On March 11, 2011 A2Politico broke the story (with some help, of course) about the layoff of 14 newsroom staff at AnnArbor.com. MichiganRadio followed up with a short blurb, and by this beginning of this week, local bloggers, including Mark Maynard, freefromeditors, and the Publisher of the AnnArborChronicle.com were chiming in on what the layoffs signal for the future of AnnArbor.com and Ann Arbor. I followed up my March 11, 2011 post about the firings, with a post about the “explanation” provided by AnnArbor.com executive Tony Dearing—a comment buried deep within the site, and shuffled around from post-to-post without notice or explanation. Finally, I wrote about the crazy email sent by Dearing to fired community contributors. Supposedly, the paid bloggers had been let go because their content generated relatively few page views. The day after the firings, Dearing sent along a chipper email in which Dearing assured the fired bloggers that AnnArbor.com readers “value your work,” as does AnnArbor.com.

Since March 11, 2011 AnnArbor.com readers have posted various content and comments to the AnnArbor.com Community Wall pleading with Dearing to explain the layoffs and to help them understand what the cuts to the site’s reporting staff will mean to news coverage in Ann Arbor. To date AnnArbor.com has not covered the news of its own staff cuts.

I’ve posted several of the “news stories” by the site’s readers, as well as an interesting string of comments in response to Dearing’s March 12,2011 “explanation,” the only information about the layoffs that reduced the site’s newsroom by almost one-third.

I expect national coverage of the layoffs to emerge within the next few weeks, and it will be interesting to see if Dearing and AnnArbor.com CEO Matt Kraner are as tight-lipped with the national media as they have been on their own site, and with their own readership. It’s possible that any news outlet that asks for specifics will get a brush off from the trio who run the site on behalf of Advance Publications, as did Marketplace reporter Jennifer Guerra in 2009, when she asked Dearing for a comment on the site’s performance.In fact on March 14, 2011 Guerra copied and pasted Dearing’s “explanation” and presented it as a “story” on MichiganRadio.com. I wonder if she tried to get a comment.

What follows are several posts from the AnnArbor.com Community Wall put up by readers, as well as a comment string, in which people unsuccessfully plead with Tony Dearing for a crumb of information about the layoffs.

It’s an example of corporate hubris at its full blown worst.

1.  March 12, 2011: Posted to the AnnArbor.com Community Wall. [This is where AnnArbor.com executive Tony Dearing’s “explanation” about the layoffs was moved to. There is an interesting string of comments.]

Layoffs at Annarbor.com

Posted: Mar 12, 2011 at 12:08 PM [Mar 12, 2011]

Michigan Radio reported 3/11/11 that Annarbor.com has laid off 14 employees.  Read the story at http://news.michiganradio.org/post/annarborcom-lays-14-employees.

Tony Dearing

at 12:36 PM on March 12, 2011

While personnel issues are an internal matter and we don’t discuss them publicly, I can confirm that we reorganized our newsroom this week to put our focus more squarely on local news coverage. As a new organization, we have tried a lot of things. Now that we are well into our second year, the community has told us very resoundingly that what it wants most from us is hard news coverage, particularly in the areas of government, education, police, courts, health, the environment, University of Michigan sports, and business. These areas of coverage account for all but a tiny percentage of our readership and revenue. Meanwhile, we also have put a lot of effort toward other things — including lifestyle topics like Passions and Pursuits, The Deuce, Homes and some areas of Entertainment coverage — that our community has shown much less interest in, and we are scaling back in those areas.

We have made tremendous progress since we launched, and we continue to be very happy with the growth we’re seeing in audience and revenue. But from the beginning, we said that we would be shaped by what the community wants, and the community wants us to focus more sharply on local news reporting. We have repositioned ourselves to throw our energy and resources into our local news coverage and that is how we will operate moving forward as we continue to grow.

Ruth Kraut

at 12:51 PM on March 12, 2011

@Tony, if you were truly concerned with local news, you would have asked those reporters and staff to focus more on local news, and “moved” them from entertainment to–for example–higher education–which is, after all, the biggest “business” in Washtenaw County. Instead, you should tell the truth–you did this to cut costs, because your model isn’t working. It’s not working because you don’t have ENOUGH reporting.

David Cahill

at 5:53 PM on March 12, 2011

I would like to hear more about AnnArbor.com’s version of this story. There are a variety of hostile commenters claiming that these layoffs are part of a downward spiral, and that you can’t cut your way to profitability.

I would like to believe otherwise. I am renewing my subscription. I hope doing this is justified.

Some circulation data would be helpful.

haulin donkey

at 11:21 PM on March 12, 2011

No suprise here. The lack of real reporting has caused me to not renew my subsricption.
It would be nice to see real in depth reporting on local goverment events. The article on the City of Ann Arbor’s debt should have been researched and questioned, Washtenaw County Commisioners should be questioned about their actions and held accountable. The Ann Arbor School Board needs the same.
I see nothing here, no challenges, no hard questions, no accountability and no reason to purchase your paper as far as local news is concerned. This the reason for a local news paper either on line or in print.
I hope you can make the necessary changes to keep your paper successful like the other papers under your parent company like Grand Rapids and Kalmazoo.

spj

at 2:45 PM on March 13, 2011

I would think that the news organization of record for a city this size laying off a huge chunk of staff would be important local news, and therefore covered by the news organization of record. Contrast this with NPR’s recent coverage of its own scandals and turmoil, right out there in the open. You can run but you can’t hide, annarbor.com. You just fired the brains of the outfit.

Vivienne Armentrout

at 4:42 PM on March 13, 2011

I’d like to acknowledge the good coverage of government issues by Ryan Stanton. I’m missing Ed Vielmetti already, though. Please keep Paula Gardner and Nathan Bomey happy!

We need a local news”paper” to succeed, and AnnArbor.com is our only daily. I hope that you recognize that it is through the work of reporters that it will succeed. It’s all about the news.

2.  March 12, 2011: Posted to the AnnArbor.com Community Wall.

Layoffs at AnnArbor.com?

Posted: Mar 12, 2011 at 8:38 AM [Mar 12, 2011]

I have heard radio news reports that AnnArbor.com has just laid off 20 employees, but can not find any story on AnnArbor.com itself. This is an important story. These layoffs continue the attrition that has weakened this local news organization and which has had a serious impact on news reporting in Ann Arbor and Washtenaw County. What is going on? You have a responsibility to your readers to provide a full, complete and fair accounting of these layoffs and why this decision has been made.

3.  March 12, 2011: Posted to the AnnArbor.com Community Wall.

Only news on AnnArbor.com layoffs

Posted: Mar 12, 2011 at 9:12 AM [Mar 12, 2011]

http://news.michiganradio.org/post/annarborcom-lays-14-employees

Ann Arbor.com laid off 14 employees this week.

The mostly web publication, which also puts out a print edition twice a week, replaced the 174-year old Ann Arbor News when it closed its doors in 2009.

Tony Collings is a University of Michigan communications professor and a former journalist. He says a lot of journalists and professional journalism organizations were looking to see whether Ann Arbor.com would be some kind of model for the future:

“Apparently it isn’t, or at least it doesn’t seem to be succeeding in a business way, and I don’t know whether it is succeeding journalistically either.”

This week’s layoffs leave about 20 or so people in the Ann Arbor.com newsroom. Back in its hey day, the Ann Arbor News had about 75 reporters in its newsroom.

4.  March 13, 2011: Posted to the AnnArbor.com Community Wall.

AnnArbor.com cuts staff

Posted: Mar 13, 2011 at 9:07 AM [Mar 13, 2011]

Paula – where is this story?

Did Tony moderate this one out?