The poor Washington Times. Several executives get fired, their top editor is MIA, security is beefed up, the family that owns the church that owns the paper is a mess, staffers fear for the safety of their jobs, confusion reigns and the very survival of the paper is in question.
Well, TPM has obtained a few staff e-mails sent by recently-fired publisher Tom McDevitt over the last couple years that help shed a little light on the paper’s ambition — and descent.
A June 7, 2007, staff email from then-President Tom McDevitt strikes a rather optimistic tone and declares that the paper is “looking to the future.”
Many people see a newspaper industry faced with unprecedented challenges — fewer readers; an aging readership; competition from other newspapers, cable TV, radio, and the Internet; and defining the role of print media in the Digital Age. Some newspaper companies don’t know what to do.
Not so with The Washington Times. We are now embarking on our next quarter century of service with a vibrant, carefully thought-out plan for our print and digital publications. This roadmap builds on the market-based proof that The Washington Times is a necessary, clear and alternative voice to mainstream media sources that are often out-of-touch with tens of millions of our fellow citizens. In the face of industry squeamishness, we plan actually to expand our reach locally, nationally and internationally, and based on an intensive company-wide effort, we expect to succeed.
McDevitt continued that the newspaper had partnered with L.E.K. Consulting over four months, conducting market research and “unprecedented strategic analysis” that resulted in “an aggressive, forward-looking plan.”
An exciting and adventurous course has been set for the next three years. There is now much work to be done.
Fast forward to December 19, 2008. Another e-mail from McDevitt, this one asking staff members to “take some 20-30 minutes of your time to respond to a questionnaire called the Denison Organizational Culture Survey.”
The purpose of this survey is to obtain your opinions about how The Washington Times operates from the employees’ point of view. And let me say at the outset that this endeavor is nothing like the LEK survey we did together in early 2007 or any other undertaken by this company.
We are one year into our new strategy, and it is imperative that your perceptions of the company are made known and evaluated at this time. The data from this survey will be used to help us focus on those areas most critical to improving how we operate as a company and how we can work together to improve performance. The focus will be on our day-to-day culture – how we manage ourselves and others, how we serve our various customers, and how we work with our partners.
The results of the survey will be available to the Executive Team in late January and communicated to the entire company in February. Then we will work together to develop specific and targeted action plans to address key issues during the spring and summer months of 2009.
…
Thanks in advance for participating and helping The Washington Times continue to grow.
And now April 20 of this year.
“I am sure you are aware of the various difficulties our industry is experiencing,” McDevitt begins. “In addition to significant layoffs and buyouts, many newspaper employers have been forced to decrease their employee’s salaries and eliminate or reduce employment benefits.”
Although the substantial evidence of our progress continues to grow, we are not immune to those same economic forces. The course of events with the economy is having an impact on The Washington Times as well. That is why we are making every effort to wisely reduce costs and grow revenues through a range of innovative programs.
Consequently, one of our significant cost saving measures for this new fiscal year will be to maintain compensation at our current levels by eliminating merit raises. We ask for your understanding in these difficult economic times.
