Mr. Myers,
In light of your rude behavior and bad-mouthing of The Signal in a public forum, we find your services here unnecessary. I will trim your column down to a letter to the editor if you would like.
Lila Littlejohn, editor
Copy of an email received from Lila Littlejohn, Editor of the Signal on October 13, 2007.
And with this short email, nearly 11 years of unpaid work for the Signal and the community of Santa Clarita comes to an end. Eleven years; 572 columns; nearly half a million words of half-baked opinions that some people enjoyed, comes to a bitter end without a verbalized thank you or retirement lunch. To top it off, unpaid columnists even needed to pay full price for subscriptions to see their own work in print.
The step only makes sense. Readers of the Signal speak often now of the incredibly shrinking Signal, shrinking not only in size but also in local content. The Opinion Section published on October 14, 2007 that did NOT include a column submitted by me on the Hart School Board election included only one piece of locally generated commentary, and that from a planning commission member and city council candidate. A few months ago the section boasted the transcript of a long interview with a local notable, two to three pieces of locally generated commentary and regular features, and sometimes five to six lengthy letters to the editor. What a difference a change in management makes! In a mere few months the new editorial board effectively purged nearly every piece of regular local content from the pages of the Signal.
The reasons stand clear in any review of the print media business. With the exception of the free alternative weeklies, print broadsheet newspapers barely hold their own in maintaining circulation and most absorb percentage declines that will compound to result in a complete loss of all circulation within 20 to 25 years. A newspaper cannot sustain but probably a 20% reduction in circulation, so death will occur within about five to seven years. Rushes to online versions generate relatively small amounts of absolute advertising revenue that will never support the physical infrastructure of a print broadsheet. One pundit likened it to attempting to make a battleship airborne with a child’s helium balloon.
The reason? Many people get their world and regional news from web sources or the 24 hour news stations. The major urban dailies relinquished interesting political thought to the more edgy blogs beginning five years ago. In the face of this most dailies seek to shore up their profit and loss statements by reducing more and more editorial staff and decreasing the reach and content of their print editions. The Signal and Morris Multimedia that owns The Signal cannot stand immune from that trend, but I find it ironic the new management, charged with bringing up operating returns on the Signal from a good 20% to a perfect 30%, would turn their backs on free local content.
Some may wonder at the supposed “rude behavior” and badmouthing the Signal in a public forum alluded to in the email. Since the takeover of the newspaper by Jay Harn as publisher and the editorial page by Lila Littlejohn columns regularly submitted in the usual way smoothly published for over ten years suddenly went missing on a Sunday morning without explanation. Emails to Lila Littlejohn went mostly unanswered, and telephone calls requesting an explanation went always unanswered. An in person visit to the Signal offices to speak to Lila Littlejohn face to face resulted in a short and surreal meeting with Jay Harn, the new publisher of the Signal, who treated me like a crackpot letter to the editor writer who did not get his meanderings published. That was the rude behavior. What of the badmouthing in a public forum?
Into the void of local coverage abdicated by the Signal, Carl Goldman and KHTS radio boldly stepped, providing hard news coverage on important local issues, including the recent mega-accident on Interstate 5. On October 8, 2007 I obtained a copy of the unreleased performance audit report prepared by Moss Adams on the Hart District Measure V fund accounting. I knew KHTS also received a report and would break the story before the Signal, so I gave the information to the Signal to prevent embarrassment. The result? The Signal blew off the story on the day after KHTS broke the news, and provided a basic copy of the District’s explanatory press release the day after. On the day after, I posted a link to the KHTS website on The Signal’s online forum, decrying the lack of local news coverage since they resignation of Richard Budman.
After my unceremonious “firing” from an unpaid job (Can that even happen?), I sent out several inquiries. Immediately, Dave Bossert, community activist and the force behind the West Ranch Beacon website agreed to provide a home for the further musings of this wordsmith, so for the next little while the weekly writing can be found on the West Ranch Beacon website on each Wednesday. If you feel a need to continue reading the poor meanderings of the last ten years, you will find me there, bringing local commentary now absent from the pages of the SCV’s only print daily.
Tim Myers Commentary
Tim Myers is Executive Vice President and Chief Financial Officer of Landscape Development, Inc. He has been writing on a wide variety of local topics for more than 11 years. His commentaries represent his own opinions and not necessarily the views of any organization he may be affiliated with or those of the West Ranch Beacon.
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7 · as published