Old bound copies of The Ann Arbor News from the early 1900s. The archives are stored in a climate-controlled office complex on Green Road.

Andrew MacLaren – one of the librarians who’s been working on the project since the library took possession of the archives in January 2010– gave board members a brief preview of what AADL is unveiling at a reception on Friday. Called “Old News,” the online archives will initially feature items selected for digitization primarily by library staff, with a focus on the 1960s and ’70s, but with other eras included as well.

The hope is that future additions to the collection will be driven in large part by queries from the public. As librarians respond to research requests – people seeking newspaper articles or photos about specific events, institutions, or individuals – AADL staff will digitize their findings to be posted online for anyone to access.

The launch will also include special features from the collection that the library staff felt would draw more interest, including hundreds of articles and photos related to John Norman Collins, a serial killer whose killings in the late 1960s drew national attention. Other features include the history of West Park, and the 1968 Huron River floods.

Podcasts will be posted of interviews with former Ann Arbor News staff – including long-time crime reporter Bill Treml and photographer Jack Stubbs. AADL staff is also interviewing owners of “heritage” Ann Arbor businesses. Initial podcasts include conversations with David Vogel of Vogel’s Lock & Safe, and Charles Schlanderer Jr. and Charles Schlanderer Sr. of Schlanderer & Sons Jewelry. Additional podcasts will be added to the collection over time.

Though the cornerstone of this collection is from the 174-year-old Ann Arbor News – which its owners, New York-based Advance Publications, shut down in mid-2009 – another 97,000 articles from local 19th century newspapers will be part of the initial launch, too.

At Tuesday’s board meeting, AADL director Josie Parker praised the librarians who’ve been the primary staff working on this project – MacLaren, Amy Cantu, Debbie Gallagher, and Jackie Sasaki – and thanked board members as well for their support. It was the board’s decision in 2009 to move ahead with the project that made the resulting work possible, she said. The library does not own the originals or hold the copyright to the material, but the library did not need to pay for the archives. AADL still incurs costs related to the project, including staff time, insurance, and leasing of the Green Road offices where the archives are located. That location is not open to the public.

A reception for the launch is planned for Friday, Oct. 21 at 7 p.m. in the downtown library, 343 S. Fifth Ave. The event will feature a talk on the digitization of newspapers by Frank Boles, director of the Clarke Historical Library at Central Michigan University.

The News on “Old News”

In 2009, the AADL struck a deal with Herald Publishing Co. – a unit of Advance Publications – to take possession of most of The Ann Arbor News archives, including photographs and photo negatives (except for those related to University of Michigan football and basketball), clipping files and bound copies. The deal gives the library the right to digitize these materials, excluding the bound copies. The company retains ownership of the originals. AADL has the rights to control the use of the digitized content, but doesn’t have the right to sell the digitized work.

The bound volumes can be used by the library, but not digitized. That’s because the company owns microfilm copies of those volumes and plans to digitize the full newspapers. There are also copyright issues related to non-News content, like wire service articles and ads. However, library staff say the bound volumes are valuable as a research tool – for example, to figure out which of the photographs in the collection were actually published.

The digitization process is being handled by staff of the AADL’s information technology and production department, led by associate director Eli Neiburger. Each of the four librarians involved in the digitization devote half of their time to the project, working out of a windowless, climate-controlled office on Green Road – a set of rooms that formerly housed computer servers.

At that facility, one large room is filled with filing cabinets crammed with clips – about 90,000 envelopes categorized by names and 72,000 envelopes by subjects. Binders and boxes of photographs and negatives make up a large portion of the collection. Many of the photographs have never been published – a photographer might have taken and developed dozens of shots from any given assignment, but only one or two would likely be printed in the newspaper.

Andrew MacLaren with shelved, bound copies of The Ann Arbor News archives, located at a Green Road office complex.

A separate room contains tall shelves on which the bound, full-issue copies of The Ann Arbor News and other local newspapers are laid flat and stacked to avoid warping. The older issues have begun to deteriorate – the newsprint is yellowed and crumbling around the edges – and some copies are missing. [For decades, the archives had been stored in a basement at The Ann Arbor News building on Huron & Division, and though the room was locked, security was casual.]

The archives also include older newspapers that AADL has acquired separately from The Ann Arbor News. That includes issues of the Ann Arbor Courier from 1880-1881 and 1883-1888; the Ann Arbor Argus from 1888-1889 and 1891-1898; and the Ann Arbor Argus-Democrat from 1898-1899. These issues have been digitized and will be part of the initial “Old News” launch. The library has previously digitized the full run of the Signal of Liberty – from 1841-1848 – and the first four months of the paper it became in 1848, Michigan Liberty Press.

At Tuesday’s meeting, MacLaren told the board that the first few months of work involved simply trying to figure out and organize what they had received. Over the years, different filing systems had been used by the newspaper’s librarians, duplicate files were kept under different names, clippings were misfiled, and in general there had not been a consistent approach to organizing the collection. Part of the work by AADL staff was to create an index for all of the envelopes, files, binders, boxes and other material – much of the contents haven’t yet been explored.

There were discoveries along the way, as AADL staff went through the collection. Most dramatically, they found a silent film – a farce – made by the Ann Arbor News advertising staff in 1936 called “Back Page.” That film has been digitized and is posted on the AADL website, with an original score written and performed by the organist Steven Ball. It was shown for the first time this summer at the Michigan Theater, with a live performance by Ball. [See Chronicle coverage: "Milestone: The Past Speaks in a Silent Film"]

The staff used several approaches to help organize the collection and select initial content to digitize, MacLaren said. For guidance regarding the earliest newspapers, they relied on the seminal book “A History of the Newspapers of Ann Arbor 1829-1920,” by Louis W. Doll, published in 1959 by Wayne State University Press. That book has also been digitized and will be included in the “Old News” collection, he said.

In prioritizing the content to digitize, librarians who worked on the project selected topics they thought would be of historical value or of most interest to the public, based in part on research requests. There was also broader staff input – AADL employees could vote on which photos to digitize through a process that Neiburger calls the “Photomic Selecterizer” – a staff-only mode of the library’s online Points-O-Matic Click-O-Tron game.

In response to a question from board president Margaret Leary, MacLaren estimated that far less than 1% of the Ann Arbor News collection has been digitized at the point. The initial set going online – 18,000 articles and 3,000 photos – is a “drop in the bucket,” he said. For example, when the collection was delivered, the News estimated there were 900,000 photo negatives, which MacLaren now believes to be an estimate that’s extremely low.

“We’re not racing against time,” he said. “We’re racing against how much we have.” New material will be digitized each week and posted into the “Old News” collection. The public will be able to make research requests – emailing oldnews@aadl.org – which will help prioritize the content.

At Monday’s board meeting, Prue Rosenthal asked whether there is grant funding available to help pay for the digitization work. AADL director Josie Parker said they tried to apply for a grant but weren’t qualified – the grant specified that the digitization should be done from microfilm, not from original source material. Most grants also aren’t geared toward this type of unique situation, in which a newspaper has turned over its entire archives to a library. The staff will keep looking for grant opportunities, Parker added. Now that they have something to show, she said, there might be funding available for additional work related to the collection.

Leary said the project is a spectacular example of AADL seizing an opportunity that’s unusual for public libraries. It has tremendous current and future value to the whole community. She also praised staff for its work in adding this responsibility without outside funding and without reducing other services. It’s a credit to the staff and to Parker and her managers, Leary said.

The presentation concluded with the board giving MacLaren a round of applause.

Shelves of bound copies of The Ann Arbor News, stored in climate-controlled offices that are leased by the Ann Arbor District Library.

Bound copies of The Ann Arbor News. The stack in the lower right corner represents the final years, when the newspaper editions were considerably smaller than in previous years. The 174-year-old newspaper was closed by its owners in 2009.

Boxes of photo negatives from The Ann Arbor News.

A layout page from an Ann Arbor News special publication commemorating the newspaper's 150th anniversary in 1985. Several of these pages are posted on walls in the entryway to the offices that AADL is leasing to store the News archives. Many of the pages – like this one, with an ad from Jacobson's – feature companies that are no longer in business, like the News itself. (Links to larger image)

Present: Rebecca Head, Nancy Kaplan, Margaret Leary, Barbara Murphy, Jan Barney Newman, Prue Rosenthal. Also AADL director Josie Parker.

Absent: Ed Surovell.

Next meeting: Tuesday, Nov. 22, 2011 at 7 p.m. in the library’s fourth floor meeting room, 343 S. Fifth Ave. [confirm date]

The Chronicle relies in part on regular voluntary subscriptions to support our coverage of public bodies like the Ann Arbor District Library board. Click this link for details: Subscribe to The Chronicle. And if you’re already supporting us, please encourage your friends, neighbors and colleagues to help support The Chronicle, too!

A scene from the "Back Page" silent film, made by the advertising staff of the Ann Arbor News in 1936 and screened this week at the Michigan Theater, with an original score written and performed by Steven Ball on the theater's organ. The men are standing in front of the Huron Street entrance to the News building – that entrance is no longer functional, and the News was closed in 2009. (Image links to Ann Arbor District Library website where the film is posted.)

For about a dozen years, I was employed by the local newspaper, The Ann Arbor News, a publication that no longer exists. As one of the editors, I had influence but not control over what was published.

Now, as publisher of The Chronicle, it’s liberating to have the discretion to choose exactly what appears in our pages. But that freedom is somewhat checked by an over-arching decision to focus on coverage of local government and civic affairs.

It’s not a cherry-picking approach to journalism, which selects topics that might draw the most controversy. Instead, it relies on a methodical, relentless depiction of what happens at public meetings, where decisions are made about how taxpayer dollars are spent, or about public policy that affects our daily lives, even if we’re not aware of it.

Much of The Chronicle’s time is allocated based on our commitment to this model. If there’s a meeting of the city council or planning commission or county board or library board …  or the humane society construction bond oversight committee … you’ll likely find us there.

On occasion, we do find time for more playful fare. A recent example of that was a Sonic Lunch photo essay, with fake captions, that we published earlier this week.

I was able to take in another event this week that also reflected the playful side of local media – from 1936.

On Tuesday, the silent film “Back Page” was screened at the Michigan Theater, with an original score written and performed by the organist Steven Ball. (Ball wore a tuxedo, as this was the score’s world premiere.) Running about 21 minutes, the film was produced by staff at The Ann Arbor News in 1936, the same year that its Alfred Kahn-designed building at Huron and Division was finished. It was the same year the paper started using its “new” printing press. (Located on the first floor, the presses were still in use when I joined The News 60 years later, in 1996. They shook even the third-floor newsroom when they thundered into motion.)

The film had been re-discovered in 2009, when Ann Arbor District Library staff started sorting through The News archives. The library had taken possession of the archives that year, after owners of the newspaper decided to close the business. Among the bound newspaper copies and clipping files and other miscellanea that had accumulated over the newspaper’s 174-year history was a 16-mm film canister. Without knowing what cinematic treasure it held, library staff took the film to the University of Michigan’s media union, where it was converted to a digital format and later posted on AADL’s website.

Introducing the film on Tuesday at the Michigan Theater was Eli Neiburger, AADL’s associate director of IT and product development. He likened it to a home movie for The News staff, and that’s certainly the tone. A farce that gives a wink to the 1931 classic “The Front Page,” “Back Page” tells the tale of a “typical” day for the paper’s display advertising department – a day that involves beating up a storeowner who won’t buy an ad, and ends with employees drinking themselves into a stupor.

It’s funny – for its slapstick humor, sly wit, and weird debauchery (in one scene, an ad rep absentmindedly fondles the breast of a bikini-clad mannequin).

And as Neiburger pointed out in his introduction, the film is also an inadvertent historical record of what newspapers were like at their peak – an underlying sense of confidence comes through, a sense that they knew their place in the world, even as they were mocking it. You won’t find that attitude in many newsrooms today.

I watched the film with my former colleague, Marianne Rzepka, and we whispered to each other when we recognized parts of the building where we’d spent so many years ourselves. Some of it was bittersweet – those presses are now dismantled, and the building has been purchased by the University of Michigan Credit Union. The Arbor Research Collaborative for Health is leasing the third floor, where the newsroom used to be. (I was able to attend an open house that Arbor Research held recently. They’ve done a spectacular job in renovating that space – it looks like a great place to work – but it’s still hard to believe the transformation.)

In the film, there were obvious cultural transformations between then and now. People are smoking cigarettes in nearly all the scenes. The men wear fedoras and trenchcoats. The few women in the movie are secretaries – except for the cross-dresser, a burly guy dolled up and flirting with a manager. No computers, no TVs, no cell phones – that’s right, kids!

But even 70+ years haven’t altered some things. The film begins with this text: “The advertising department, ruled by that great American business maxim ‘Beat last year’s record’ (no matter what comparative conditions might be) finds itself in a dilemma.” It’s the last day of the month, advertising revenues are lower compared to the previous year – and the newspaper managers are thrashing their staff to do something about it.

For most media organizations, the ad staff faces the same pressures today. Some of the businesses and institutions that advertise with The Chronicle have related anecdotes about the tactics that other publications use to drum up ad sales. Frankly, it’s something I struggle with. Of the two Chronicle co-owners, I’m the one primarily responsible for generating the revenue to support our work, and the role of salesperson is not one I particularly relish. In fact, I’d be much more comfortable making a movie that pokes fun at the process, and of my own efforts to learn the culture of sales.

That’s why I’m so grateful for the advertisers who see value in our work and who aren’t looking for the same kinds of “returns” – measured by raw page views, click-through rates or Groupon-like deals – that many online publications are pushing. Of course advertisers expect – as they should – a benefit from their support. In part, it’s the benefit of knowing that the content published on The Chronicle’s website is a valuable asset to the community, which we couldn’t sustain without advertising support. That’s why we encourage our readers to acknowledge our advertisers whenever they can, by visiting their stores or trying their services. Like The Chronicle, our advertisers are rooted in the community, and dollars that support their businesses aren’t going to an out-of-town owner.

But the other part of the revenue equation – one we view as crucial to our ability to sustain this venture – is the support of our readers, through voluntary subscriptions. Most newspapers get only a small percentage of revenues from their readers. The real value of subscription numbers for printed publications is that those numbers can be parlayed into advertising dollars. We’re fortunate to have many generous subscribers, but individual support accounts for only about 15% of our overall revenue. We hope you’ll consider adding to that number, if you haven’t already. Here’s a link to our subscription page.

I’d like to think that 70 years from now, Chronicle content will be valuable to those future readers too, as a window into what Ann Arbor was like in the early 21st century. Perhaps our chronicled observations will prove as quaint, funny and provocative as some scenes from “Back Page.” But I’m confident our more serious reports will provide a definitive record of our local government from this era – at a level of detail that doesn’t exist anywhere else.

Our words and images on this website are silent. But they also have the power to speak volumes – to our current readers, and those to come. Thanks to everyone – advertisers and readers alike – who are making it possible so far.

Mary Morgan is publisher and co-founder of The Ann Arbor Chronicle.

Redline highlights are those AnnArbor.com staff whose names have disappeared from the staff roster.

I wrote about their decision at the time from a personal perspective. Even though I had left the News the previous year to co-found The Chronicle, it was still a place that employed many friends and colleagues I respected. Watching that organization get dismantled was emotional, for many reasons.

Although we began to hear about the layoffs on Thursday last week, we decided not to write immediately about that news. In part, we reasoned that it should be AnnArbor.com’s story to tell first, and I held out hope that executives at AnnArbor.com would be straightforward in letting the community know about their decision, and the rationale behind it.

I also hoped they would wrap into their coverage the news that three other key staff members – news director Amalie Nash, higher education reporter David Jesse and point person for reader interaction Stefanie Murray – had all been hired by the Detroit Free Press. All three left at the end of February. All had previously worked for many years at The Ann Arbor News, and had been initial hires at AnnArbor.com.

Considered separately, either the set of layoffs or the three departures would have had a significant impact on the organization. But with both events taking place within two weeks, it counts as the most dramatic personnel change since AnnArbor.com’s launch.

Community Wall “Reporting”

But the only “reporting” on the AnnArbor.com website – as of Sunday afternoon – was a brief post on Saturday by a reader called glacialerratic. The reader posted a comment on what AnnArbor.com calls its Community Wall, a place where anyone can post pretty much anything. It included a link to a Friday Michigan Radio report about the layoffs, which itself is scant on details.

It was this Community Wall post that prompted a response by Tony Dearing – the firm’s chief content officer, or what’s traditionally called an editor-in-chief – in the comment thread. Here’s what he wrote, in its entirety:

While personnel issues are an internal matter and we don’t discuss them publicly, I can confirm that we reorganized our newsroom this week to put our focus more squarely on local news coverage. As a new organization, we have tried a lot of things. Now that we are well into our second year, the community has told us very resoundingly that what it wants most from us is hard news coverage, particularly in the areas of government, education, police, courts, health, the environment, University of Michigan sports, and business. These areas of coverage account for all but a tiny percentage of our readership and revenue. Meanwhile, we also have put a lot of effort toward other things – including lifestyle topics like Passions and Pursuits, The Deuce, Homes and some areas of Entertainment coverage – that our community has shown much less interest in, and we are scaling back in those areas.

We have made tremendous progress since we launched, and we continue to be very happy with the growth we’re seeing in audience and revenue. But from the beginning, we said that we would be shaped by what the community wants, and the community wants us to focus more sharply on local news reporting. We have repositioned ourselves to throw our energy and resources into our local news coverage and that is how we will operate moving forward as we continue to grow.

That’s just insulting – to those employees who were laid off, to those shell-shocked employees who remain behind, and to the Ann Arbor community, which deserves better.

First off, a “personnel issue” is when your employee gets fired for looking at porn on a work computer. It doesn’t apply to the departure of more than a dozen people – whether they quit or were laid off. Their departure will fundamentally change what gets done at the publication, and how. The fact that most of these departures were from the newsroom has an even more direct impact on the publication. AnnArbor.com has marketed itself relentlessly over the past 18 months as being all about the community. It’s hard to trade in that currency while not being straightforward about decisions that readers actually care about – namely, how you’re reporting the news.

Dearing’s statement that they’ve reorganized is also specious. A look at the current staff directory shows no changes to the organization of the list. The only difference is the disappearance from the page of some people’s names who’ve been laid off.

To confirm exactly who’s missing, and what parts of the publication they worked for, we retrieved the Google cache of the staff page and “diffed” them out – those now missing from the page are highlighted in red: AnnArbor.com staff list highlighting departures. That list includes: Ed Vielmetti, the publication’s lead blogger; James Dickson, a general assignment reporter; photographer Lon Horwedel; two support staff for entertainment – Renee Tellez and Chrysta Cherrie; Pam Stout on the community desk; sports clerk Kaleb Roedel; and sales manager Lisa George.

If the idea of the “reorganization” is to focus more sharply on local news as Dearing contends, it’s not clear how eliminating a general assignment reporter (who in a traditional newsroom would fill in the gaps on local news) would serve that sharper focus. Perhaps even more puzzling is the decision to eliminate lead blogger Ed Vielmetti – whose name was the only one at AnnArbor.com that many members of the community even recognized.

Of those who are now missing, only the job of news director – formerly held by Amalie Nash, who’s now an assistant metro editor at the Detroit Free Press – is posted on the popular JournalismJobs.com employment website. The implication is that AnnArbor.com isn’t making other replacement hires at this point, though that’s unclear. Current K-12 education reporter Kyle Feldscher believes he will be covering David Jesse’s former University of Michigan beat only until a replacement hire is made.

Back to the Future

Dearing’s comment on the Community Wall was disturbingly evocative of a column written by former Ann Arbor News editor Ed Petykiewicz in December 2008, in the wake of buyouts at the newspaper and a shrinking staff. An excerpt [emphasis added]:

In the coming weeks, your News will begin to focus more on local people, local issues and local events.

Some of the changes include more stories about local government, increasingly local flavor in sections such as our Food pages and more columns from our staff.

Over time, we’ll add stories and columns by area residents, who will provide additional and varied views of our communities.

You’ll continue to find a mix of local, state and national news in your newspaper, but our ongoing evolution puts us on a decidedly local path that we’ve discussed for years. It’s what we do best. [.pdf of Petykiewicz's full column]

As it applies to local coverage, Dearing’s Wall comment sounds exactly like the doing-more-with-less motif in Petykiewicz’s piece.

In response to Petykiewicz, I wrote a column that asked a simple question: How can you provide more local content with fewer local reporters?

It’s hard to argue against more local coverage. Yet it prompts the question: does this just mean more local relative to non-local content, or does it mean more local coverage in absolute terms? The staff of the newsroom, during my 12 years there, at least, has been focused exclusively on covering local people, issues, and events. The state, national and international news was picked up through wires services that The News subscribes to. If we see a reduction in wire-service content – not an unreasonable move given that these are costly services – then of course we’ll get “more” local content, relative to everything else. But providing “more” local content in absolute terms requires the folks who’ve always worked exclusively to provide local coverage to provide even more of it.

The brute reality is that there will be fewer people in the newsroom after the buyouts. So how can there be more local news in the paper if there are fewer people to do the reporting? Ed doesn’t address this, so we’re left guessing.

For all the talk about how AnnArbor.com would be dramatically different from The Ann Arbor News in its interaction with the community, Dearing’s comments are all too familiar. We’re still left guessing.

Just a Business?

In my weekly interview on Lucy Ann Lance’s Saturday radio show this past Saturday, she asked why AnnArbor.com is different than any other private business. Why should a news publication be obligated to disclose their management decisions, any more than, say, Tios or Google?

I wasn’t very articulate in my response to Lucy Ann, so I’ll give it another shot here. There is absolutely a difference between a publicly traded company, where certain disclosures are required by law, and a private business like Advance Publications, a privately held Newhouse family company that owns AnnArbor.com. For private companies, there are no legal obligations to disclose internal staffing changes or to release financial information.

But a news publication, I believe, should be held to different standards – especially one like AnnArbor.com, that has tried so desperately to be embraced by the community. If your stated editorial mission is to respond to the community and give readers what they want, you ignore at your own peril some basic communication about these radical staff changes – communication that thus far has been almost completely lacking.

Most readers aren’t idiots. It doesn’t serve your interests well to treat all of them as if they were.

If you accept the premise that readers aren’t idiots, then you should trust that they’ll be well aware of the economic climate, and understand the business constraints at play. While I disagree with many of the decisions made by Steve Newhouse and other executives concerning first The Ann Arbor News and now AnnArbor.com, I certainly understand what it’s like to operate a business in this economy. Since we launched The Ann Arbor Chronicle in September 2008, I have new appreciation for the challenge of managing cash flow – it’s a worry for me every single day.

As a small online-only publication that focuses on coverage of local government and civic affairs, The Chronicle doesn’t have the corporate resources to buy billboard ads or rent two floors of a downtown office building or hire more than two dozen people to staff its advertising department, as AnnArbor.com has. Our plan was to start modestly, stay true to our mission, and hopefully grow our revenues steadily – through voluntary reader subscriptions and local advertising, including many businesses and institutions that support us mainly because they believe in what we do.

We didn’t anticipate the incredible upheaval caused by the closing of The Ann Arbor News, which has made the market significantly more competitive, and confusing for readers and advertisers alike. I’m proud that we’ve been able to establish a reputation for solid, in-depth coverage of the workings of local government, and I hope we continue to have the wherewithal to support our unique journalistic venture, and to grow.

AnnArbor.com has a more mainstream business model, one that seems cast from the same mold as traditional newspapers. It relies on driving traffic to its website – a variation of the old “If it bleeds, it leads” approach to gaining readers, or what’s known these days as “churnalism.” Their new weekly “Best Of” poll – asking readers to vote for different categories, like best brewpub or best grocery store – is designed to achieve the same goal. Advertisers are “partners” – not because they support the publication’s journalism, but because AnnArbor.com works with them to develop ad campaigns like the Groupon-esque “Real Deal.”

For all of that energy put into the advertising and marketing end of the business, the news of last week’s layoffs indicates that AnnArbor.com isn’t meeting its revenue or profit goals. The company hasn’t disclosed what those targets are – I wouldn’t expect them to; we don’t disclose details of our financial performance, either. But I would expect a bit more candor about their general outlook, starting with more openness about their staff changes.

In September of 2009, I participated in a panel discussion at the Kerrytown BookFest with Dearing and others, talking about the future of local media. When pressed about what kind of timeline the new AnnArbor.com would have to prove its financial viability to its owners, Dearing indicated some urgency – he ventured that they’d have about two years from their launch in July 2009 to prove the viability of the model.

If that timeline holds, then this recent retooling could reflect an effort to reduce expenses before the start of the next financial quarter on April 1 – the final quarter they’ll have on the books for an evaluation at their two-year anniversary mark.

I don’t believe the Newhouses will just give up this market – despite the struggles of AnnArbor.com, they still hold essentially a monopoly in the state’s most stable, affluent community.

But this community has been blindsided by their business decisions in the past, and it still stings. Whatever the future holds for them, they owe it to the residents of Ann Arbor to be upfront about what’s coming. Or, in this case, what’s already been done.

About the writer: Mary Morgan is publisher and co-founder of The Ann Arbor Chronicle, which launched in September 2008. She previously worked for The Ann Arbor News for 12 years, where her positions included opinion editor and business editor.

The building that formerly housed The Ann Arbor News, at the southwest corner of Huron and Division.

However, the three-story News building is only one of several properties being considered as a potential home for the credit union’s administrative offices, says Jeff Schillag, the institution’s vice president of marketing and community relations.

Not all the potential sites are downtown, Schillag says. And any acquired space would replace leased office space.

Opened in 1936, the Albert Kahn-designed News building was shuttered last July when Advance Publications closed the daily newspaper.

A two-story press remains in the 80,000-square-foot building. The property also includes on-site parking, with entrances off of both Washington and Huron, and an additional parking lot on Ann Street. The building was renovated in 2004-05.

As part of its investigation into the property, the credit union retained Atwell-Hicks to take soil samples at The News building last week, Schillag says. Boring equipment in the parking lot was visible to passers-by as the engineers did that work, and prompted The Chronicle to follow up.

Pavement in the parking lot of the former Ann Arbor News building shows remnants of work done last week by Atwell-Hicks.

Schillag emphasized that the activity does not mean the credit union has decided to purchase the property.

Tax assessors put the 2009 value of The News building, at 340 E. Huron, at about $10 million and the lot at 336 E. Ann St. at about $600,000. The News building occupies the width of a block, with frontage on West Washington as well as Huron Street. The properties went on the market in October and are listed with Colliers International, with an asking price of $9.3 million.

In January, Swisher Commercial reported a vacancy rate of 17.6% in Ann Arbor’s office market. The rate for the downtown area was 16.5%, or 288,223 square feet.

The privately held Advance Publications Inc. bought The News – along with the Grand Rapids Press, Flint Journal and several other Michigan papers – in 1976.

Last year, the company reduced the number of publication days at the Journal and a number of the other Michigan papers. It also closed The News – in its place, the company launched a new enterprise, AnnArbor.com, which publishes online and offers print editions twice a week.

The UM Credit Union operates six branches in Ann Arbor, plus a branch on UM’s Dearborn campus. Its main downtown Ann Arbor office is next to the Ann Arbor District Library, at 333 E. William.

The University of Michigan Credit Union building on East William. The view is to the northwest. Behind the building, at the top of this photo, is the top of a crane being used on construction of the Fifth Avenue underground parking structure.

Thousands of clipping files like these will be among the material turned over to the Ann Arbor District Library, after a deal is struck with owners of the former Ann Arbor News. (Photo by the writer.)

Ann Arbor District Library board meeting (Nov. 17, 2009): Board members were briefed on Monday about a pending deal with the Herald Publishing Co., owners of the former Ann Arbor News, which is allowing the library to digitize the newspaper’s archives of photographs and newspaper clippings dating back decades. The 174-year-old Ann Arbor News closed in July of 2009.

Josie Parker, AADL’s director, said that accepting the agreement is likely the most important decision the board would make during its tenure, and could serve as a model for other libraries in the future. She also cautioned that though the library isn’t paying for the collection, it’s not free. “From the moment we get it, it’ll cost us,” she said.

Several library employees who are keen to get started on the project attended the meeting, including one librarian who gave Parker a high five when the meeting ended, to celebrate the board’s decision to move ahead with the project.

The board also spent a portion of the meeting reviewing and modifying a draft of its strategic initiatives, and got an update on AADL’s financial performance via a report on the financial audit for fiscal 2009. And performance of a different sort was reflected in two awards that the library recently received, which Parker described to the board, earning her and the rest of the staff a round of applause.

Ann Arbor News Archives

Mark Malven, an attorney with the law firm Dykema, was on hand Monday evening to review a draft copy of an agreement between the library and the Herald Publishing Co. The board was asked to vote on a resolution that authorized AADL director Josie Parker to sign the agreement when it is finalized, which Parker expects to occur later this month.

The Herald Publishing Co. is part of Advance Publications Inc., the New York corporation which closed the Ann Arbor News this summer and which subsequently agreed to give the library, with some strings attached, a large portion of the newspaper’s archives. The collection includes photographs and photo negatives (except for those related to University of Michigan football and basketball), clipping files and bound copies – complete sets of the newspaper editions, some dating back more than 100 years. At Monday’s meeting, Malven explained that the library would get the right to digitize these materials, excluding the bound copies. Herald will retain ownership of the originals.

Mark Malven, an attorney with the law firm Dykema, briefed the library board on Monday night about a deal being negotiated for the archives of the Ann Arbor News. Malven is representing the library in the negotiations. (Photo by the writer.)

The deal has been in the works for months. At their Aug. 17 meeting, the board approved a resolution authorizing up to $63,000 to lease a maximum of 3,500 square feet (at $18 per square foot) to store the collection.

One of the final pieces being worked out is a way to protect the library’s rights if the Herald decides to sell the collection or if the firm goes into bankruptcy and its assets are sold.

Board member Prue Rosenthal expressed some skepticism about the agreement. “It does seem like they’re giving it then taking it back in about 12 different places.”

Malven responded, saying that he was pleased with the deal, and surprised that the library was getting rights as broad as they are. From Herald Publishing’s point of view, he said, the library isn’t paying for the use of these materials. He said it’s common to have arrangements between two commercial entities, but not between a company and a library.

Board members almost immediately began asking questions, which prompted Malven to say that it felt like the Supreme Court, when an attorney begins a presentation but doesn’t get far before being questioned by the justices. “Welcome to my world,” Parker quipped.

Here are some elements of the deal, as drawn out by board members’ questions:

• Though Herald had some of its employees go through the collection and pull out photographs and negatives that it wanted to retain – specifically related to University of Michigan football and basketball, which have commercial value – they’ve asked that if AADL comes across something in that category, the library will turn it over to Herald and not digitize it. Parker said that because there is so much material – roughly 1 million photographs and negatives – it was possible that some things had been overlooked.
• Herald retains copyrights to the material. The library will store it, organize it, and digitize it, with certain exceptions. AADL has the rights to control the use of the digitized content, but doesn’t have the right to sell the digitized work.
• Herald can ask for the original material back, but not until after the library has digitized it.
• The library’s current insurance will cover the collection while it’s in AADL’s possession, but there will likely be additional insurance required to cover the material that will be kept in a separate storage facility.
• The bound volumes, many of which are damaged and in fragile condition, can be used by the library, but not digitized. That’s because Herald owns microfilm copies of those volumes and plans to digitize the full newspapers. Parker described the bound volumes as an incredible research tool. For one thing, it will allow librarians to figure out which photographs were actually published. Typically, only a small subset of the total number of images taken by a photographer on assignment made it into print.
• The library company will pay to move the material, which is located in the former Ann Arbor News building at the corner of Huron and Division. It will cost less than $10,000 to move, Parker said. She hopes to take possession of the collection by the end of the year.

There was some discussion of the library’s legal exposure. Board member Carola Stearns sought to clarify who was liable if the library digitizes a photograph and puts in online, and the photographer who took that photo sees it and decides to sue. Malven said that Herald Publishing wasn’t making any warranties on the material – there’s concern about taking on exposure that might be caused by the library’s actions, he said.

Malven said that typically, in a situation like the one that Stearns described, an attorney for the photographer would simply issue a cease-and-desist letter, asking the library to take down the photograph. The agreement with Herald Publishing makes it clear that it’s the library’s responsibility to respond, he said. Parker pointed out that there’s a collaboration clause in the agreement too, meaning that the company would help out if it and the library are jointly sued.

The board also discussed the cost of taking on this project. Margaret Leary pointed out that library staff will be required to do a huge amount of work to organize and digitize the collection. There are opportunity costs associated with it as well, she said – things that the staff won’t be able to do, because they’ll be working on this project. Parker added that there might be things that the library has to stop doing as well, because of staff resources that will be diverted to the collection. “This is a big responsibility that we, the board, are taking on,” Leary said.

The board voted unanimously to give Parker the authority to finalize an agreement for the newspaper archives.

Though all board members had copies of the draft agreement as it was reviewed by the attorney during the public meeting, Parker declined to release a copy to The Chronicle, saying it was still in draft form.

Director’s Report: Proposals for Top of “Library Lot”

Parker told the board that city officials had not yet made public the six proposals they had received on Friday, Nov. 13, for development above the city-owned parking structure next to the library’s downtown building. On that site, known informally as the Library Lot, the Downtown Development Authority is building an underground parking structure. The city issued a Request for Proposals earlier this year, to solicit projects for the top of the structure.

Parker said that as soon as those proposals are made available, she’ll take a look at them and report back to the board.

She also told the board that there was nothing new to report regarding negotiations with the city over easements requested for that project. [See Chronicle coverage: "Navigating Library Lane: Library board asks for easement on city-owned 'private' road"]

Awards for AADL

Also during her director’s report, Josie Parker described two awards that the library recently received, and how they reflect the work of the AADL.

The library was one of 10 systems nationwide in its budget category – and the only one in Michigan – to receive a 5-Star rating from the Library Journal, the highest rating awarded. AADL is in the category of libraries with an annual budget of between $10 million to $29.9 million. The rating is based on 2007 data that was reported by libraries to the Institute of Museum and Library Sciences, and includes circulation transactions per capita, visits to library buildings per capita, computer sessions per capita and program attendance per capita.

Since 2007, the library’s numbers have grown considerably, Parker said. Annual circulation is up 30% to 9.2 million transactions, for example, and event attendance has increased 27% to 58,752.

The measurements used in making this award reflect how patrons actually use the library, Parker said, and as such are more important than other data – like the number of books that the library buys or the square footage of its branches. “Those are not outcomes,” she said, “but this is.” This is the second year in a row that AADL has received a 5-Star rating.

Separately, the library received a 2009 Voice of the People award for excellence, based on a survey conducted by the International City/County Management Association and the National Research Center. The award is based on responses to a 2008 National Citizens Survey of nearly 1,000 Ann Arbor residents. The library and the city of Ann Arbor’s recreation services were cited by residents who rated the quality of life in Ann Arbor as “excellent” or “good.”

Parker said the two awards reflect how well the library performs, measured in two totally different ways. The board and staff who attended Monday’s meeting gave a round of applause following her remarks.

Strategic Initiatives

At their Sept. 30 retreat, AADL board members had a wide-ranging discussion, with input from senior staff, about the library’s future, in part with an eye toward updating their strategic plan. At Monday’s meeting, the board reviewed a draft of AADL’s strategic initiatives, looking at six categories: organizational development, communications, services, products, finances and facilities. They are not substantially different from the library’s current strategic initiatives, adopted in 2004.

The board’s planning committee – consisting of board president Rebecca Head, Carola Stearns and Margaret Leary – developed a draft document of revised initiatives, with input from AADL director Josie Parker as well as Celeste Choate, AADL’s associate director for services, collections & access, and Eli Neiburger, associate director for IT and production.

In revising the strategic initiatives, Head told her colleagues that the planning committee focused on four areas: 1) the need for more space – and larger venues – in which to hold events, 2) the shift from print to non-print resources, and how to handle that transition, 3) how best to communicate with the public, and 4) how to make library accessible to variety of people in community.

Stearns commented that within the library’s broad strategic initiatives, it was important to give staff the flexibility to adjust to the changing environment – including changes in the economy and in technology – while maintaining their leadership role within the community and the profession.

Over the next few months, the library staff will develop some specific goals designed to implement those big-picture initiatives, Head said. The planning committee will meet to discuss those goals, then bring the final version back to the board at their Feb. 15 meeting.

Financial Audit

Tracey Kasparke, a CPA and manager of governmental services for the accounting firm Rehmann Robson, walked the board through the audit report for AADL’s fiscal year ending June 30, 2009. “Overall, it was a smooth audit, as it always is,” she told the board.

Board member Barbara Murphy noted that this was the eighth consecutive year that the library had received an “absolutely clean audit.” The remark was likely an oblique reference to financial issues under the library’s previous leadership, including a deficit of nearly $1 million in 2000. Later that year, the library’s former financial director, Don Dely, was found guilty of embezzling $119,387 from the library from 1997 to 2000, according to a report in the Ann Arbor News.

Present: Rebecca Head, Margaret Leary, Barbara Murphy, Jan Barney Newman, Prue Rosenthal, Carola Stearns, Ed Surovell. Also: Josie Parker, AADL director.

Next meeting: Board meetings are typically held on the third Monday of the month, with the public portion of the meeting starting at 7 p.m. in the library’s fourth floor meeting room, 343 S. Fifth Ave. The board expects to cancel its December meeting, however, and meet again on Monday, Jan. 18, 2010. [confirm date]

Newspapers in Ann Arbor in 1882 when Washtenaw County boasted a population of 8,061: News, Argus, Courier, Democrat, Die Washtenaw Post, Register, Chronicle, University. (Photo of book page made possible by Barbara Tozier.)

Our monthly milestone message, written by either the editor or the publisher, is an occasion to touch base with readers – to bring folks up to date on any new developments with The Chronicle and to engage in a bit of self-reflection as a publication.

Self-reflection once a month is healthy. But self-reflection that persists for a whole month – which has been a natural consequence of the continuing community conversation about the closing of The Ann Arbor News so that AnnArbor.com could be launched – threatens to become a distraction.

Yet here we are at a monthly milestone – a fitting and proper time to reflect on significant questions like: Where does The Ann Arbor Chronicle fit in a media landscape without The Ann Arbor News? In last month’s Tenth Monthly Milestone Message, Chronicle publisher Mary Morgan analyzed that media landscape in terms of pie. As in: Is there enough pie to go around? How big is the media pie?

But given a choice between pie and cake, I prefer cake. In particular, I prefer chocolate cake with white icing – those are more or less traditional newspaper colors, now that I think about it.

But I’ll eat a piece of pie, if there’s not a piece of cake to be had.

As far as media choices go, residents of Ann Arbor and Washtenaw County these days don’t have a choice just between pie and cake – Mary Morgan  lists out various media alternatives in last month’s milestone. And as it turns out, the 8,061 residents of Washtenaw County in 1882 had a few choices as well. 

Dessert

In 1882 as now, Washtenaw County’s media choices were more like a whole dessert tray. The publications listed in that year for Ann Arbor in the 14th edition of the American Newspaper Directory published by Geo. P. Rowell & Co. numbered eight, not counting the Physician and Surgeon. [It's worth noting that I do not own a copy of that newspaper directory and had no prior awareness of its existence, but a co-worker of mine from the Workantile Exchange, Barbara Tozier, gave me a heads up and  lent it to me.]

NEWS; every evening except Sunday; four pages; size 21×28; established 1881; F. W. Dyar, editor and publisher; circulation J J [some reason to believe it's better than "not exceeding 1,000" but not better than "exceeding 1,000"].

ARGUS; Fridays; democratic; four pages; size 26×40; subscription $1 50; established 1845; John N. Bailey, editor and publisher; circulation J [not exceeding 1,000].

COURIER; Fridays; republican; four pages; size 28×41; subscription $2; established 1861; R.A. Beal, editor and publisher; circulation I [not exceeding 2,000].

DEMOCRAT; Thursdays; democratic; four pages; size 26×40; subscription $1 50; established 1878; John L. Burleigh, editor and publisher, circulation J [not exceeding 1,000].

DIE WASHTENAW POST; Fridays; German; four pages; size 30×45; subscription $2; established 1879; Louis J. Liesemer, editor and publisher.

REGISTER; Wednesdays: republican; four pages; size 23×32; subscription 65 cents; established 1874; Ann Arbor Printing and Publishing Co., editors and publishers; circulation I 1 [exceeding 2,000].

CHRONICLE; bi-weekly; twenty-four pages; size of page 8×11; subscription $2; established 1868;  Students of the University of Michigan, editors and publishers; circulation J [not exceeding 1,000]; a college paper; issued during the collegiate year.

UNIVERSITY; semi-monthly; twenty-four pages; size of page 8×11; subscription $1 50; established 1879; Students of the Professional Departments of Michigan University, editors and publishers; circulation K [not exceeding 500]; a college paper issued during the collegiate year.

The circulation figures reflect a fairly competitive market. While the Register enjoyed the widest circulation, it does not seem the case that it dominated the local newspaper market in the same way that The Ann Arbor News has for the last several decades. So back in 1872, it seems unlikely that there was a notion of “the local paper.” It also seems unlikely that residents subscribed to only one of the papers. More likely, based on the population and the circulation figures, one household might have subscribed to multiple local Ann Arbor papers.

That kind of market condition could be described critically as “fractured” – no one single newspaper provided everything that every reader wanted. Alternately, from a publisher’s point of view, that market could be described as “ripe for specialization.” In that kind of market, every publication could identify those things it could offer to readers that no other publication would provide – either at all or as well. And there would be a reward for that specialization – by some segment of the population, not necessarily the “mass market” – for any publication willing to take the risk of offering something specialized.

What’s The Ann Arbor Chronicle’s specialty?

The Ann Arbor Daily News: "The brightest, spiciest, newsiest aspirant for public favor in Michigan."

Potatoes

What we specialize in is description – because if you do description well, you have a shot at eventually offering analysis and explanation. There’s a limit to how far the food analogy can be pushed, but for the purposes of this milestone column, I’ll call our descriptive specialty “potatoes.”

Description is basic, providing a foundation for analysis and explanation – just like potatoes are basic, providing a carbohydrate flame in which fat and protein can burn.

Neither description nor potatoes are sexy. Or spicy. In this we differ from the 1872 Ann Arbor Daily News, which described itself as the “brightest, spiciest, newsiest aspirant for public favor in Michigan.”

Most people like potatoes, but they don’t want to go over to a potato patch and dig them up in order to make some french fries: Chronicle readers don’t want to have to attend or watch meetings of public bodies on TV or go any of the other places we go in order to provide readers with a descriptive account.

Harvesting potatoes takes some effort and you’re going to get your hands dirty. It goes much easier if you know what a potato plant looks like so that you can tell it from random weeds. The same principle applies when a reporter shows up somewhere to record notes on some happening or other.

Pile of potatoes freshly dug from Project Grow garden in Ann Arbor Michigan. (Photo by the writer.)

Small Potatoes

Another way The Ann Arbor Chronicle is comparable to potatoes is that we are now relatively small – as in “small potatoes.” Small potatoes can sometimes be disappointing. For example, I harvested my potatoes yesterday from my Project Grow plot, and they were smaller than I was hoping for, based on last year’s experience. It was, quite frankly, a bit of a let-down. I think the relatively cool summer had something to do with that. Perhaps also a lack of attention to weeding.

In any case, if what you want is smaller potatoes – because you’re not planning to bake them and slather them with sour cream, butter, cheese, and bacon – then a reduced harvest need not be disappointing.

Mind you, I was trying to grow bigger potatoes than I got this year, so I was disappointed.

We’ve grown a somewhat bigger Chronicle potato over the last 11 months than we had at the beginning. It’s heartening that while we’re still small potatoes, we’re large enough that some of the national media covering the story of the death of The Ann Arbor News have taken time to talk to us about our experience.

Still, we’ll be a little disappointed if we aren’t able to grow that Chronicle potato a little bit more in the next 11 months.

Cary Push rolls the last edition of The Ann Arbor News on Thursday and inserts it into plastic bags.

Late on Thursday afternoon, the last day of publication for The Ann Arbor News, Cary Push was waiting in his pickup truck at the corner of Eberwhite and Woodridge. The bundle drop hadn’t been made yet to his carrier route, which covers this west side neighborhood south of Liberty and west of Seventh Street.

When the bundled papers  finally arrived, and after Push had rolled them into their plastic bags, The Chronicle tagged along for a bit as he delivered the last day’s edition of The News.

We shadowed him as he walked through the neighborhood with a canvas bag loaded with newspapers. He stopped at some of the houses – but by no means all – and placed each paper in the spot where he’d learned over the last three years that subscribers on his route preferred to have their paper delivered.

Some of them  got placed right on the door mat. Others found a temporary home in the hooks under the mailbox. Some were tossed inside a screened-in porch.

None of them were simply flung from the sidewalk in the general direction of the house. That was something that one loyal subscriber and reader of The News was a little concerned about – because it won’t be Push who’ll be delivering the printed edition of AnnArbor.com to this neighborhood – that’s the publication intended to replace The Ann Arbor News, at least on Thursdays and Sundays.

That subscriber – who greeted Push with a handshake, wished him well, and asked for his contact information – wanted to know who would be delivering the new paper, and whether they were just going to throw it from a car.  In light of some recent commentary by Chronicle readers, it’s a subject that resonates across Ann Arbor.

The conversation between Push and the subscriber continued. Contemplation of newspapers thrown with too much enthusiasm raised the specter of broken windows. Push couldn’t say for sure who or how the new paper would be delivered in that neighborhood, but told the subscriber if there were any broken windows, to definitely give him a call: “I do glazing, you know!”

Cary Push gets a farewell handshake from a loyal Ann Arbor News subscriber – who should be recognizable to Chronicle readers as city attorney, Stephen Postema. (Photo by the writer.)

Push owns Joe’s Glass and Handyman Service – “Joe” is his middle name. That business he described as “not going too bad.” But he’ll be continuing to supplement his income from that business by delivering the Thursday and Sunday editions of AnnArbor.com. He just won’t have the Eberwhite route. His new route will be the next neighborhood west of Eberwhite off of Liberty, which will get the sort of human-touch service he’s been providing here.

It’s not just the geographic location that will change.  The Thursday AnnArbor.com will be a morning paper, unlike the weekday afternoon Ann Arbor News, and the bundle drops will come at 2 a.m. Push says he imagines that Thursday nights, he’ll try to get to bed around 9-10 p.m. for a few hours of sleep, but on Saturdays, he’d likely just stay up all night.

Push figures that the first few days, he’ll need extra time to learn the 300 addresses where he’ll deliver the new paper, but that once he learns the route, he’ll have no trouble getting the papers out on time.

And Push’s confidence on that score is good, because there’ll be one less hour to get the Sunday paper delivered, compared to the standards required by The News. AnnArbor.com wants the papers on the door step by 7 a.m., instead of 8 a.m.

In any case, it’s a fair bet that at whatever time he delivers them, Push’s papers will land on the doorstep or whatever place subscribers want them placed – not just wherever they happen to land.

Cary Push places the last day's edition of The Ann Arbor News in the spot each subscriber has told him they want it. (Photo by the writer.)

Ann Arbor News carrier Cary Push walks the bundles to the bed of his pickup truck in the Eberwhite neighborhood. (Photo by the writer.)

Jeff Mortimer (Photo courtesy of the Lucy Ann Lance Business Insider)

In the spring of 1979, the entire staff of reporters and editors at The Ann Arbor News was temporarily shoehorned into the lunchroom, a space about a quarter the size of the newsroom, while the latter was retrofitted for the dawn of the computer age.

As the waggish John Barton, who I think was then covering the police beat, has recalled, noting how different the times were, “We weren’t so much elbow to elbow as ash tray to ash tray.” I felt like an immigrant crossing the ocean in steerage. When Jeff Frank, the news editor who was in charge of our training on these newfangled gizmos, asked if there were any questions, I inquired, “Is it true we’ll all have jobs when we get to America?”

Jeff taught us what a password was, how to log on, how to print out, how to create and edit and save and send a file … it seems primitive now, but it was gee-whiz then. Most of us picked it up in 15 or 20 minutes. The ones who couldn’t more or less never did.

When I became the arts and entertainment editor in September 1983, I was introduced to the sacred mysteries of the editor’s keyboard, which had two additional rows of keys for functions that editors needed and reporters didn’t, like writing headlines and formatting type.

They also provided access to the wire services The News subscribed to. I believe there were seven, including The New York Times, The Associated Press, United Press International, and the Los Angeles Times-Washington Post (which we called “latwop”). This was a revelation to me. I had done my share of editing in my first 12 years in the newspaper business, but that was in the era of hard copy, soft-lead pencils, and clattering linotype and teletype machines.

Now all I had to do was tap a few keys to retrieve any file that piqued my interest and do whatever I wanted with it. But another thought soon crushed my exuberance: “We’re doomed.”

Hardly anyone had a home computer then, but almost everyone knew that was the future. It was in the air like the smell of rain on a summer breeze. If the technology was available for us to do that, then it was only a matter of time before it was available to the readers, too, and in their own homes. And when that happened, what would they need us for?

I never thought about its effect on advertising, which was what really finished off the print newspaper, but the principle was the same. They wouldn’t need us to be the gatekeepers anymore. It took 30 years, but it finally happened.

Having spent 20 years of my life in its employ, I used to wonder whether The News would publish an obituary when I died and, if so, what they would deem worth distilling from my lifetime. Dump the Dope? Covering the Tigers and UM basketball? Running for office? (Twice, but God saw fit to spare me both times.)

My ancient forebodings notwithstanding, I never dreamed I would outlive them.

Jeff Mortimer lives in Ann Arbor and has been a freelance writer and editor for the past 15 years. For 20 of his 23 years as a print journalist, he worked at The Ann Arbor News, which published its last edition today.

Mary Morgan, Ann Arbor Chronicle publisher

It’s Monday afternoon and I’m sitting in a terminal at Detroit Metro airport, waiting for a flight to Texas to be with my father and sister.

News of my mother’s death and the planned closing of The Ann Arbor News came inside a 12-hour span. The two events are orders of magnitude apart in their emotional impact on me, but in an odd way I find myself processing both and finding a metaphor for one in the other.

My mother was ill for a long time. Once a woman who loved to sing, she became unable to articulate the simplest concept. She grew to be fearful of even the shortest trips outside her home, though once she’d been eager to travel – so much so that all our family vacations when I was young were camping trips, far before it was popular. Piling us into a station wagon hauling a pop-up camper was the only way my parents could afford to see the country.

By the time she died, my mom was a shadow of her former self. And for the people who knew her only in the final months of her life, I’m sure it’s hard for them to imagine the woman I knew, and loved.

All of this was on my mind when word came about the decision to close The Ann Arbor News. And what I’ve heard from people in the aftermath of that decision looks very much like grief.

For the people who work at The News, or those who work at any of the hundreds of other struggling newspapers nationwide, it’s a grief linked to the uncertainty of their livelihood, for sure. But for the many journalists who are deeply committed to the idealistic goals of their profession – that the very foundation of a democracy relies on an informed public, which a free press serves – the closing of a newspaper is a frightening symbol. For them, it’s not a business. It’s a calling – even when it sometimes fell short of that idealistic goal.

But what about the rest of us, those who are no longer linked to traditional media, or never were? What are we grieving? It’s the loss of something that’s been part of our lives as long as we can remember. Of something that’s been entwined in our daily routines, often thoughtlessly. Of opportunities missed, of potential unrealized. Of witnessing a long, sad, sometimes maddening decline – and feeling powerless to do anything about it.

Of course not everyone is sentimental about the closing of The Ann Arbor News – one blog headlined its post with “Ding Dong the Witch Is Dead.” I believe this animosity stems at least in part from an us-versus-them mentality. Over the years the News had grown inarticulate about its vision, and fearful as well. I’ve heard people at the News described as arrogant, and no doubt there was some truth to that, for some. But more recently, whatever arrogance newsroom leaders had was replaced by fear and a kind of desperation – not an eagerness for what the future was bringing as it barreled toward them, but a resentful apprehension. They felt embattled and under-appreciated, too – and all of this contributed to a destructive bunker-mentality that only exacerbated their alienation from the community.

These were the death throes. Yes, the economy is brutal and advertising revenue has been leeching away. Despite the economy, I believe the newspaper could have survived if its leaders had better engaged and embraced this community – not as sycophants or vacuous boosters, but as people with a vested interest in the lifeblood of Ann Arbor, its politics and government, arts & culture, schools, businesses, nonprofits – and in the people who live and work here every day, who, like us, call this patch of Michigan home.

Maybe their new venture, backed by the resources of the Newhouse corporation, will do this. Based on the community meetings they’re holding to help shape what the new online publication will be like, it sounds like they’re going to give it a shot.

I also wonder what this means for The Ann Arbor Chronicle – all day long people have been asking us that question. We have a clear vision for what The Chronicle does well – eyewitness, first-hand accounts, whether it’s a public meeting or a fun community event. And we’re committed to covering the community where we live in a way that reflects what it is, quirks, warts, and all. With the news yesterday, expectations from some readers of what The Chronicle could be and should be have risen dramatically. And so have our own.

But just for a little while, I’ll pause to indulge in unabashed nostalgia. Because when The News ceases to publish in July, I will miss it. Whatever takes its place – the new business promises to publish a print version on Thursdays and Sundays – it will almost certainly not look or feel like a daily newspaper. That model has been broken, at least in the minds of the number crunchers, and perhaps they’re right.

Almost everyone I talk with has stories of their own about visceral ties to their local newspaper. For me, I’ll miss the tactile, physicality of newsprint: its grime, its tempting outdoor smell that teases our cats to pounce, its transience. I’ll miss its clutter – how, spread across the floor, the newspaper evokes the messiness of the lives its reporters cover. I’ll miss the thunk it makes when our carrier pitches it onto our porch steps.

And perhaps above all, I will marvel at how I’ve become like my mother, whose stories about growing up with an outhouse and no running water seemed apocryphal to me, as newspapers will be to kids born today.

We can’t help but grieve. Yet it’s exhausting, and can’t be sustained at its most heightened level. I take comfort in that. So today I’m grieving, but tomorrow or the day after I’ll feel more hopeful. I will still miss what’s gone, but will remember why I loved it, and I’ll hold that part with me.

They’re boarding my plane. As I get ready to pack up my laptop and go, I feel as though I’m leaving something precious behind, and moving toward a future in which the landscape of my life has unalterably shifted. I don’t know what the future will be in this new place. But I don’t feel I’m alone.

Mary Morgan, publisher of The Ann Arbor Chronicle, was a 12-year veteran of The Ann Arbor News. Most recently she served as opinion editor there, and before that was editor of the News’ business section. She and Dave Askins, Chronicle editor, launched this online local news publication in September 2008.