Charles Apple | American Copy Editors Society

McClatchy’s announcement today it would fold the design and copy desks of the Raleigh News & Observer into that of the Charlotte Observer isn’t the first consolidation effort we’ve heard about, of course.

And it won’t be the last. I also have information that suggests Cox newspapers is planning to combine its own copy and design desks into hubs or hub-like arrangements.

I was given the following memo a while back. I’ve been unable to get any of this info independently confirmed. But what the hell. At the risk of behaving like, y’know, “a blogger“… here it is.

This memo reportedly comes from Fred Zipp, editor of the American-Statesman of Austin, Texas.

Colleagues,

I met today with newsroom managers, the copy desk and designers to relay some difficult recommendations that I and other leaders from the four Cox newspapers discussed this week in Atlanta. In the interest of quick communication, I’m using email to tell other folks. Please pardon the impersonal delivery.

Now, time out right there. Which four papers are we talking about?

Most likely, Zipp refers to the four largest papers in the Cox chain:

Heh. Those Cox papers certainly love their page-one rails, do they not? From left to right:

• Atlanta Journal-Constitution, Circulation 183,415
• Austin American-Statesman, Circulation 137,709
• Palm Beach (Fla.) Post, Circulation 117,149
• Dayton (Ohio) Daily News, Circulation 94,709

Cox also owns four other dailies, the largest of which is the 19,634-circulation News Sun of Springfield, Ohio.

Back to the memo…

Cox is committed to publishing lively, public service-oriented newspapers and to making a profit from them. Only strong newspapers can exercise the kind of independent, vigorous role that characterize the best papers.

We continue to operate in a tough environment for newspapers. The revenue outlook for the next five years is essentially flat. In 2010, Cox ranked near the bottom of major newspaper groups in operating margins. Among the differences between Cox and the most profitable groups was their progress toward creating more efficient operations by consolidating functions wherever possible.

At the meeting in Atlanta, we reviewed options and recommended that Cox pursue consolidation in a number of areas, including our four copy desks and design operations. Senior executives in Cox Media Group will be reviewing the recommendation and will make a decision quickly on how to proceed.

What we have done so far is make a recommendation on a high-level strategic decision. Of course, it’s the details that interest us all. Unfortunately, how this will play out remains murky at this point:

• We have not set a date. We know that the consolidated desk will work best if the papers are on the same publishing systems. Austin is scheduled to make the switch to the next generation of DTI in the third quarter of 2012.
• We have not discussed a location for the operation.
• We have not thought about the structure of the new desk.

When the senior leadership makes its decision, we will dig into the details. I will keep everyone informed.

Thanks for your continuing hard work. These are tough times, but we will emerge stronger and take care of our fellow employees along the way.

fz

—

Here is a recap of two half-day sessions where leaders from across all CMG properties gathered to discuss best practices and next steps.

Day 1: Focus on the data: Team members focused on industry benchmarks in the following areas — Content, Sales and Operations

Key points:

• In terms of margin, we are one of the lowest performers.
• High performing organizations, in terms of margin, had a common theme: more centralized and consolidated services.
• Looking internally, we had operations that were out performing the others – there are further opportunities there

Day 2: Deep dive into Content, Sales, Ops to find areas that hold greatest financial benefits.

Provide relevant examples from your group break out for employees in your department.

For example from Operations break out this information would be relevant to Circulation employees:

• HD Yield
• Single Copy Returns
• Porch Delivery
• Agent/Dm optimization
• Carrier /Rt. Optimization
• Call center consolidation

Key agreements:

1. All agree to strategic direction and need to find efficiencies and build a sustainable business model
2. Lots of opportunity for cost saving and revenue generation
3. This will be an evolution\phased approach, which will begin with establishing processes to start achieving savings going forward
4. Shared services and consolidation of services will be necessary
5. Use of industry\CMG benchmarks and best practices with dashboards to track progress is essential
6. It will be necessary to define responsibilities, accountabilities, decision making process and expectations for all of this to be a success

Next steps:

• Communicate where we are to interested and involved parties (Do not plan to share the bound Phase 1 Assessment with large group at this time)
• Review with publishers and steering committee to develop recommendations. Recommendations will be reviewed with Alex and Doug
• Upon approval, a deep dive into benchmarks and recommendations will be completed
• Cost benefit analyses, communication strategy, timelines, etc all to be developed in next phases

Again, this was passed along to me about six weeks ago. I have reason to believe this story has progressed a bit since then.