Mac Tully will begin 2004 with a new job in a familiar city. He will follow Chip Visci as Knight Ridder’s vice president of operations, working with 16 newspapers, and return to San Jose where he started his newspaper career as an intern at the Mercury News 25 years ago. Since then he’s worked in advertising at The Kansas City Star, and moved into executive positions at the Arlington Star-Telegram and the Fort Worth Star-Telegram. Tully was named Knight Ridder’s executive of the year for 2003 for his work at the Bradenton (Fla.) Herald where he served as president and publisher.
In four years at Bradenton, Tully helped the paper drive advertising revenue, increase circulation, and win journalism awards in a competitive area that includes the St. Petersburg Times, The Tampa Tribune, and most directly, the Sarasota Herald-Tribune.
Before heading for San Jose, he sat down in Bradenton for a conversation with Poynter’s president, Karen Brown Dunlap.
Dunlap: What advice can you give corporate presidents and publishers as many newspapers experience flat or declining circulation?
Tully: What we have really focused on is identifying the areas that are most important to our franchise and our growth. That may mean different marketing techniques. It certainly means different zoning to meet the needs of local news expectation. A lot of what we’re going to do with this new product called “E” (a revamped weekly entertainment section) will be different content for eastern Manatee County and different advertising than what we’re going to give to the Bradenton readers. We’re identifying the communities that are important and then doing what it takes to serve them.
Dunlap: How do you identify their needs?
Tully: We have reader advisory boards. We meet with them no less than two times a year, sometimes more if we have products that we want to launch. Approximately 40 to 50 people would sit on those boards. One for Bradenton, one for East Manatee, and we ask them about how we’re doing. What are we not doing that we should be doing? Are we meeting their expectations? Our perceptions about what we’re doing quite frankly are sometimes very different from their perceptions about how we’re doing.
Dunlap: How would you describe this geographic area?
Tully: It’s perfect for newspapers. It’s a high growth area. It’s a good demographic area. It’s newspaper reader-friendly. What I mean by that is it’s a little elderly and those people typically meet our — I say those people, I’m one of them — we are typically better readers of the newspaper. I think the median age here is 45. The median age in the United States is I believe 35. The demographics are very good. The lifestyles are very good. So, you can’t land in a community and have more opportunities than I’ve had here.
Dunlap: If the area is so favorable to newspapers, why wasn’t the Bradenton Herald more successful when you arrived?
Tully: Well, I think they had a problem in executing some of those ideas. They’ve been planning on zoning here for three years and they’d never done it. It’s OK to make decisions and actually make some mistakes, but it’s best to get some things done and that’s really where they had a problem.
Dunlap: So a leadership lesson would be…
Tully: Just execute it.
Dunlap: What did you do to improve the journalistic quality of the paper?
Tully: The paper has won more awards the past two years than they’ve done in all other years that I think we were aware of. I think that’s due to a couple things. I think we are a better paper. We are also entering more contests than we have in the past, and I’ve asked the editors to do that for a reason. I want to have the employees here recognize that this is a very good newspaper. And one of the mechanisms you can do that with is by showing the awards that are won by the most creditable organizations.
That’s also important to readers. All newspapers have nicknames, but when I got here the nickname for this newspaper was the “mullet wrapper.” But I tell you: You rarely, if ever, hear anyone refer to this newspaper in that way anymore.
Dunlap: You bring an interesting perspective because your background is on the business side. How do you think about journalism, and how do you lead journalists?
Tully: I try not to overstep my bounds with the editor. I really believe very strongly that when you get an editor who has the same values, and the same goals and aspirations for the newspaper, then We’re identifying the communities that are important and then doing what it takes to serve them.you let her or him (her in my case) do the things necessary to make things happen. We meet every day to review the content of the paper and lay the papers down side-by-side and we say, Who had what story? Which paper had which story first? Which paper’s following them? We also go through advertising content, but the main thing that we want to determine is, Were we the dominant provider of local news and information for our market today? And most days, if not all days, we are.
We do count stories here and that kind of drives the newsroom a little bit crazy. While quality is extremely important and we would not sacrifice our quality, I also think quantity and bulk is important too, just so the readers can physically see we are delivering more of local news content than anybody else in the market. We’re clearly their choice for local news.
Dunlap: How do you make decisions about more stories versus more in-depth stories?
Tully: That is up to the editor. I would certainly bow to her convictions on that. From time to time we either get tied on the number of stories by the competition, or occasionally they have more stories than we did. That’s a rarity, but that’s nothing to get wigged out over unless some of those stories were really important stories, not just features, or more in-depth stories or investigative stories. All that’s really the editor’s decision.
Dunlap: Let’s talk about local versus corporate ownership. The St. Petersburg newspaper is locally owned, in fact, owned by Poynter. You’ve been in various organizations. What’s the difference between local and corporate ownership? Or is there a difference?
Tully: We are a smaller newspaper, so I rarely get calls from corporate. I never get a call from corporate on any news issue such as endorsements or coverage. Those decisions are clearly left up to the independent property and I absolutely believe that’s the right way to go. We do talk about revenue targets and profit targets and those types of things. But pretty much the way you’ll achieve those goals is left up to the individual publishers, which I think is the right move. We are the people closest to the situation.
I’m going into corporate now so this is interesting. My hat is going to shift, but I do think the absolutely best management tool is to lay out the expectations and then give the people an opportunity to achieve those expectations on their own without dictating to them how you’re going to make that happen.
Dunlap: Let’s follow that a bit. You had a very happy outcome of exceeding corporate revenue projections. Many other publishers struggle to meet revenue goals and challenge corporate expectations as they seek the resources needed to produce a quality publication. As you move from publisher to a corporate position, how will you address that divide?
Tully: It has to be a balance. You can’t have an expectation on only one factor because the two go hand-in-hand to build your franchise. The main thing we have to do is to make sure that we are laying the foundation for building the franchise for the future. That doesn’t mean completely turn your back on the short-term because I do think you can do both: reach revenue goals and improve quality. You shouldn’t just invest in a product without expectations about where that’s going to take you. You have to have a payback in either circulation or advertising.
I’m going to deal with a newspaper’s success two ways: share of circulation and share of advertising. If we’re going to do something that is an investment either in a news product or in an advertising We do count stories here and that kind of drives the newsroom a little bit crazy.vehicle or in service for circulation, we will need to know what it’s going to take, what is going to be the expected payoff, and when are we going to get that payoff. I do think that corporations can get to be too shortsighted about the money thing. Is it going to make us money next month, or is it going to make us money this year, how is it going to impact this year? Now those are important questions, but I think the more important question is what it’s going to do for us over the course of several years.
Dunlap: What’s the future of newspapers?
Tully: Well, we’re being challenged — that’s no news. We have severe challenges. We have got to start growing our share of advertising dollars. If we don’t take back some of the share that has happened in our business, then we’re going to continue to have the kind of cost pressures that we have now. What’s driving all of the pressures on cost is the lack of revenue. We can solve that problem by taking back some of the share that’s rightfully ours. No other media has the kind of reach that the daily newspaper has — every day. But we’ve allowed the niche publications to come in and take a little bit here, we’ve allowed TV to come in and take a little bit here, radio’s taken some, direct mail’s taken some, billboards take some, and everybody’s taken their bite. All of a sudden we’re sitting with a share that’s considerably less then it was and it continues to get smaller. We can stop that erosion by introduction of new products and once we solve the revenue problem, the cost problem will solve itself. That will go away. A great revenue flow will heal all kinds of wounds or ills at a newspaper.
Dunlap: You sound like a man who has sold newspapers for a long time.
Tully: Well I believe in this. And my father did too. I admire my dad and I’ve followed in his footsteps for a reason. He believed in what he was doing and I believe in what I’m doing. And now, interestingly, my son has decided to follow in my footsteps. That’s meant a lot to me.
Dunlap: Any other thoughts about how you’ve seen the industry change?
Tully: Absolutely. We grew from when we were like bankers just taking in the money and didn’t have to worry. We could have been as arrogant as heck — not that we were, but we could have been. We’ve had to become much more innovative and creative about how we get the reader’s attention and the monies invested in our product.
Dunlap: What’s the best advice you ever got?
Tully: When you get up in the morning, you look yourself in the mirror. If you’re satisfied with the work you’ve done, that’s the most important thing. You don’t have to please anybody else except yourself.
Dunlap: What’s one thing you wish you could call back?
Tully: Gosh. Biggest mistake I’ve made. I’ve made a few big mistakes. I think I would have tried to work with the Dallas papers, instead of being such a competitor of the Dallas papers, because in the end We have got to start growing our share of advertising dollars. If we don’t … then we’re going to continue to have the kind of cost pressures that we have now.we should be working together to solve problems as opposed to fighting each other. It became so competitive and such an adversarial fight that there was no way … for either paper to back out gracefully. So in the end, we said one paper had to walk away the winner. I do feel as though newspapers have so many enemies — not other newspapers. We should be working together to take out ADVO and we should be working together to fight TV and radio. We would be stronger if we were working together rather than trying to compete with each other.
Dunlap: Would that be your advice to someone who comes into a situation of competition like the one in Bradenton?
Tully: Well, if you’re going to face competition you’re going to have to squelch it. Absolutely. But, my advice for other papers that are moving into the area is to really analyze what the competition is worth to you. What is your gain as a result of those competitive efforts, and what could we do together in getting our share from other competing media as opposed to other newspapers? What if we were working, hand-in-hand, in collaborative effort?
Dunlap: Do you see that happening here?
Tully: I’d like to see it happen here. I think both papers would be much stronger if it did happen here.
Dunlap: By “squelch,” do you mean to dominate your region?
Tully: Yes. I don’t think you can beat a hometown newspaper on its own turf if it’s doing its job as the hometown newspaper. Competition does make you better and we’re a better newspaper for it, no question about it. But both newspapers are spending incredible amounts of money now trying to beat off the other one for areas that, quite frankly, should be the hometown turf if that newspaper is doing its job properly. I would much rather be spending that money to attack television or to attack radio or try to build the revenues in other areas rather than taking revenues to compete with another newspaper. That would make both papers much stronger than they are today. Not that they’re not strong. We’re a strong newspaper and they are, too.
Dunlap: Where do you feel the greatest sense of achievement?
Tully: I feel good about the success of this newspaper. It was really viewed as kind of in trouble when I got here. It’s no longer viewed that way. It’s viewed as a real opportunity and a great place for people to come and a great place to work. I take a lot of pride in that.
Dunlap: You are quite the advocate for the newspaper.
Tully: Well, I believe in what we’re doing. I believe that what we do is one of the things the founding fathers intended to happen. We’re one of the protectors of democracy.
