WRNI flies in face of media cuts

By Denise Perreault
PBN Staff Writer

Although two of the state’s major media outlets, The Providence Journal and WJAR-TV NBC 10, have laid off employees and plan to lay off more to cope with a dismal economy, the state’s only National Public Radio (NPR) station, WRNI in Providence, is expanding its local news coverage, particularly in the arena of Rhode Island politics.

“You’re going to have to listen to us to find out what’s going on,” said Joe O’Connor, general manager of public radio station WRNI in Providence (102.7FM, 1290AM), regarding his recent hiring of a top editor at The Providence Phoenix along with a well-respected former Providence Journal Statehouse reporter.

Ian Donnis, news editor at the weekly Phoenix, will join the staff of WRNI on Feb. 13 as the full-time political reporter, while Scott McKay started his full-time job as a political analyst at the station on Feb. 2. McKay is one of several veteran journalists who accepted buyouts at the Journal in September. Donnis and McKay both will also write blogs for WRNI, according to O’Connor.

WRNI’s modest growth comes at a time when many other media companies are hemorrhaging red ink.

Providence Journal Co. parent A.H. Belo Corp. in Dallas announced recently that it is planning to trim its company-wide work force by 500 jobs, including staff reductions at the Journal, The Dallas Morning News in Texas and other newspapers in California as well as at the corporate level. It is not clear how the reductions will affect the Journal, but Belo officials have said they will have more information to divulge later this month.

Journal Publisher Howard G. Sutton referred inquiries to Barbara J. Nauman, senior director of consumer marketing and promotions director at the Journal, who did not return phone calls seeking comment. Timothy Schick, administrator of the 300-member Providence Newspaper Guild, had no news to report about the staff reductions.

The A.H. Belo Corp. is slated announce its fourth-quarter and full-year 2008 financial results on Feb. 17 before the market opens, company officials said. At the end of October, the company reported a third-quarter loss of $17.26 million, a 275 percent increase from the $6.28 million loss posted the year before, on revenue that fell 15.45 percent to $153.83 million.

In September, 22 Journal employees in editorial, advertising and office positions accepted voluntary buyouts, and another 31 employees lost their jobs the next month in involuntary layoffs. The company also is selling its real estate holdings in Providence, including the Journal headquarters on Fountain Street, with a combined assessed value of $33.2 million.

In Cranston, 10 “highly valued” employees of WJAR-TV NBC Channel 10 were laid off at the end of last month because of economic conditions, with more layoffs expected in March due to technological advances, according to Lisa. G. Churchville, president and general manager of the region’s most highly rated television station. Only one position, which was part time, was in news, with the other lost jobs involving “off-air” posts, Churchville said.

The layoffs came one day after newspaper and broadcasting giant Media General Inc., the parent company of WJAR-TV based in Richmond, Va., posted a $631.85 million loss for 2008, compared with a 2007 profit of $10.69 million.

Competitor WLNE-TV ABC 6 is “weathering the storm,” said Steve Doerr, general manager and vice president. He said no one has been laid off recently nor are layoffs imminent.

A call to WPRI-TV CBS 12 was not immediately returned last week.

When O’Connor became general manager of WRNI in May 2006, the state’s only NPR station had no reporters for local coverage, a situation he said several times he was determined to change. Now, there are five, including Donnis and McKay, with other staff reporters covering education, health and general assignments.

Founded in 1998, the noncommercial station gained its independence from Boston University-owned WBUR Group late last year and has been running aggressive pledge drives for donations from Rhode Islanders. The station has applied for federal permission to triple its power and acquire FM sites in Newport, Westerly and Woonsocket, O’Connor has said. Right now, the station is carried on 1290AM in Providence and 102.7FM in the southern part of the state, but its signal does not reach the northern part of Rhode Island and parts of Westerly.

Paul V. Palange, publisher and editor of the weekly Senior Digest and a veteran newsman who has been a publisher and an editor of daily papers in Rhode Island and nearby Massachusetts, said reductions in the print industry are sure to affect the quality of local government.

He cited as examples the loss of the Journal’s locally zoned editions and recent cutbacks at The Times in Pawtucket and The Call in Woonsocket, where he was the publisher of both papers about five years ago. “There is a lot of local news that is going unreported,” he said.

When newspaper companies went public and were traded on the stock market, “in theory, that should have helped” the papers thrive, Palange said, “but more and more papers were gobbled up by national chains that became more bottom line oriented.” He agreed that reductions in traditional newspapers do open the door for niche publications such as his own, which targets senior citizens.

M. Charles Bakst, retired longtime political columnist at the Journal, said what is happening in Providence is taking place all over the nation.

Indeed, The Los Angeles Times recently announced that 300 positions will be eliminated at the Tribune-owned newspaper. It’s the fourth round of staff cuts at the paper in the last 12 months due to declining advertising revenue.

At Rhode Island College, radio is the big interest among students in a journalism class taught by Jane Fusco, an adjunct professor and director of news and public relations for the college.

The 30 students “think of print [media] as something they read on the Internet,” she told Providence Business News. The majority of her students read local and national newspapers online.

“Surprisingly,” Fusco added, “many of my students are involved in the campus radio station and have an interest in pursuing that medium.” •

Rhode Island Public Radio – the state’s National Public Radio affiliate, and the successor to the Foundation for Ocean State Public Radio that was formed in 1997 – operates WRNI 1290 AM and 102.7 FM. The nonprofit gained tentative approval for its breakaway from Boston University-owned WBUR Group on Sept. 1, 2008, and was granted final approval by the R.I. Office of the Attorney General on Jan. 29, 2009. For more information, visit www.wrni.org.