Inside The Olympian

On February 6, The Olympian tried something new. “In my 30 years at The Olympian,” wrote senior columnist John Dodge, “we’ve never extended a communitywide invitation to the public to drop by the newspaper office to meet and interact with the staff.” And thus, our community’s biggest newspaper threw open the doors.

Over 60 members of the public took them up on offer, enjoying affordable hors d’oeuvres (cheese, crackers, veggie tray!), snagging some sweet Olympian swag (pens, calendars, fridge magnets, tote bags!), and chatting with the 20 or so newspaper staff wearing identical blue shirts. Publisher George Le Masurier held court in the middle of the main conference room, chatting up all comers.

A significant portion of the attendees were current or past elected officials, community activists, or representatives of community organizations – in other words, the kind of people more likely to have news stories written about them, their issues, or their groups. For many attendees, the main goals seemed to be networking and pitching stories.

Megan Sullivan, with Together! (a nonprofit focused on drug and alcohol education), said, “I thought it would be great to meet and talk to reporters,” especially to share a couple of story ideas she had.

Olympia resident Beth Doglio was looking for the education reporter. “I want to pitch a story,” she said. “I also really appreciate Brad Shannon’s coverage of the Legislature.”

Former Olympia Mayor Bob Jacobs, who has often been on the opposite side of The Olympian’s editorial positions, said the open house was “a great idea. Congratulations to them, and they ought to do it more frequently.” He, too, wanted to suggest a couple of story ideas.

Neighborhood activists Mary Wilkinson and Joe Ford “read [The Olympian] every day and complain about it sometimes,” said Wilkinson, so they wanted to stop by with compliments and suggestions. Ford added that he asked for more stories on local arts, music, and culture. “They seem receptive,” he said.

The newspaper’s motivation for hosting the event seemed clear: folks at The Olympian are worried that they are seen less as a part of the local community and more as a branch of an out-of-town news corporation. As Dodge wrote, “One question we hear — not so much as two or three years ago, but enough to merit an answer once again — goes something like this: Is there anybody still working in Olympia, or has everybody moved to Tacoma?”

It’s a fair question. The Olympian was an independent newspaper from its first incarnation as a weekly in 1860, through various mergers and renamings, until its purchase by Gannett Company, publishers of USA Today, in 1971. It is currently owned by the McClatchy Company, which also owns The New Tribune in Tacoma and many others newspapers across Washington and the nation.

Shortly after McClatchy purchased the paper in 2006, it transferred many staff from Olympia to Tacoma, and laid off other staff at both papers. According to Dodge, “The copy and design editors are all in Tacoma now, along with most other business operations of the paper.” And yet, he wrote:

Let the record show that the newsroom and its employees are firmly ensconced in Olympia, in the building we first occupied in 1972. …

We also have an independent editorial board that meets with community leaders and elected officials from city, state and federal levels. Our award-winning photographers know all the nooks and crannies of Thurston County, and our home page editor makes sure The Olympian’s website reflects our community. In addition, our senior editor chooses the stories — local and otherwise — that appear on the front page.

At the open house, other staff emphasized the same message. Tony Overman, one of the aforementioned award-winning photographers, said that despite a common belief that everything has moved to Tacoma, “the local decisions and the local coverage is being done locally.”

And yet, there does not seem to be as much local coverage as attendees to the open house would like. At the event, staff laid out sheets of paper reading “STORY IDEAS – Tell us about a story you think we should be writing.” On the first sheet to fill up, all nine suggestions called for more local coverage (“local groups – any interests!,” “more local stories; lots going on locally,” “more local stories and what works; not just the problems,” “community action groups,” “featured new business articles,” “Tumwater coverage, school events,” “wish we could hear about community events the day before,” “positive local stories,” “events (local),” “community events highlighted”).

Also, note that The Olympian staff emphasized that local coverage is done locally, but said nothing about how much local coverage is done. In fact, Dodge acknowledged “the limitations of a smaller staff.”

It wasn’t always this way. In the 1990s, The Olympian was bullish on its future. It expanded its existing building on Bethel Street, between 4th and 5th Avenues, and purchased the neighboring property (once the city’s old community center) for further expansion. But since then, the neighboring property has sat vacant, while occupancy of The Olympian’s building has shrunk, as a direct result of shrinking circulation.

As of October 2013, The Olympian had a daily circulation of 18,610 copies (based on published statements required by federal regulations). That was down from 20,913 the year before, an 11 percent decrease, and down 54 percent from their peak of 40,472 in 1999. Their circulation dropped by more than 2,000 copies in each of the last four years. (Credit to Ken Balsley of the Ken’s Corner blog, www.kenbalsley.com, for tracking these figures.)

For comparison, OP&L’s circulation is 5,000 copies every two weeks, and the Nisqually Valley News in Yelm has a circulation of over 23,000 copies every week.

As the print copies of The Olympian declined, at least some of that readership moved online. The Olympian websites claims that, in 2012, it averaged 450,000 unique visitors per month – though that figure is almost twice the total population of Thurston County, which suggests that it might be better understood as 15,000 visitors per day. Combined, 18,000 print copies plus 15,000 online visitors, even assuming no overlap between the two, is still less than The Olympian’s peak daily circulation.

How many staff are actually working at the Olympian now? During the open house, this reporter took the opportunity to check out the facilities. The newsroom holds 36 cubicle-style work stations, of which eight were empty (or just extraordinarily tidy). According to Dodge’s column, about half the space in the newsroom is “newsies” and the other half is advertising staff. Besides the newsroom, there are offices or desks for another dozen or so employees elsewhere in the building, including editors, the publisher, front desk staff, and IT staff.

That’s the good news. The bad news becomes apparent as one walks past the front desk and down the main hallway to reach the newsroom. First, there is a large nook with two desks, facing into the hallway as if to welcome visitors into a major customer service hub, but now abandoned. Then behind those desks is another room with row after row of cubicles, about 30 or more, containing nothing but some cleaning supplies, folding tables, recycle bins, and other bric-a-brac in need of a storage space.

That’s the top floor. The bottom floor was once the print shop, but it sits empty too, as all the printing is now done in Tacoma.

At the end of that main hallway, a sign on the wall offers directions to passersby. Three of the arrows on the sign point toward the empty room on the top floor (“advertising,” “production,” and “online”), two point to the empty bottom floor (“circulation” and “production center”), and only one to an occupied space (“newsroom”).

Clearly, while The Olympian has more local staff than some outsiders might realize, they have many fewer than they had in their heyday. (Indeed, at least a few of the staff who attended the open house are actually based in Tacoma.)

Inevitably, this impacts its coverage. The Olympian remains the paper of record for Thurston County, and the sole daily coverage of many local news fundamentals: city council meetings, high school sports, local petty crime, obituaries, traffic. Our community’s knowledge of itself, and thus its ability to make better decisions for itself, depends less on whether the public believes there are reporters at work in The Olympian’s building, and more on whether there actually are more reporters covering more local stories in more detail and more depth. ◙