It's a Wrap

Of course, this isn't going on just at daily newspapers. Even New Times has invested lots of resources into making an online model work. And, because we've got 15 sister papers, whatever happens here is usually happening in 15 other alternative weeklies across the country, too.

We may publish the most ridiculously long stories in journalism today — but now, we also have bloggers who post stuff daily. (Because we're living in a glass house, we may as well acknowledge that our Web site also doesn't always work the way it's supposed to.)

But back to the Republic. The newspaper's transition to an integrated online/print hybrid has been far from seamless. Many of the paper's best reporters have fled, convinced that the new "Information Center" has no interest in their meaty journalism.

In the past year, the newspaper lost Mark Shaffer, whom many Republic reporters credit as one of the paper's best. (He took a job as communications director for the state's Department of Environmental Quality.) Bilingual immigration reporter Susan Carroll, a two-time Virg Hill Journalist of the Year, is now at the Houston Chronicle. Billy House, the paper's Capitol Hill reporter, now works for the Tampa Tribune. Veterans Jon Kamman, Janie Magruder, and Linda Helser have left. The team that covered the Capitol for six years, Robbie Sherwood and Chip Scutari, fled for jobs in public relations.

After his column was cut, columnist Jon Talton gave his notice, too.

To get a clear picture of what's going on over on Van Buren, New Times interviewed readers, observers, and people who study journalism for a living, including some former media executives. Perhaps more importantly, we talked to nearly a dozen reporters and editors — some who still work for the newspaper, others who've left. Almost all requested anonymity. (Hey, journalists know how the game is played.)

It's clear that many current and former reporters have doubts about the new model. And even those who like the idea of a faster, Web-centric enterprise say that implementation has been rocky — and that morale is perilously low.

There's no indication that the Republic plans to change course. Bushee, the paper's editor, says that he believes readers have grown to like the new slimmed-down Monday edition. He thinks they'll enjoy the Information Center, too.

Bushee paints the morale issue as one of reporters needing to face new realities.

As the editor wrote in an e-mail to New Times recently, the paper's leaders "know that this new world will not be to everyone's liking. We expected some people to leave and some have."

But the results, he says, have been extraordinary.

"Our online traffic has been spiking higher each week as we place more breaking news and entertainment information on azcentral," Bushee writes. The Republic and its companion tabloids, like the Mesa Republic and the Scottsdale Republic, he adds, "have been enriched by more expansive local news and deeper connections to readers."

Reporters aren't so sure. Some worry that the serious news coverage that was once the paper's forte may be a thing of the past.

It may not have been the most hard-charging investigative newspaper in the country, but the Republic covered the important stuff, from courts to City Hall.

It's hard to do that well in briefs.

"Maybe we're just too set in our ways," one says. "But for myself and a lot of people, this is not what we signed up for. We wanted to do strong reporting, strong storytelling.

"And if the industry has passed us by, and the things we thought made up good journalism are wrong, maybe it's right for us to get out."

There was a time when the Arizona Republic was awash in money. Of course, we don't know the specifics, because the newspaper was privately owned at the time — owned, in fact, by the Pulliam family, the same clan that gave America Dan Quayle.

But it was obvious that times were good. After a flight heading for Phoenix crashed in the Midwest in 1987, for example, the paper had no fewer than 60 staffers on the story, including a number who were flown to Detroit to cover the wreckage. Then-publisher Pat Murphy says he made the decision without bothering to submit a budget to the paper's owners first.

"We spent thousands of dollars, and I never even checked it with the front office," Murphy marvels.