.png)
Notes On The News: Juneau Empire shuts office where 8 people worked a few years ago; now appears to be seeking 1 salesperson
- Mark Sabbatini
- 2 hours ago
- 4 min read
Carpenter Media’s downsizing means generic ‘staff’ bylines on articles that are mostly rewritten press releases — yet it may be a successful business model
By Mark Sabbatini
Juneau Independent
Editor’s note: I founded the Juneau Independent a year after resigning from the Empire due to planned newsrooms changes by Carpenter Media I considered unacceptable. As such, there is clearly too much bias/conflict-of-interest potential for me to write this as a straight news story. This column attempts to note as objectively as possible the current status of Carpenter’s three newspapers in Alaska. Analysis is limited to whether the company appears to be achieving its goal of improving the financial standing of those newspapers.
The Juneau Empire last week shut down its office in the Jordan Creek Center and relocated to what’s reportedly a single-desk space at Vintage Business Park. The masthead in Saturday’s print edition lists no staff, aside from an obituaries/legal notice person based outside Juneau — and the only job opening is for a general sales manager.
For weeks the only byline on local stories has been "Juneau Empire staff" and virtually all of those stories — generally two or three per twice-weekly issue — have been rewritten press releases. The rest is filled with "wire" copy from sources such as the Alaska Beacon, plus local and "wire" opinion submissions. The Empire is continuing to publish opinion and other reader-contributed items such as religion features by local residents.
The print edition of the Empire on Wednesday was a single section with six pages and last Saturday a single section with eight pages. It still costs the same $2 as editions published a year ago when the editions were twice that size and filled almost entirely with local staff content.
At the Peninsula Clarion and Homer News, the other two newspapers in Alaska owned by Carpenter Media Group, there appears to be a single person in Homer doing newsroom work.
No help wanted listings for reporters at any of those publications have been seen recently at journalismjobs.com or Poynter’s jobs site, two of the most common places to look. The Empire’s website, in the "careers" section of its website that’s accessed through a submenu, does list an opening for a "full-time general reporter" that was posted Feb. 3.
The listed contact for the position is Mary Kemmis, senior vice president and group publisher of Carpenter’s Canadian Division. She did not respond to email inquiries about the company’s plans for its Alaska papers. During a teleconferenced meeting I took part in a year ago, she asserted that community newspapers can attract local readers with content not produced by local reporters.
"I don't think there's any problem with having stories that are regional or statewide," she said. "We've never had that problem anywhere else. I don't happen to think Americans are that much different from Canadians. And I don't happen to think Alaskans are that much different from Albertans."
Carpenter’s cost-cutting at publications nationwide is well-documented and it’s hardly surprising the company would take such actions when it purchased the Empire’s parent company, Black Press Media (owner of Sound Publishing), after bankruptcy/creditor protection filings by Canada-based BPM. When I returned to the Empire in April of 2022 (I had also worked there between 1995 and 2006), for the first two years I heard constantly the paper couldn’t keep publishing if it kept losing money.
Also, Black Press/Sound Publishing did plenty of cost cuts prior to Carpenter’s takeover. When I joined in 2022 the Empire’s newsroom had an editor and three full-time reporters, a publisher, and there was also an ad manager, subscription manager and a receptionist — not to mention papers were still printed locally five times a week, which required pressroom and delivery employees.
While the Caprenter’s newsroom practices have been heavily denounced by journalists and some readers, the company may be in a strong position to argue it is achieving its goal of improving the financial standing of its publications in Alaska. It comes down to the simple math of it the company has been able to dramatically cuts costs while retaining most of its readers.
A comparison of the Empire’s readership and financial figures now versus a year ago isn’t readily available. However, a year ago as editor of the Empire I was told the paper was among the relative few owned by Carpenter that had made a profit during the previous 12 months. But the profit wasn’t high enough to meet their "best practices" goals, which was among the reasons they were planning to impose cost-cutting as well as newsroom coverage changes.
Online readership also surged upward significantly during the five months before I departed, but I can’t say if that included any new subscribers or just the same subscribers reading more articles. Again, though, if the site still has most of its subscribers then the number of web clicks isn’t overly relevant other than for marketing/advertising purposes.
As noted in the disclaimer above, the intent here is to report the closure of the Empire’s former office and current staffing status, not to criticize it (or promote the Independent — which a critic could fairly note has operated at a loss during most months since launching nearly a year ago). As I’ve stated on various occasions in this space and elsewhere, readers can make their own judgements about how well they feel local media outlets are fulfilling their roles.
• Contact Mark Sabbatini at editor@juneauindependent.com or (907) 957-2306.
