MediaNews collapses its newsrooms

The owners of the San Mateo County Times, Contra Costa Times, Oakland Tribune, Tri-Valley Herald, Valley Times, San Ramon Valley Times, East County Times, West County Times, The (Hayward) Daily Review and The (Fremont) Argus are consolidating newsroom operations. All the papers (as well as the Pacifica Tribune) are owned by MediaNews of Denver.

The combined newsrooms have a total of about 360 employees. VP in charge John Armstrong is quoted in the MediaNews story/press release, saying the consolidation will "eliminate wasteful redundancies, streamline management and redirect staff and resources to our interactive services and other priorities, such as watchdog journalism."  The MediaNews papers in the Bay Area have never been known for their wasteful newsroom redundancies, and Armstrong didn’t explain how the proposed staffing cuts would allow them to increase their level of watchdog journalism.

The MediaNews papers already generously share stories with one another and the same story often appears in several of these publications, as well as the Mercury News, Santa Cruz Sentinel, and Monterey County Herald. MediaNews bought the Mercury News, Monterey County Herald and Contra Costa Times last August from McClatchy (which acquired them when it bought Knight-Ridder). MediaNews also bought the Sentinel from Dow Jones last year.

Hearst’s Chronicle, which has been cozying up to MediaNews for some time, buried the story on page 2 of the daily digest page of the business section, according to San Francisco Bay Guardian publisher Bruce Brugmann.

Its lively head says, "Chain consolidates newsroom operations," which means in effect "please don’t read this story, it is damn boring."

Brugmann expects the East Bay papers to eventually be merged into a single paper with zoned editions.

It’s less clear what this will mean for local coverage by County Times, which has one full-time reporter covering the Coastside.

UPDATE: While no one knows how the importance of Coastside news will be perceived in Walnut Creek in the long run, County Times reporter Julia Scott says the answer to the question I sort-of posed in the paragraph above is "Not at all, as far as we can tell."