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Bob Mellor laughs after being handed a copy of the Nov. 18 Citizen-Times, which he criticized as being thin on news and akin to a newsletter.

From Daily Planet Staff Reports

Despite admitting that he was not feeling well and was on medication from a medical procedure, Asheville Citizen-Times Publisher Randy Hammer nonetheless quickly and succinctly answered questions for 45 minutes at a Leadership Asheville Forum on Nov. 18.

The audience still had a number of hands raised with questions, when a LAF organizer ended the session.

A man began by asking, “With the change in printing, did that change your deadlines?”

“Yes, we print the paper 45 minutes earlier,” Hammer replied.

A man asked, “How many people buy a seven-day newspaper only?”

“It’s essentially flat,” Hammer answered.

Another man asked, “Is on-line publishing, now that it’s free — is on-line publishing profitable?”

“Not as profitable as print — and that’s the problem,” Hammer said.

A man queried, “Would the decision on closing the paper be made locally?”

“We make a significant profit,” Hammer replied, contending that closing of the newspaper is not an issue in Asheville now.
“How do you measure the value of an ad?” someone asked.

“You have to be proactive on the Web,” Hammer said. “So Cars.com, CareerBuilder and our real estate site — those are the most profitable on our Web site.

“But if you are a smaller retailer, it’s harder. We have a coupon wrap that has been very effective in print ... The print drives retailers significantly better than the Web site.”

A man asked if the AC-T, despite competition from national newspapers, such as The New York Times and The Wall Street Journal, will be able to continuing pay the presumably high cost of subscribing the The Associated Press for national and international news coverage.

“Yes, we will see other business models” in today’s challenging times, Hammer said. “The Associated Press is very expensive ... We may tap more into (sister paper) USA Today for national and international coverage ... I’m disappointed with our coverage of Major League baseball.”

A man asked Hammer what is the most frequent criticism the AC-T receives.

“It’s all over the board,” Hammer replied. At that point, Bob Mellor, an audience member, interjected his top complaint against the ACT: “It’s like a newsletter!”

As Hammer and the audience appeared temporarily stunned by Mellor’s assertion, Mellor added, “If you take out all the ads, it’s like three pages” of news.

Hammer quickly recovered and took issue with Mellor’s assessment of his newspaper. Hammer asked one of his assistants to retrieve that day’s edition of the AC-T from his car. Shortly, the assistant handed the newspaper to Hammer, who in turn passed it to Mellor, challenging him to check the premises of his assertion — and recount the pages of news.

At that point, Hammer smiled also admitted that “on Mondays and Tuesdays, it’s like throwing tissue” to the AC-T’s readers because the paper is the thinnest on those days. “That’s where we really took a big hit” — with a decline in advertising in the early-week editions. “Mondays and Tuesdays are our two days with the lowest readership and with virtually no ads.”

A man asserted, “I really like your sports coverage.” However, he complained, “You ran an AP article” on a recently and “important” football game between the Carolina Panthers and New Orleans Saints, rather than a story by a local writer.

Hammer admitted that AC-T executives had noticed the error, which he attributed to someone ran the wrong story in that case.

The AC-T publisher also noted that, when it comes to sports teams, “it’s interesting, but Charlotte just is not that popular here ... The (Washington) Redskins have more interest here than the Panthers.”

As a sports enthusiast himself, Hammer added, “On baseball, one of the things that really hurt me is that this was the first year we couldn’t get the World Series score in the paper” the next morning. “Before,” when the AC-T had its own printing press, “we had control of that.”

What’s more, Hammer said, “It’s a shame that the World Series keeps running later and later. For a lot of young people, they just have no use for baseball. I think it’s because they’re playing the games so late that kids can’t get into it.”

A man asked if newspapers, such as the AC-T, were hurt by the loss of classified ads to other mediums.

“I’d say we’re holding our own,” Hammer asserted. “I’d say eventually it (classified) will go away totally” from print newspapers. “People don’t use print for things like apartments, real estate and cars. They go to Web sites.”

He added, “For a long time” in the newspaper industry, “it was department stores that drove advertising and then classifieds and now it’s independent retailers. It’s always changing.”

A woman said, “I always enjoy the editorial page. I really like it. You’ve got some good people” contributing to it.

Hammer noted that Jim Buchanan is the AC-T’s editorial page editor who “selects the material for that.”

The woman and Hammer agreed that their favorite section of the editorial page is the letters to the editor, which espouse lively views from all angles. Several crowd members said the letters to the editor are more entertaining than the comics pages.

A man said, “I’m a little frustrated with my local paper on Mondays and Tuesdays,” which he said he could read each edition in four minutes “and then (have to) go online” to read a full news report. He asked Hammer to consider making those editions larger.

Hammer smiled and said, “That’s an economic issue ... Mondays and Tuesdays are the two lowest-read days. I mean, there are some papers that talk about doing away with those two days (editions). The loyalty of the readers is probably the greatest strengtrh we’ve got” at the AC-T. “Our weakest (aspect) is that young people are just not readers” of print.

Pointing to data on his handout, Hammer said “if we saw more dramatic declines than this, then” the fate of the Monday and Tuesday editions could be subject to serious review.

Hammer reiterated, “The question was, will the newspaper be around in 10 years — and I look around this room and I think most of you will still be around in 10 years, so I think we will be, too.” The crowd roared with laughter, as Hammer added with a broad smile, “I’m counting on you guys!”

Turning to the past, Hammer said that newspapers in the 1960s sometimes reached 103 to 104 percent of adults in some markets, meaning many read more than one newspaper daily.

“With all that’s happened, that we maintain 73 percent” reach of adults in the market, Hammer attributed the relatively stable print readership to the presence of many boomers who have maintained the habit of reading newspapers that they developed in their youth.

“We grew up reading newspapers, but youths today are developing the digital habit” instead,” Hammer said.

Nancy Williams, a LAF official and biweekly columnist for the AC-T, asked, “Because of the size of our community, do you think the reporters (at the AC-T) ever feel pressure to tiptoe” on certain controversial issues.

“I think so,” Hammer replied. “Here, you write a story and go across the street” and have to deal with people who have read your stories.

“Journalists have been known to take cheap shots at people. My policy is you have to be willing to have a cup of coffee” with someone a reporter just wrote about.

Further, Hammer said, “I don’t find we have the corruption here that some other communities have. I find the people in the business community as well as politicians have been pretty decent. But I do think this new City Council” will be entertaining, referring to its expected heavy tilt to the Left following the recent election.

Another man raised the issue about the AP wire service “getting too expensive” for newspapers. Given that the AP is a nonprofit, the man wanted to know “what’s the problem?”

“To generate local content is very expensive,” Hammer said. “With The AP, they cover not only around the country, but around the world.

“If you look at TV and radio stations, they really don’t have the business model” like that of newspapers, with extensive news reporting staffs.

“The number of people we have ‘on the street’ is more than any other medium locally,” Hammer said.

However, he added, “The whole business model for all media is in trouble.”

A woman exclaimed, “That would be the tragedy,” if reputable news operations went out of business, leaving the citizenry with unreliable sources.

“I agree that’s the tragedy,” Hammer said. “But 20 years from now, if we have a community that doesn’t care about community life, where will that leave the country? I like to be an optimist. I think, with technology, we’ll find new ways.”

Even though “the amount of information we have available  to us now is pretty dramatic,” many Americans are losing interest in the news, especially of the local variety, Hammer said.

He finished by stating, “I’m sorry I’ve been a little bit low key today, I’m on medication” for a medical issue. “I hope to see you next year — and I’ll hopefully have good news for you.”