Papering The Eastside -- Myriad Publications Carve Out Niches In A Growing Market

CUTLINE: EASTSIDEWEEK PUBLISHER KNUTE ``SKIP'' BERGER SAYS HIS PAPER WILL BE POLITICALLY INDEPENDENT.

CUTLINE: OWNERS BOB AND SANDIE SCOTT PASTE UP THE SNOQUALMIE VALLEY RECORD. THEY BOUGHT IT IN THE MID-'60S.

Nowadays on the suburban newspaper scene, struggles over turf no longer are called media wars. The bloodiest of battles are termed ``market strategy,'' and they are marked by the entry of well-funded corporations.

So it is, increasingly, on Seattle's Eastside.

This ``technoburb'' battleground is prosperous and expanding, with 403,000 people spread over 230 square miles, its centers elusive and its borders barely identifiable. And the newspapers that cover it, facing the nationwide specter of declining readership, are scrambling to carve out their piece of the scenery.

For readers, it can mean a choice. For the newspapers and the people who run them, livelihood.

So it's small wonder that Seattle's dominant daily, The Seattle Times, has been trying to hobble the chain-owned local daily Journal American, while the J-A's satellite weeklies are elbowing the area's locally owned community papers for readers and advertising dollars.

And then, like dropping a rock into an already-muddied pool, Sasquatch Publishing Co. Inc. of Seattle in late October launched Eastsideweek, a clone of its 15-year-old urban alternative, Seattle Weekly.

A few weeks later Northwest Media Inc., local arm of the Persis Corp. of Honolulu, which owns the Journal American, introduced the weekly Snoqualmie Valley Reporter to a group of small towns in the Snoqualmie Valley already served by the 76-year-old Snoqualmie Valley Record.

And all that says nothing about the myriad other weeklies that dot and have dotted the region, in some cases for years.

So what's going to happen? Well, perhaps the simplest route toward an explanation is to wind through the complicated maze of the competition.

The largest new combatant, Eastsideweek, is something Sasquatch President David Brewster calls ``a fairly momentous journalistic experiment.''

Nineteen thousand copies are distributed free each Wednesday to about 300 stands in restaurants and stores throughout the Eastside.

Publisher Knute ``Skip'' Berger proudly observes that almost 90 percent of the papers get picked up. (Some of the instant interest in Eastsideweek might stem from the personals in its classified advertising section, which resembles a larger and very popular section in Seattle Weekly.)

It makes good business sense, says Brewster, for the new paper ``to grow out of the local culture.''

His target audience: ``the more-educated cut of the market, with an appetite for an ambitious form of journalism, an ability to absorb conflict and a tolerance for different lifestyles.'' Berger says his paper will be politically independent, as he perceives his readers.

New positions

To serve that need, Eastsideweek has created 23 new jobs, according to Brewster, including a six-person editorial staff supplemented by a stable of freelancers.

Perhaps ironically, the office is at 123 Lake St. in Kirkland, quarters occupied for many decades by the late East Side Journal. While the old Journal's basement office is spruced up to be almost unrecognizable, it's a bit of nostalgia to have a newspaper back on the premises.

A big question is how Eastsideweek will affect readership of the Journal American, envisioned by its founder as the Eastside's primary newspaper.

Says Journal American publisher Bob Weil: ``We're feeling no impact as yet, for our audience is broader and bigger.''

The Journal American was created in 1976 when Longview Publishing Co.'s John McClelland acquired sole ownership of three leading Eastside weeklies, intending to merge them into one daily that would cover the entire Eastside. But combining the Bellevue American and the East Side Journal caused the Kirkland readership virtually to evaporate, and McClelland put aside plans to absorb the Mercer Island Reporter.

Far from consolidating Eastside media, however, creation of the Journal American opened gaps in readership that publishers have sought to fill.

-- To replace the East Side Journal in Kirkland, several papers emerged, of which only The Kirkland Courier survives.

-- Carol Edwards started the Woodinville Weekly on a duplicating machine on her kitchen table. She subsequently hired a small staff and rented a storefront office, and now publishes the paper in three editions to include areas north and southeast of her home base.

-- Joe Acton, a desktop publisher of newsletters and books with no previous experience in newspapering, in 1989 launched the Bellevue Weekly News, a free tabloid that won devoted readers from young families - the Bellevue School District sponsored four pages - and from older residents who said they still missed the folksy old American. Advertisers failed to share readers' enthusiasm, however, and Acton ceased publication last month.

-- Frank Parchman, a former Oregon newsman, bought the 42-year-old Sammamish Valley News of Redmond three years ago. In his territory, the Journal American circulates roughly 5,000 copies to subscribers and newsstands, sends another 6,000 in the form of its giveaway shopping edition, and mails to 35,000 homes in Redmond and Woodinville a half-tabloid, all-advertising monthly called ``Best Buys.''

-- The Issaquah Press is owned by Pacific Media Group Inc. of Seattle, formed last August by Houston media executive Tom Haley when he bought out Seattle publishers John Murray and John Flaherty. From Flaherty, Pacific Media also acquired another Eastside property, the monthly tabloid Mercer Islander.

-- The Snoqualmie Valley Record, based in Snoqualmie and covering towns in the Upper and Lower Valley, still operates from the office immortalized by the late Charlotte Paul Groshell in the 1956 book ``Minding Our Own Business.'' The Record is owned and published by Bob and Sandie Scott, who bought it in the mid-1960s in partnership with Gaillard Buchman, who died last week, and the late Mae Buchman. Sandie Scott said they have received frequent offers to buy the paper. Thus far, she added, they're not inclined to sell.

Reining in readers

Finding new Eastside readers and keeping the old ones seems a treadmill task for the daily Journal American, involving such inducements as sports cars and trips to Hawaii. The Persis Corp. bought the paper in early 1986, incorporated its Northwest holdings as Northwest Media Inc., and installed Weil as president.

Only recently has the Journal American surpassed the original combined circulation of the two weeklies that merged in 1976.

Frank Wetzel, former Seattle Times ombudsman and Journal American editor during its first decade, blames competition from The Times for the Journal American's failure to achieve the circulation goals of its founders. (``Our slogan was 50,000 by 1980,'' another former Journal American executive wistfully recalled.)

Wetzel, who now writes for Eastsideweek, says ``the management of The Times did a sound job of blunting the drive of `the new guy on the block' to become the Eastside's No. 1 paper.''

``The Times established a bureau on the Eastside, and managed to get enough into the paper to satisfy what was then a fairly small interest in the Eastside's news, while of course providing better state, national and world coverage than the Journal American's.

``Folks particularly in older parts of the Eastside community had subscribed to The Times forever; for them to change their reading habits was going to take major dislocation.''

Those same folks, frequently grieving the loss of ``their'' weekly Bellevue American with kids' soccer scores and first-graders' photographs, have proved disinclined to subscribe to what they consider an upstart daily containing little of direct interest to them.

And The Times has more suburban lures ahead. Its East bureau, like the ones north and south of Seattle, provides local news on a daily basis, placing stories specific to that area on the front page and increasingly throughout other sections.

In the near future, The Times will provide ``a substantial increase in business and sports coverage in the East zone,'' says Times publisher Frank Blethen, ``and we have some other things coming up.''

The morning Journal American's primary competition for readers ought to be Seattle's morning newspaper, The Post-Intelligencer, but the P-I covers Eastside news ``only if it's of interest to our readers generally, wherever they may live,'' according to publisher Virgil Fassio. He says there are no plans to zone the paper.

A `community' angle

Unlike McClelland, who sought to make the Journal American every household's primary source for all news, Weil instead has emphasized the ``community'' identification of the newspaper.

``We're an exclusive source for local news,'' he says. ``If you want to know what's going on in any of the communities we serve, you have to buy our newspaper; that's the one special niche we have, where nobody can compete with us.''

Since its acquisition by Persis, the Journal American has adopted a USA Today-like format - flashy layout, lots of color, and consistent packaging of short news bites - and is known in some quarters of the Eastside as ``McPaper.''

Acknowledging the Journal American is providing adequate news coverage especially from its King County bureau, Wetzel wrote in Eastsideweek that he ``generally regrets'' that the paper does not indulge in ``the sort of in-depth coverage we used to value; and I miss the local book and entertainment commentary.''

``On the other hand, they may have a better formula for success than we did'' in the early days of the Journal American.

A big challenge

``The Journal American has a difficult task,'' The Times' Blethen reflects, ``because the Eastside is now going into a second suburban ring out in the Sammamish Plateau area.''

It's difficult for a newspaper with a staff the size of the Journal American's and its focus in Bellevue to try to be the paper for the entire Eastside.

``When it spreads itself so thin, that leaves opportunity wide-open for a specialty publication like Eastsideweek to come in,'' adds Blethen.

Journal American management has launched a new weekly on its eastern edge, where the daily had fewer than 800 subscribers. Since Dec. 5, 10,000 copies of the Snoqualmie Valley Reporter have been distributed to homes and newsstands in North Bend, Snoqualmie, Duvall, Preston, Carnation and Fall City - home territory of the Snoqualmie Valley Record.

After sending Journal American staffers to get the new publication started, Weil hired a news staff of five, lavish by area weekly newspaper standards. To cement community identification, Weil teamed with the the QFC grocery chain to establish a flood-relief fund.

The new paper's publisher is Susan Bond, a North Bend resident who four years ago started a monthly flyer called The Country Shopper. Last June, Bond converted her shopper into the Community Voice, a biweekly with some news stories.

``I was having my paper printed at the Journal American,'' Bond said. ``I talked with them about the concept (of a newspaper covering the entire Snoqualmie Valley), and they liked the idea.''

At the office of the Snoqualmie Valley Record in the town of Snoqualmie, co-publisher Bob Scott says, ``We're going on our 76th year . . . I think we reflect the community pretty well.''

The Record looks much like newspapers of 30 and 40 years ago, crammed with big, bold headlines, and filled with reports from rural correspondents and ``personals'' about its readers.

The Record operates ``like newspapers used to be run,'' says Scott's wife, Sandie, who works beside him setting copy and pasting up pages. ``We're a place for people to call and come in, where they know they can get information. We help them as much as we can, for our purpose is to serve the community.

``We want to keep it this way.''

Bob Scott doubts the Reporter will put the Record out of business.

The area's growth pattern will change radically in another year or two, he observes, ``and we'll grow very fast. I think there'll be room enough for both of us.''

Hard to pinpoint

Nobody's making book on what the Eastside media patterns will be next year, or the next.

Beneath all the jargon, it's advertising that pays the bills, and advertisers follow ``the numbers,'' the circulation figures. There are just so many Eastside advertising dollars to go around.

For both The Times and Eastsideweek, advertising mainstays are Seattle businesses seeking Eastside customers, and large firms with Eastside branches. While the Journal American has recently attracted more department-store advertising, Eastside retailers remain its bread and butter.

``I think the last four or five years have brought a better understanding of the market and the area's needs,'' says Bob Hartley, who as Journal American publisher fought its circulation battle for five years. ``But I wouldn't go so far as to say that anybody's got the right answers yet.

``What by now is apparent is, you can't just throw a blanket over the market. The Journal American hasn't, The Times hasn't.

``What we've got has a fractured, fragmented look to it.

``Things might change again in another five years; we'll look up and see we've got to do something different, because this latest strategy didn't work like everybody thought it would.''

Nobody yet has a lock on the Eastside. The plus side of new papers, Hartley observes, ``is that they put everybody else on notice and lift the level of competition and of journalistic thinking and doing.''

``There will be some sifting out of who survives, but the net result will be that the reader is better-served.''

Peggy Reynolds is a freelance writer living on Mercer Island. She writes a monthly column for The Seattle Times East edition and is the former publisher of the Mercer Island Reporter.

Press watch: a reading of the Eastside's paper players

In the Eastside media drama, you can't tell the players without a program. Here are the general-interest newspapers with a thumbnail description, names of owners and publishers, territory, and most recently available Circulation figures:

EASTSIDEWEEK, alternative weekly newspaper founded October 1990 by Sasquatch Publishing Co. Inc. of Seattle, president David Brewster. Publisher Knute ``Skip'' Berger. Based in Kirkland. Covers entire Eastside. Circulation 19,000, distributed free from 300-plus stands in stores and restaurants throughout Eastside cities and towns.

JOURNAL AMERICAN, all-Eastside daily founded 1976, owned since 1986 by Northwest Media Inc., a subsidiary of the Persis Corp. of Honolulu. Publisher Robert J. Weil. Circulation 31,668 paid, average daily for 12 months ending March 31, 1990, source Audit Bureau of Circulation. Most recent circulation figure, 35,035 paid. Source: publisher. Also mails and puts on stands two free advertising editions.

THE SEATTLE TIMES, metropolitan daily evening newspaper with 51 percent local ownership, 49 percent Knight-Ridder. Publisher Frank Blethen. Zones front page and inside sections for Eastside. Eastside circulation, ABC average daily 12 months ending March 31, 1990, 54,129 paid, carrier-delivered. Sends free advertising edition to nonsubscribers.

SEATTLE POST-INTELLIGENCER, metropolitan daily morning newspaper owned by the Hearst Corp. Publisher Virgil Fassio. No zoned editions. Eastside circulation, ABC average daily 12 months ending March 31, 1990, 26,004 paid, carrier-delivered. No free advertising editions.

BOTHELL/WOODINVILLE NORTHSHORE CITIZEN, weekly founded 1903, owned since 1987 by Persis Corp./Northwest Media Inc. Editor Michael Landauer. Circulation 9,300 paid plus 15,700 free advertising edition, all carrier-delivered. Source: Northwest Media Inc. circulation department.

MERCER ISLAND REPORTER, weekly founded 1954, owned since 1986 by Persis Corp./Northwest Media Inc. General manager Virginia Smyth. Covers only Mercer Island. Circulation carrier-delivered and newsstands, 5,106 paid. Source: Washington Newspaper Publishers Association ratebook.

MERCER ISLANDER, monthly founded 1986, owned since 1989 by Pacific Media Inc. of Seattle, publisher Tom Haley. Covers only Mercer Island. Circulation by mail, 9,000 free. Source: WNPA ratebook.

ISSAQUAH PRESS, 90-year-old weekly, owned since 1989 by Pacific Media Inc. of Seattle. Publisher Debbie Berto. Covers Issaquah and environs and Issaquah school district. Circulation by mail, carrier and newsstands, 7,600 paid, 11,000 free advertising edition. Source: publisher.

SNOQUALMIE VALLEY RECORD, 76-year-old weekly owned since 1965 by Bob and Sandie Scott. Covers Snoqualmie Valley including towns of Snoqualmie, North Bend, Fall City, Preston, Carnation, Duvall. Circulation through mail and newsstands 5,000 paid. Source: publishers.

SNOQUALMIE VALLEY REPORTER, weekly founded December 1990 by Persis Corp./Northwest Media Inc. Publisher Susan Bond. Covers Snoqualmie Valley including towns of North Bend, Snoqualmie, Duvall, Preston, Carnation, Fall City. Circulation first issue 8,747 mailed, 4,000 newsstands, all free. Source: publisher.

WOODINVILLE WEEKLY, tabloid founded 1976 by owner/publisher Carol Edwards. Circulation: 10,140 by mail to all addresses in Woodinville, 1,000 by carrier to Redmond/English Hill, 6,746 on newsstands in Woodinville, Kingsgate, Clearview and Maltby; zoned edition THE VALLEY VIEW, 6,989 mailed and 4,000 newsstand in Carnation, Duvall, Fall City and Route 1 Monroe; zoned edition NORTHLAKE NEWS, 5,000 on newsstands in Bothell, Kenmore, Canyon Park, Mill Creek. All free. Source: publisher.

KIRKLAND COURIER, founded 1978, now owned by Dan Zimmerman, covers Kirkland and environs. Circulation 17,200 free, delivered mostly by carriers. Source: publisher.

SAMMAMISH VALLEY NEWS, founded 1947. Frank Parchman, current owner/publisher. Covers Redmond and environs. First section tabloid format, enclosing broadsheet second section. Circulation first Wednesday of each month 25,000 mailed free to all homes; on remaining Wednesdays, 18,400 free delivered by carrier. Source: publisher.