Newspaper rivalry affects printing bid process

At the heart of the dispute between Columbia’s competing daily newspapers lie a wild mix of academic history, some strong personalities and the inevitable call of economic reality.

The rivalry, which spilled onto the news and editorial pages of both newspapers over the last month, is unique because Columbia is the smallest city in America with two daily newspapers. There is no other newspaper in the U.S. that is both a commercial business and a teaching laboratory. And there is no other newspaper in the U.S. that could operate with a deficit the size of the Missourian’s ­— $1.6 million as of June 30, 2005.

While there is no argument that the Columbia Daily Tribune has a larger circulation (18,000) in Columbia than the Missourian (7,000), the competition for editorial content continues. But that journalistic competition found its way into the business sides of the newspapers last month when the Tribune argued that the Missourian was planning to engage in unfair competition with the Jefferson City News Tribune.

Since the Missourian is partially subsidized by the state, it is required by law to partake in a formal bidding process to seek out vendors for a particular service. In this case, the Missourian needed to outsource its printing because its current printing press is failing and it does not have the $1.5 million needed to replace it, said Dan Potter, general manager of the Missourian.

But Potter wanted more than just printing. He wanted a regional sales network, a partnership among newspapers in which an advertiser pays a single fee for advertisements in all of the two newspapers’ total publications. Potter saw it as essential for the Missourian to seek out both the printing and the regional sales network contract in order to increase revenue and lower printing expenses, which cost the Missourian nearly $1 million a year.

A deal is discussed

Potter began communicating with the News Tribune’s general manager, Mike Vivion, in May about creating such a partnership. In an e-mail dated June 12, Potter writes, “I’m kind of thinking of this timetable: We’d move our printing by Aug. 1 and not later than Sept. 1 to your plant. I’ll stay in touch. I’m excited about all the synergies we can create in advertising.”

Tribune Associate Publisher Vicki Russell said the Missourian’s developing relationship with the News Tribune would lead to unfair competition.

“I think it’s inappropriate for a state-operated teaching lab to develop that kind of relationship with a private enterprise,” Russell said.

Potter proposed to the MU Procurement Office that he did not need to open the bidding process to every possible vendor because the News Tribune was the only vendor that could satisfy both the printing and the regional sales network. In other words, the Missourian would enter into a sole-source contract with the News Tribune.

The News Tribune prints the Fulton Sun and the California Democrat in addition to its own paper. Therefore, the regional sales network would operate in Cole, Osage, Boone, Howard, Cal­la­way and Moniteau counties.

Initially, university procurement officials raised no red flags about the sole-source approach. But a month later, MU Vice-Chancellor Jackie Jones dissolved the sole-source contract and required the Missourian to release a request for proposals to make the RFP available to all potential vendors. The Missourian sent an RFP on Aug. 28 to the News Tribune, the Columbia Tribune, and the Mexico (Mo.) Ledger.

The Tribune reacts

The Tribune found what it claims were errors in the RFP and sent a five-page response to MU on Aug. 31 that questioned the legality of MU’s publicly funded joint advertising venture with a private enterprise, certain bid specifications, and the point system put in place to choose the winner.

“The School of Journalism compromised their own ethics by rigging the bid. It’s disappointing to me about my alma mater’s actions,” Russell said. “I’m not faulting MU’s Procurement Office and I’m willing to believe that someone didn’t do their homework on the bidding process and just screwed up. But the RFP was structured so the News Tribune would win the bid.”

The Tribune published a Sept. 28 article indicating that officials at MU’s journalism school “rigged a request for bids to favor the same vendor (News Tribune).”

Potter, also an MU alumnus, said he thought he was just doing his job.

“A win in the Columbia Daily Tribune’s eyes is not to win the bid but to make it absolutely impossible for the Missourian to bid with anyone because they have that much animosity for us,” he said shortly after reading the Tribune’s Sept. 28 article. “I’ve never understood the animosity of the Tribune to the Missourian. But when it comes down to business, it’s not healthy competition. It’s just plain vicious.”

Potter later said in an accuracy check, “I regret characterizing the Tribune’s actions as vicious, but after just reading the Tribune’s story, it greatly angered me.”

Russell agrees there is animosity between the two papers but said it stems from the Missourian. She said the Missourian’s motto while she worked in the paper’s advertising department as a student was “to put the Tribune out of business.”

“I feel sometimes that things that have happened since then are part of that legacy,” she said. “I wish we could move away from whatever residue is left of that and think constructively to make this all right.”

New bids expected soon

After getting several complaints about the RFP’s structure from different vendors, the Missourian agreed to change its proposal to accommodate more bidders, said Mary Jo Banken, head of the MU News Bureau who spoke on behalf of Chief Procurement Officer Bill Cooper.

In the end, the school decided to see what a printing contract would cost, said Dean Mills, the dean of MU’s Journalism School. “But Dan (Potter) and I had reservations about it because the Columbia Tribune is our direct competitor and giving them the ability to print us is putting a gun to our heads if they don’t play well.”

The new bid was released Oct. 3. It only requested bids for printing and excluded bids for a regional sales network.

Potential vendors have until 2 p.m. on Oct. 16 to send in their bids.

Mills said the Missourian would wait “until the dust settles” before deciding whether to continue to pursue a regional sales network. Potter said he expects that once a bid is selected, printing of the Missourian will be moved by mid-November.

As for the Missourian-Tribune rivalry, both Mills and Russell wrote in recent editorials in their respective papers that they hope both papers can get back to the historic tradition of being friendly competitors.

“My hope for the future would be, and I think the Tribune’s hope would be, that spirited and professional competition exists between both newspapers on news and advertising and other fronts,” Potter said.

To promote fair coverage, stories about the Missourian’s request for printing proposals are being directed from outside the newsroom by MU journalism professor Charles Davis. He can be reached at DavisCN@missouri.edu.