The last few days have provided a lesson in humility, John Paton acknowledged.
Mr. Paton, the chief executive of the management company Digital First Media Group, had his subsidiary, the Journal Register Company, file for bankruptcy protection last Wednesday.
Since then, he has found himself facing a firing squad of media bloggers and former employees on Facebook and Twitter. They were not impressed with how the company faced bankruptcy for the second time in three years, especially since Mr. Paton had spent the last couple of years touting Journal Register's digital growth to the press.
A former Journal Register employee, Rachel Jackson, wrote in a letter to the Romanesko journalism bl og that “John Paton and his cronies ran the papers into the ground.â€
Ryan Chittum, deputy editor of the Audit for Columbia Journalism Review, wrote “They can spin it all they want, but Paton's digital bonanza hasn't been quite what he's implied, and it hasn't been enough to stave off bankruptcy.â€
Mr. Paton seemed like he had read every one of his critics' comments.
“It's pretty damn public and it's pretty damn embarrassing,†Mr. Paton said Monday in an interview. Still, it didn't change his mind that he had no choice but to file for bankruptcy. “From a business perspective, it's the absolute right thing to do,†he said.
Mr. Paton said in the last five days he visited nine Journal Register Company properties in four states, including Ohio, Michigan, Connecticut and Pennsylvania, to talk about how the bankruptcy would play out. This week, he plans to visit two more Journal Register sites in Ohio.
“I think they now understand why we're doing this even if they don't understand the financial mechanics,'†he said.
Many media bloggers and followers on Twitter raised concern that bankruptcy was just an easy way for Mr. Paton not to pay the pensions of employees at papers like the New Haven Register and the Trentonian. Mr. Paton said that while “it's up to the new owner to decide with the unions how they're going to negotiate†pension benefits, the company's research showed that employees' pensions should be protected under coverage provided by the Pension Benefit Guaranty Corporation.
Lawyers have told Mr. Paton that the bankruptcy should be completed in the next three to four months.
Mr. Paton stressed that he still thought recent college graduates should go into journalism. He said the Journal Register Company can hire and fire staff through bankruptcy. He stressed that his other newspapers, like the Denver Post, which are part of the Media News Group division of Digital First, a re thriving and that young people have a lot of opportunities in this field.
“I think there's a huge future for journalism,†said Mr. Paton.
