Rodent Regatta

Craig Cantoni says, ”Someone sent me a confidential transcript of a recent strategic planning meeting of the top brass at the Arizona Republic. Just kidding, but if such a transcript did exist, it would read as follows:”

Transcript of Arizona Republic Strategic Planning Meeting
By Craig J. Cantoni

(For Internet Publication)

CEO: I want to open our annual strategic planning meeting by reviewing some numbers. Our circulation dropped 3.7 percent for the six months ending in September, in spite of being in a high-growth state. As you know, we’re the highest circulation daily in the Gannett empire next to USA Today, which saw its circulation rise only .7 percent. During the same period, the Wall Street Journal saw its circulation increase 16.1 percent. Can anyone explain this and suggest what to do about it?

Managing Editor: The explanation is that newspaper readership among young people is dropping like a rock across the country. We’re doing three things about it:

First, we’re dumbing down the paper to try to attract young readers. Our front page is an example. One-third of it is now short news summaries, and two-thirds of it are snippets of lead stories that are continued on jump pages. It is designed to appeal to young readers with Attention Deficit Disorder, who like to get their news from the Internet and TV, and who haven’t acquired the wisdom and discernment that come with age. Sure, the tactic will disenfranchise older readers, well-educated readers and readers who like to read the paper over breakfast without turning the page every five seconds. But who cares about them? They’re not the nation’s future.

Second, we’ve continued our tactic of disenfranchising conservatives and attracting liberals, because young readers tend to be liberal. As the old saying goes: If someone isn’t a liberal when he’s young, he’s heartless; and if he isn’t a conservative when he’s older, he’s brainless. Mary’s human resources department has done a great job in hiring older liberal reporters who think like young people. Nice going, Mary.

Our recent series on Arizona’s taxes is an example of how we are appealing to liberals. It’s been the talk of talk-radio. Conservatives say that it only presented the liberal side of the tax issue. Of course it did. That’s why the series said that the state is being robbed of revenue because Arizona doesn’t impose the same level of taxes and fees as other states. If we wanted to appeal to conservatives, we would have quoted some of them about their silly belief that the government robs people instead of the other way around. Of course, we rarely quote a conservative man on the street about taxes, but we frequently quote state workers, public university professors, public school teachers and other recipients of government money. The young and brainless don’t see through this ploy.

Editorial Page Editor: And let’s not forget that the editorial board is doing its share of the heavy lifting. Following the lead of my predecessor, Keven Willey, the board continues to endorse higher government spending about 10-to-1 over spending cuts.

Chief Financial Officer: I know I’m new here, but why in heaven’s name would we purposely disenfranchise conservatives, many of whom own businesses and advertise in the Republic? For that matter, why would our advertisers want us to appeal to younger people who don’t have much money to spend instead of older and better educated people who have a lot of money to spend? It seems to me that we should produce a product that appeals to the widest audience possible. After all, aren’t we in business to make money? Besides, unless I’m mistaken, young people eventually grow older and wiser.

Managing Editor: You’re a great CFO, Jack, but you’re not a newspaper guy.

Marketing VP: I agree with Jack. We have the technical capability to produce different editions of the paper for different market segments and to charge wealthier subscribers a higher price for the content that they want.

Managing Editor: Whoa, Jim, you’re not a newspaper guy, either. You’ve never been a journalist. Virtually every reporter on staff believes that a newspaper has a higher calling.

Marketing VP: And what’s that?

Managing Editor: It’s to be a progressive force for diversity, justice, fairness, redistribution, mass transit, environmentalism, a planned economy and a world government.

CFO: I’m becoming ill.

Managing Editor: And I’m getting sick of your rabid capitalism, you right-wing extremist.

CEO: Now, now, boys. Can’t we all just get along?

Managing Editor: I’d be happy to get along, but only if these outsiders mind their own business and stop trying to interfere with editorial content. Even if we wanted to change the progressive mission of the newspaper, we’d have a rebellion in the newsroom. And even if we wanted to replace our news staff, it would be impossible to find enough reporters who understand economics and know the moral, philosophical and constitutional foundations of capitalism and our constitutional republic. Heck, even our business columnist doesn’t understand such stuff.

CFO: Why couldn’t we hire reporters away from the Wall Street Journal?

Managing Editor (guffawing): And end up with another Julie Amparano?

CFO: Who’s that?

Managing Editor: Someone who was a similar national embarrassment to us as Jayson Blair was to the New York Times. We hired her from the Wall Street Journal because of her Spanish surname to pander to Hispanics. We later discovered that she was concocting sources and writing fiction to make readers believe that Hispanics have suffered as much discrimination as African Americans and have it worse than other immigrant groups.

Human Resources VP: Excuse me for interrupting, but we’re going to get in trouble someday for violating long-standing discrimination laws that prohibit basing hiring decisions on race and ethnicity.

Chief Counsel: Naw, Mary, we have nothing to worry about. The EEOC looks the other way if we do it under the guise of diversity.

Marketing VP: Speaking of diversity, our strategy of hiring Hispanic reporters to cover Hispanic issues isn’t working. Mexican-Americans comprise about one-fourth of Arizona’s population, but they read the Republic even less than young people.

CEO: That’s why we bought a Spanish newspaper.

Marketing VP: Which was a good decision. But I’m raising a market segment issue about the Arizona Republic, not about our Spanish newspaper: If in the name of diversity we hire Hispanic staffers to appeal to Hispanic readers, why in the name of diversity don’t we hire conservative staffers to appeal to conservative readers?

CEO: That’s easy to answer: Gannett measures how we’re doing in racial diversity but not in ideological diversity.

Editorial Page Editor: And let’s not forget that we have a token conservative in editorial board member and columnist Bob Robb. We also have guest columnist Craig Cantoni who writes for the community edition. He’s a strategic planning consultant and has a Texas newspaper as a client, a paper that has seen circulation and advertising grow during the recession. He wants the Republic to grow and prosper, but we ignore him because he’s not a newspaper guy. Between him and Robb, that makes two conservatives out of a staff of 200, which is about as much ideological diversity as Gannet will tolerate.

CEO: Excuse me, Jack, it looks like you’re reading something instead of paying attention.

CFO: I’m reading the Wall Street Journal.

CEO: Oooo, pass it to me when you’re done.

• * * * *

Mr. Cantoni is an author and consultant. He can be reached at ccan2@aol.com.