Providence Journal’s Slide Continues, Parent Company Reports $21.7M 2Q Loss

Saturday, July 29, 2017

 

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Alan Rosenberg, Executive Editor

The painful slide continues for the Providence Journal. The newspaper’s parent company New Media Investment Group (who owns GateHouse Media), announced a dismal second quarter performance.

New Media reported a drop in print advertising revenue — down 12.3 percent year-over-year.

The bright spot was digital revenue was $34.8 million, an increase of 9 percent over the prior year, but not nearly enough to make up for the print loss. Circulation revenue was flat.

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Top Story Removed - Unprecedented 

A lead top story in the Providence Journal this week was removed because of errors. Alan Rosenberg, executive editor of the Providence Journal wrote:

A story in Tuesday’s Journal, describing the confrontation between Acting North Providence Police Chief Christopher Pelagio and a Cranston police sergeant at a memorial service, was based on the account of Carmine Giarusso, a retired Cranston police officer who was at the memorial service. Giarusso told The Journal that he had been interviewed as part of the investigation, and was granted anonymity in the story.

On Tuesday, Giarusso said he had left the service before the confrontation, that his description was based on a video he had seen, and that he had not been interviewed for the investigation. Additionally, Col. Michael Winquist, the Cranston police chief, said Tuesday that he had not called North Providence Mayor Charles Lombardi about the investigation, as Giarusso told The Journal.

The Journal no longer stands behind Tuesday’s story, which we have removed from our website.

 

Trudeau Story Drew Criticism From National Press

All of this come just two weeks after the paper was criticized by the national media. A  front page story in the Providence Journal about Canadian Prime Minister Justin Trudeau drew ridicule by national and local press for the article’s focus. 

The story by Jacqueline Tempera of the Providence Journal on Trudeau - who was in town for the National Governors Association summer meeting - starts off, "Feeling blue? Google three words: Justin Trudeau butt."

Besides the front page story, there was an online video by Tempera focusing on Trudeau's looks. Scott McKay, former Providence Journal reporter wrote a blistering analysis on the faux pas and ended his comments with, “And they [Providence Journal] wonder why they are slouching toward irrelevance.  Somewhere Michael Metcalf is spinning in his grave. Jim Wyman and Steve Hamblett too."

 

Related Slideshow: Where the Former Projo Stars Are Today

Take a look at where the top Providence Journal writers and reporters from the 1990s and 2000s are now reporting. UPDATED April, 2017

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AP

Scott Mayerowitz

Airlines Reporter for Associated Press

Formerly ABC News correspondent - he is often the expert being quoted around airline strikes to plance crashes.

Photo: News Media Guild

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NY Times

Dan Barry

New York Times

Barry was part of the young gun investigative group at the Journal in the early 1990s that won a Pulitzer for the investigation into Chief Justice Thomas Fay, and also investigated Cianci’s Nick Ricamo and others.

He was a Pulitzer Feature Writing finalist at the NY Times for his portfolio of "closely observed pieces that movingly capture how the great recession is changing lives and relationships in America.”

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Boston Globe

Christopher Rowland

Washington Bureau Chief at the Boston Globe

He also has served as Metro political editor and as a healthcare reporter on the Business Desk.

Rowland covered Providence City Hall (among a number of assignments) during his Projo years. 

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LA Times (formerly)

Dean Starkman

Teaching in Hungry

Starkman previously was an editor at Columbia Journalism Review, Wall Street Journal and GoLocal. Starkman was part of the investigative team in 1994 at the Projo that won a Pulitzer.

An award-winning journalist and media critic, he is the author of 2014's “The Watchdog That Didn’t Bark: The Financial Crisis and the Disappearance of Investigative Journalism.” Before leaving for Europe he was the Wall Street reporter for the LA Times.

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USA Today (formerly

Tom Frank

CNN Now

Since leaving the Providence Journal, he has had stints at Long Island's Newsday and The Denver Post.

At USA Today, Frank was a 2012 Pulitzer finalist "for his sharply focused exploration of inflated pensions for state and local employees, enhancing stories with graphic material to show how state legislators pump up retirement benefits in creative but unconscionable ways."

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The Weekly Standard

Philip Terzian

The Weekly Standard

Terzian is literary editor of The Weekly Standard. In the 1990's he served as the editorial page writer for the Providence Journal.  In his career, he has been a writer and editor at Reuters, newspapers in Alabama and Kentucky, the New Republic, and the Los Angeles Times.

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Wall Street Journal

Jennifer Levitz

Wall Street Journal 

She was a pitbull State House reporter at the Providence Journal and has made a mark at the New England office of the Wall Street Journal. 

She was part of the reporting team that was a Pulitzer Finalist in 2014 for a series called "Deadly Medicine," a stellar reporting project that documented the significant cancer risk to women of a common surgery and prompted a change in the prescribed medical treatment.

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Washington Post

Kevin Sullivan

Washington Post

Once the State House reporter at the Providence Journal, today at the Post, Kevin is a longtime foreign correspondent who has been based in Tokyo, Mexico City and London, and also served as the Post’s Sunday and Features Editor.

He won a Pulitzer for international reporting with the Post in 2003, along with Mary Jordan, for their "exposure of horrific conditions in Mexico's criminal justice system and how they affect the daily lives of people."

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NY Times

C.J. Chivers

New York Times

Pulitzer Prize winner in 2017.

Chivers is a foreign correspondent for the New York Times, where he "contributes to the Foreign and Investigative desks of The Times on conflict, politics, crime and human rights from Syria, Libya, Afghanistan, Iraq, Russia, Georgia, Chechnya and elsewhere on a wide range of assignments."

His assignments are far from his political coverage in Providence City Hall and the State House.

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Boston Globe

Cynthia Needham

Boston Globe

Today she serves as the political editor at the Globe and oversees coverage of the State House, City Hall, and Massachusetts politics. She was a political and State House reporter at the Providence Journal.

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AP

Steve Peoples

Associated Press

Peoples has become a top political reporter and the lead on Presidential coverage at the Associated Press. In 2012, he covered the Mitt Romney campaign.  After he left the Providence Journal he covered politics for Roll Call and contributed to GoLocal.

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Computer World

Ken Mingis

Executive Editor, News and Strategy at Computer World

Mingis has risen through the ranks at the high tech pub and has served as the Apple expert and the online editor for Computer World, which is a different world from being the lead city reporter cover Buddy Cianci in the 1990s. He was the reporter who broke the infamous DiPrete Cranston Land Deal.

 
 

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