A sad inside look at what Wrapports is doing to Sun-Times Media
It wasn't that terribly long ago that I wondered what the helling hell Wrapports was doing to Chicago Sun-Times - a question that became even more urgent after more evidence emerged that the company was (allegedly) basically taking away resources (and possibly revenue) from Chicago Sun-Times and the Chicago Reader to prop up the online only Sun-Times Network.
I wrote about why I thought Sun-Times Network was a terrible idea before, but to sum it up, Wrapports was trying to create a national news source that's based on a brand that's largely meaningless outside Chicagoland while barely putting any effort into making it a viable alternative to existing media outlets.
A few days ago, Sam Stecklow, one of the people who actually worked for Sun-Times Network, wrote a tell-all about what the experience was actually like. It confirmed some of the things I heard and some of the things I suspected. It also confirmed some of the things I thought might be going on, but hoped weren't going on, because it would make Wrapports even worse.
Because I'm tired of using my other go-to illustration for Sun-Times related articles
As a journalist, I'm angry. Anything else seems too mild. But I think even if you're not in the field, you would, at the very least, roll your eyes at the sheer hubris and profound lack of effort that went into Sun Times Network.
I would strongly recommend reading the whole thing, but here the highlights.
On how the Sun-Times Network works:
The Sun Times Network is broken up into a loose hierarchy. There are some fifteen-odd editors, and six-odd “interns,” who are assigned to two editors each. Both editors and interns have similar daily tasks: Scraping Twitter, Google News, and Reddit for trending stories in the cities they are assigned to-each editor has three to five, and each intern had six to ten-and writing short aggregations of news stories and social media posts that mostly consist of two short paragraphs of original work, with a big blockquote from the source story in between. Every editor and intern has a daily post quota ranging from twelve to sixteen. Multiple sources pointed out the futility of hitting a quota for each city. “The quota made it impossible to put any serious thought into any single post,” a former Network intern told me.
According to Stecklow, every editor adn intern was under constant pressure to pump out as much content as possible, and spending less than half an hour on any post was strongly discouraged.
The pay was nothing to write home about, either.
The “internship” is, like many in media, one in name only. I was one for four months. No current or former “intern” I spoke to for this story felt that the “intern” title adequately described the job they were doing, since Wrapports insisted that the “interns,” who were either just out of-or still completing-college, work at least forty hours a week, for which they are paid ten dollars an hour. (Editors make around thirty thousand dollars a year. Unsurprisingly, a former Network editor, who spoke on the condition of anonymity, told me he quit due to “overwork and little pay.”)
With all that in mind, it's not really surprising that the views for most articles were abysmally low. In effort to increase the number of views, Sun-Times Network put articles on Chicago Sun-Times website - which led to the paper's reporters complaining that hastily churned out filler was making them look worse by association.
The former Sun-Times employees sited in the article said that Wrapports higher-ups - Tim Knight and Michael Ferro - never really understood Chicago Sun-Times, or got what made it work - which surprises absolutely nobody.
There is also this alarming little bit about Wrapports' financial situation
Speaking of money, Wrapports has little. It netted a little above three million dollars from selling the suburban newspapers to the Tribune Company, according to a source familiar with the deal, and that was a year ago. “The board is basically done, and has been done for a while,” the source said. “They’re not shutting it down yet, but whatever money they’re able to scrape together around there is… that’s it.”
Which raises troubling question. As you may recall, Tribune Publishing supposedly paid $23.5 million for Sun-Times Media's suburban newspapers. Where did the $20.5 million go?
(Since I started writing this post, I learned that it went to pay off Wrapports' debt - which is depressing on several levels)
Here is the thing. The last seven years have been hard on all newspaper companies. A lot of people tried all sorts of things to change that, and most of those things didn't work. But there at least seems to be an effort. Like, say what you will about Advance Publishing, but it does have a long-term plan - to invest heavily in digital and try to tradition its readers to digital as quickly as possible without getting rid of print sources of revenue altogether. Only time will tell whether it's good plan, but they're willing to see it through.
And it isn't like it's completely impossible to make profit from print. Newcity is profitable. Chicago Reader is profitable (though it's not clear how much of its profits it gets to keep and how much of it goes to Wrapports). DNAinfo Chicago, which has struggled to be profitable as an online news outlet, launched several print monthly newspaper editions.
And it isn't like there isn't precedent for a rich guy buying a newspaper and putting some resources into it. New Orleans Advocate may not be doing as New Orleans Times-Picayune, but it's still holding its own - and I think the fact that John Georges invested money into hiring NOLA reporters and establishing a presence in the Crescent City is a big part of it.
It would be one thing if Chicago Sun-Times tried to stay afloat and failed. It would still be sad, but at least they wouldn't have gone down without a fight. But the idea that the Bright One might be extinguished by people who never cared about it, never understood it and weren't even willing to put the money and efforts into the projects that they supposedly cared about...
That pisses me off.
I wrote about why I thought Sun-Times Network was a terrible idea before, but to sum it up, Wrapports was trying to create a national news source that's based on a brand that's largely meaningless outside Chicagoland while barely putting any effort into making it a viable alternative to existing media outlets.
A few days ago, Sam Stecklow, one of the people who actually worked for Sun-Times Network, wrote a tell-all about what the experience was actually like. It confirmed some of the things I heard and some of the things I suspected. It also confirmed some of the things I thought might be going on, but hoped weren't going on, because it would make Wrapports even worse.
Because I'm tired of using my other go-to illustration for Sun-Times related articles
As a journalist, I'm angry. Anything else seems too mild. But I think even if you're not in the field, you would, at the very least, roll your eyes at the sheer hubris and profound lack of effort that went into Sun Times Network.
I would strongly recommend reading the whole thing, but here the highlights.
On how the Sun-Times Network works:
The Sun Times Network is broken up into a loose hierarchy. There are some fifteen-odd editors, and six-odd “interns,” who are assigned to two editors each. Both editors and interns have similar daily tasks: Scraping Twitter, Google News, and Reddit for trending stories in the cities they are assigned to-each editor has three to five, and each intern had six to ten-and writing short aggregations of news stories and social media posts that mostly consist of two short paragraphs of original work, with a big blockquote from the source story in between. Every editor and intern has a daily post quota ranging from twelve to sixteen. Multiple sources pointed out the futility of hitting a quota for each city. “The quota made it impossible to put any serious thought into any single post,” a former Network intern told me.
According to Stecklow, every editor adn intern was under constant pressure to pump out as much content as possible, and spending less than half an hour on any post was strongly discouraged.
The pay was nothing to write home about, either.
The “internship” is, like many in media, one in name only. I was one for four months. No current or former “intern” I spoke to for this story felt that the “intern” title adequately described the job they were doing, since Wrapports insisted that the “interns,” who were either just out of-or still completing-college, work at least forty hours a week, for which they are paid ten dollars an hour. (Editors make around thirty thousand dollars a year. Unsurprisingly, a former Network editor, who spoke on the condition of anonymity, told me he quit due to “overwork and little pay.”)
With all that in mind, it's not really surprising that the views for most articles were abysmally low. In effort to increase the number of views, Sun-Times Network put articles on Chicago Sun-Times website - which led to the paper's reporters complaining that hastily churned out filler was making them look worse by association.
The former Sun-Times employees sited in the article said that Wrapports higher-ups - Tim Knight and Michael Ferro - never really understood Chicago Sun-Times, or got what made it work - which surprises absolutely nobody.
There is also this alarming little bit about Wrapports' financial situation
Speaking of money, Wrapports has little. It netted a little above three million dollars from selling the suburban newspapers to the Tribune Company, according to a source familiar with the deal, and that was a year ago. “The board is basically done, and has been done for a while,” the source said. “They’re not shutting it down yet, but whatever money they’re able to scrape together around there is… that’s it.”
Which raises troubling question. As you may recall, Tribune Publishing supposedly paid $23.5 million for Sun-Times Media's suburban newspapers. Where did the $20.5 million go?
(Since I started writing this post, I learned that it went to pay off Wrapports' debt - which is depressing on several levels)
Here is the thing. The last seven years have been hard on all newspaper companies. A lot of people tried all sorts of things to change that, and most of those things didn't work. But there at least seems to be an effort. Like, say what you will about Advance Publishing, but it does have a long-term plan - to invest heavily in digital and try to tradition its readers to digital as quickly as possible without getting rid of print sources of revenue altogether. Only time will tell whether it's good plan, but they're willing to see it through.
And it isn't like it's completely impossible to make profit from print. Newcity is profitable. Chicago Reader is profitable (though it's not clear how much of its profits it gets to keep and how much of it goes to Wrapports). DNAinfo Chicago, which has struggled to be profitable as an online news outlet, launched several print monthly newspaper editions.
And it isn't like there isn't precedent for a rich guy buying a newspaper and putting some resources into it. New Orleans Advocate may not be doing as New Orleans Times-Picayune, but it's still holding its own - and I think the fact that John Georges invested money into hiring NOLA reporters and establishing a presence in the Crescent City is a big part of it.
It would be one thing if Chicago Sun-Times tried to stay afloat and failed. It would still be sad, but at least they wouldn't have gone down without a fight. But the idea that the Bright One might be extinguished by people who never cared about it, never understood it and weren't even willing to put the money and efforts into the projects that they supposedly cared about...
That pisses me off.