Editor's note: This story ran in the Bay Guardian Dec. 14, 1994 , shortly before the SF Weekly was sold to New Times.

Will SF Weekly be sold?
Phoenix chain eyes local alternative paper.

By Ron Curran

THE SF WEEKLY is a prime target for purchase by the nation's most aggressively acquisitive – and editorially formulaic – chain of alternative papers, sources have told the Bay Guardian.

The suitor is the New Times Inc., alternative journalism's equivalent of Gannett Corp. The Phoenix New Times was founded 25 years ago, and the paper's management has since built a chain of five papers across the country, buying up independent alternatives and turning them into clones of the Phoenix operation.

And although the New Times papers have consistently made money and have produced some high-quality journalism, the acquisition would spell trouble for the editorial autonomy (and job security) of SF Weekly staffers, as well as the independent approach the Weekly has brought to covering community politics and arts. In many ways the buyout would be a blow to local journalism – especially at a time when the Chronicle and Examiner are moving increasingly close to a merger.

Among other things, the New Times papers refuse to endorse candidates for office and have no editorial pages. They cover the arts primarily through listings and do only limited local artistic criticism.

SF Weekly publisher Scott Price did not return repeated Bay Guardian phone inquiries. New Times executive editor Michael Lacey, who is not normally reticent in his dealings with the press, also declined to return our calls; so did New Times chairman and CEO Jim Larkin.

But sources within the industry, both locally and nationally, confirmed that New Times has an ultimate goal of establishing a presence in – some say "dominating" – America's 15 top markets. They add that, for many reasons, buying the SF Weekly is the logical next step toward that goal.

Among the indications that the Weekly may be gobbled up by the New Times:

• SF Weekly's publisher, founder, and principal owner, Scott Price, has made no secret of his wanting to sell, and sources said that staffers have long been openly anxious about the paper's future.

• Larkin, who handles the business side of the Phoenix operation, has been in San Francisco and has met with Price twice in the past few months, informed and reliable sources told the Bay Guardian.

• Sources in the alternative newspaper industry say they've seen maps in the New Times office covered with colored pushpins identifying where the chain owns papers and which cities they want to take over next. San Francisco, Los Angeles, and Minneapolis are said to head the high-priority list (although New Times usually floats its interest in numerous markets to enhance its negotiating position with the papers it really wants). The SF Weekly is said to be the least expensive paper to acquire in the three markets in which New Times is most interested.

• Anticipation of a sale was heightened among industry insiders when a cryptically blind want ad appeared in a recent Association of Alternative Newsweeklies (AAN) newsletter seeking an editor – and unlike most other ads, it didn't specify the job. "Successful young alternative newsweekly in booming coastal market seeks dynamic, 'with-it' editor," read the ad. "Exciting, challenging position could be opportunity of a lifetime for editor ready to make their mark on a good paper poised to become a great one." The ad asked only that résumés be sent to the AAN office in Phoenix.

Local losers

The New Times editorial formula is simple, and from Denver to Houston to Miami to Dallas, it's been imported virtually intact to every new market. The New Times papers provide readers with an editorial hole that's heavy with features and light on breaking local and City Hall news, then fill much of the rest of the paper with listings. New Times papers also share formula formats in nearly all other departments, from front-page and interior design to classifieds to promotions.

Steve Pope was publisher of the Houston Press until New Times bought the paper a little more than a year ago. Since then, he told the Bay Guardian, all seven senior staff members have been replaced.

"No one escaped," said Pope, who now is associate publisher of the Detroit Metro-Times. "The New Times corporate philosophy is that if you didn't grow up in the New Times structure, you're not capable of running a paper, no matter how successful you were before they got there. It's a cookie-cutter approach that strives for a very consistent fit of stylistic and journalistic templates for each of their 'products.' So each paper looks and reads virtually identically, regardless of whichever different city it serves."

That formula might maximize profits, added Pope, but the money comes at the expense of journalistic quality.

"New Times proved you can develop a formula that leads to profit for an alternative paper in any market," Pope said. "But to do that they play it safe and shy away from tough investigative and political reporting, which contradicts the type of journalism that made the alternative press valuable in the first place."

The way in which New Times does business symbolizes much that has been lost as the alternative press has matured. Recent years have seen several papers gobbled up by other papers, most recently the L.A. Weekly, which was bought by Village Voice owner and pet food magnate Leonard Stern in September for a reported $10 million. The result is homogenization of editorial voices among papers that were founded specifically to provide locally owned and independent competition to increasingly corporate-owned daily newspapers.

There are signs that the New Times juggernaut may be slowing down. While its Miami New Times is thriving and Denver Westword is still strong, industry insiders told the Bay Guardian, growth of its flagship Phoenix paper has become stagnant. Prospective sellers at targeted papers also are concerned that the corporation is highly leveraged, which sources familiar with its recent negotiations with the L.A. Weekly say was a contributing factor in the rejection of the New Times bid. As one source told the Bay Guardian, "New Times didn't even come close, because they didn't have access to the money."

The SF Weekly, on the other hand, would cost far less – informed estimates said the price is in the neighborhood of $1 million.

Many of these same sources question whether New Times has grown overconfident in the success its formula might have in any market. Along with the SF Weekly, New Times is also looking at the Los Angeles Reader (after failing to buy the L.A. Weekly and, in Minneapolis, the Twin Cities Reader and City Pages (with an eye on merging the two).

But rarely has New Times gone into a market where there is established competition, as is the case with the three cities it is now targeting: the Bay Guardian has been around since 1966, the L.A. Weekly since 1978, and in Minneapolis, the Twin Cities Reader since 1976 and City Pages since 1979.

Thomas Minnhagen, president and CEO of City Media, which publishes the Twin Cities Reader, told the Bay Guardian, "New Times underestimates the value that both our paper and City Pages have to the community, how entrenched we are here. Their experience is in going after a paper that's losing money, like they did with the Dallas Observer, and only in a market they can dominate. If they think they can just come into a market like Minneapolis, which appreciates its alternative papers and which we've proven can support two papers – either of which could compete against the New Times formula – then New Times is in for a big surprise."