social media. He and others who attended like Rob Curley, have […]
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[…] my American Press Institute days, my biggest client was Freedom Newspapers. I managed annual evaluations of their newspapers (I can’t recall how many, but it was […]
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[…] Freedom Newspapers, selling in chunks after bankruptcy, perhaps most closely resembled the DFM sale, with metro operations in Orange County, Colorado Springs and suburban Phoenix each finding different owners, and still more owners buying regional clusters of smaller papers. The two companies’ geographic footprints also overlapped or approached each other in Southern and Northern California, the Rio Grande Valley and New Mexico. But DFM is significantly larger than Freedom, and we’re a few years further down the path of digital disruption. […]
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