The Other Investors

Dear shareholders:

Good morning. I am Michael Paul Williams, first vice president of the Richmond Newspapers Professional Association. We represent 101 news professionals at the Richmond Times-Dispatch, which is the flagship and founding property of Media General. We, too, are shareholders in The Times-Dispatch and Media General. We represent a special class of investor — a group who has gone beyond capital contributions to give sweat, tears and years on behalf of this newspaper and its readers. Less than three years ago, we represented almost 180 people, but our ranks have been thinned by attrition, reassignment of editors, and most recently layoffs. On April 2, 22 of our members were laid off — about 18 percent of our staff. We also lost five deputy editors, all but one of them former union members at the lowest rung of management. No upper level managers lost their jobs. Included in this round of cuts were some of the newspaper’s most seasoned reporters, editors, artists and photographers representing hundreds of years of collective experience and institutional memory. Their value is incalculable; they can never be replaced. Every day, our newsroom feels the loss of valued colleagues, friends, and yes, even spouses.

We were told that secret planning for the layoffs began a month earlier, or about one week after we agreed to 10 mandatory furlough days to save money and jobs. The layoffs were sprung on us the same day we sat down voluntarily with the company to talk about its request for wage concessions to save jobs. Our colleagues learned their fate by e-mail the evening before the layoffs, even as some were going about the task of performing critical duties to put out the next day’s paper. Our editors have told us the layoff of nearly one-fifth of our staff was necessary because the company is in “survival mode.” As journalists for Media General’s Richmond Times-Dispatch, we are committed to accurate, truthful reporting.

But Media General is not being transparent with its shareholders, who aren’t being told, as we are by top management, that the Times-Dispatch is in “survival mode.” They aren’t being told that Media General is demanding cuts in the newspaper that undermine the viability of a flagship product that management acknowledges is profitable. They aren’t being told that top executives aren’t willing to take pay cuts in exorbitant salaries, beyond sharing in furloughs and forgoing their lucrative bonuses. We have asked them to take additional pay cuts, and we believe they have been asked internally to take additional pay cuts, but they refuse. And yet they are threatening to lay off more of our people to save less than $200,000, which could be accounted for easily by modest cuts in executive pay or trimming of the newspaper’s bloated senior management staff. We are concerned that the company’s strategy appears to be to sell a smaller product in an increasingly competitive market at a higher price, and do not believe that this strategy has been clearly enough elucidated for stockholders. Are Times-Dispatch managers accurate in describing the condition of the company as “in survival mode?” And at what point does Media General believe that these continuing cuts will compromise the Times-Dispatch and its ability to satisfy readers, attract advertisers, and serve its community?
 
Michael Paul Williams
Columnist, reporter
Richmond Times-Dispatch