PUBLISHER’S NOTEBOOK: Citizen Rogoff

I find myself in places that a couple years ago I couldn’t imagine I’d ever be.

Monday in Federal Bankruptcy Court in downtown Anchorage, I was a spectator to a historic moment in Alaska media history. The largest newspaper in the state was headed in one of three directions — liquidation, auction or simply awarded to the Binkley family, the only folks willing to step up and take on the challenge of the Alaska Dispatch News.

As Regional Publisher in Alaska for Wick Communications, I had a dog in the fight. Jason Evans, owner of three rural newspapers, who has been a part of the Binkley Group, is also a print customer of ours. I also had the opportunity to meet John Binkley, his son Ryan and daughter Kai a couple of weeks ago when they toured our facility. I was in court to offer moral support, as well as witness history.

Not the same Alice

When arriving in Alaska, one of the first bit of industry news I was made aware of was that Alice Rogoff, then owner of the ADN, bought a print press with all the bells and whistles and was going to go hard after the commercial print market.

This was a direct threat to our operation.

The ultimate demise of Ms. Rogoff’s career in newspapering boils down to her acquisition of two printing presses that proved to be basically useless; that and the exorbitant cost of her desire for the ADN to be larger than it could afford.

As Ryan Binkley stated after Tuesday’s hearing, “There’s two sides of the equation, the expense side and the revenue side.”

Common sense tells you revenue has to be higher than expenses. Just recognizing that equation puts the Binkleys ahead of Rogoff in terms of possible success. Rogoff sat at the front of the courtroom and looked as though she wanted to be anywhere but there as she sat listening to witnesses, many of whom were once her employees. They spilled open the financial guts of her once ambitious personal crusade of covering the great state from coastline to coastline. Rogoff clearly had an ‘expenses-be-damned’ attitude. In her wake lay unpaid creditors who lost out because she continued her crusade and woke up one day and decided she would no longer fill with revenue the black hole the ADN had become.

Don’t worry about her — she’ll be just fine financially. Not sure we can guarantee the same future for the more than 200 ADN employees who have hung on and continued to do yeoman’s work in spite of all this mismanagement. Some won’t continue their careers with the ADN.

In court, we did discover that those who will move on will have a severance package guaranteed to be paid by the Binkleys.

For all the joy Ryan Binkley and his family felt at the top of the steps of the Federal Court Building after the decision, the coming weeks will no doubt be emotional and painful as he and his team decide the fate of each of the current 212 employees.

The other publishing diva

Victoria Hearst is the granddaughter of a bona fide media mogul William Randolph Hearst. I met her in Montrose, Colorado, when I was the Advertising Director of the local newspaper.

Ms. Hearst purchased what was known as the ‘Big Barn’ in Ridgway, Colorado — a dance hall built and owned by 1970s television star Dennis Weaver, and it became what is known today as Ridgway Christian Center. Ms. Hearst has her own passion. Spreading the Gospel of her Lord.

By her own account, in a meeting with myself and our editor at the time, Hearst was an unabashed socialite. She had no direction, and after a bad break up with her then-boyfriend, Hearst said the Lord spoke to her and thus a new direction in her life was given birth. What struck me that day was not so much Hearst’s story, but in our conference room as I listened to Hearst speak sat at least half dozen of her staff. A publicist, personal secretary, security and ministers from her non-profit Praise Him Ministries. They all pandered to her every need and were constantly checking on her comfort.

“Miss Victoria, do need some water? Miss Victoria are you doing OK?” They told us before Hearst entered the room that if we asked any questions about her sister Patty Hearst, the interview would be over — immediately. Patty Hearst was, of course, famously kidnapped by the Symbionese Liberation Army in 1974 when she was 19 and a student in Berkeley, California. She then joined the group in their illegal activities. She was found guilty of bank robbery, but her sentence was commuted by President Jimmy Carter.

Hearst was also embroiled in her own controversy as she battled the company that provided her very comfortable lifestyle and personal passion, Hearst Publishing. Hearst declared war on Cosmopolitan Magazine, a Hearst publication, as pornography. She wanted it placed in stores behind the counters with a blank cover on it like other pornographic magazines — fighting the hand that feeds her, as it were. Her fortunes, as well of the fortunes of the rest of the Hearst heirs, have a strong tie to print media. Hearst publishing owns 46 newspapers and 340 magazines globally according to a Forbes profile published in 2016.

Alice and Victoria

What made me think back to Victoria Hearst was a photo on craigmedred.news that intrepid Alaska journalist Craig Medred had taken of Rogoff scurrying down the sidewalk into a waiting Porsche SUV. As we all filed out of the courtroom and reporters flocked around the Binkleys for their take on the proceedings, Rogoff slipped away, practically unnoticed by everyone except for the one person who intensely covered this whole ordeal from the very beginning — Craig Medred.

Rogoff, whose fortune so many people depended on for their jobs — and in good faith did works for her, on the assumption her checks would cash — struck a lonely figure in that photo. Her prestige in Alaska is tarnished, though financially she is no worse for the wear after this fiasco. Her ego has to be not only bruised, but on life support. No doubt she’s a proud woman, a proud woman who wanted to be a media juggernaut, not for the financial trappings but more for the relevance and impact on Alaska and the Arctic as a whole.

Hearst runs the same sort of operation in many ways — especially since Rogoff always stated she wasn’t interested in making a profit with the ADN. Hearst isn’t in it for the money, and if for some reason the money dries up, or she one day has an epiphany that maybe this whole living for the Lord thing isn’t for her, the team of pastors and administrative staff will be in the same boat as the ADN staff. Except no one will come forward to purchase Praise Him Ministries and Ridgway Christian Center will likely turn into some kind of community center. The staff will wonder what happened as the ADN staff has been wondering for probably months. But Alice, like Victoria had her hanger ons as only a mass amount of money can provide.

Now what for the ADN?

Now the ADN will have a new buzz word in their building — accountability. Ryan Binkley is a sharp, highly intelligent businessman and he will hold his staff to fiscal accountability. The Binkleys are in it for a lot of reasons but under their regime the ADN has to, and I’m betting it will, sustain itself. I believe it will happen in short order.

What was once out of control controllable expenses will again be controlled.

Some of these expenses included the purchase of a $9,800 drone with a $2,000 insurance policy sticks in my mind during the financial dissecting that day in court.

When this was uttered in court, our Regional Editor Matt Hickman, sitting to my left, and Medred, sitting to my right, both chuckled to themselves as I quietly blurted out, “What for?”

It’s a symbol of out-of-control spending. Alaska needs the ADN to survive. There is no other news organization like it. Too many people are invested. The ADN is also a microcosm of the newspaper industry. Circulation has declined. People want to read news provided by hardworking folks for free online.

But it’s not going to be free much longer.

At a recent digital media conference I attended in Chicago, representatives of both Google and Facebook acknowledged that newspapers are their content providers and the financial stability of the industry has to be a priority for them. Good community journalism cannot just vanish into that good night.

Prepare yourself to pay for the content you consume. The big boys have opened their eyes and will form a plan to assist in revenue generation for us content minions. And the next time you’re on Craigmedred.news reading about the latest hiker who disappeared or the next bear attack throw him a few bucks because the man provides quality work for us all to feast upon.

The best of luck to the Binkley Group and Jason Evans in their new adventure.