What do we know about Halifax Media, the new owners of the Hendersonville Times-News? The New York Times Company recently sold the paper, along with 15 others in its Regional Media Group, to Halifax for $149 million, leaving many to wonder about the WNC paper's fate. While specific plans and changes have yet to be announced, some possible trends can be gleaned from Halifax's methods at the Daytona Beach News-Journal, which Halifax bought in 2010. Below are snippets from a story on FlaglerLive.com about one meeting of that paper's staff in March of 2011.
Daytona Beach News Journal Publisher Michael Redding marked the one-year anniversary of the newspaper under his co-ownership with an offer to most of the 400-some remaining employees of the paper, including editors and reporters: Anyone selling a three-month subscription to the paper would get a $25 bonus, or $50 for a six month subscription. Anyone selling $100 worth of advertising would get $50.Read the full article
Redding described the arrangement—highly unusual in news-gathering operations, and forbidden, for ethical and journalistic reasons, in many that maintain a strict separation between news-gathering on one side and advertising and marketing on the other—as an “incentive,” rather than a requirement: no expectations were set. But staffers have had no raises in four years and were promised none this year. Redding offered up his human resources director, Patty Morris, as an example of what others could do: Morris, he said, netted about 200 new subscriptions through her church.
... The ethical questions of reporters or editors peddling subscriptions or advertising were never raised, several people who attended the meeting said, while the Q&A that followed Redding’s presentation consisted of “softball” questions, as many staffers fear for their job: Redding three times mentioned furloughs at Florida Today, a Gannett-owned paper in Brevard County, but said none were planned at the News-Journal.
“People are just so freaked out by this situation. I think there’s Stockholm syndrome going on,” one staffer said, referring to the phenomenon where captives begin to identify with their captors. Like many others who spoke, the staffer did so on condition of anonymity. As staffers filed out of the meeting, jokes about the incentives began to flow, along with a measure of anxiety. “I’m worried about it becoming mandatory, not just an incentive.”
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