When the United States began, the press meant newspapers — the venerable Fourth Estate. Attributed to British politician Edmund Burke (1729 - 1797), that cognomen for newspapers has been broadened to include all of the mass media. The press is protected by law from Congress, but it is not protected from business or technology. Despite pundits’ predictions to the contrary, radio failed to kill newspapers and television failed to kill radio. Nor is the Internet killing its media cousins. As newspapers across the country fail or fold, bad business practices in the present bleak economy threatens all of the Fourth Estate.
The story of the failing San Francisco Chronicle is just one example of a major metro-area newspaper having been managed into the dinosaur museum of media. It took the paper losing $50 million last year for management to make a remarkable discovery of the obvious. Its last-ditch solution is to slash expenses and purge the payroll. "Our current situation dictates that we accomplish these cost savings quickly," Chronicle Publisher Frank Vega wrote in a memo to the staff. "Business as usual is no longer an option."
The New York-based Hearst Corporation bought the Chronicle in 2000 in a $660 million deal and has been losing money ever since. The paper is the largest daily in northern California with a paid weekday circulation of 340-thousand and a work force of about 1500 people. According to the Wall Street Journal, Hearst said it will seek "critical cost-saving measures," including a steep reduction in the Chronicle's staff. If it can't reach its cost-saving target "within weeks," Hearst said it will seek a new owner for the Chronicle. If it cannot find a buyer, Hearst said it will close the paper. Bankers say there are no likely buyers for the Chronicle.
The list of new exhibits in the museum of dinosaur media includes other inductees such as the Seattle Post Intelligencer and the Miami Herald. After 150 years Denver’s Rocky Mountain News is history. Tribune Company, parent to the Chicago Tribune and Los Angeles Times, has filed for bankruptcy. So has Philadelphia Newspapers which publishes the Philadelphia Inquirer and Philadelphia Daily Journal. In fact, 33 newspapers have filed for bankruptcy protection. The American Society of Newspaper Editors has cancelled its annual convention for 2009.
Mike Hoyt is the Columbia Journalism Review Executive Editor. He says such losses are sad because newspapers are very tied in with their community. “When a city only has one paper,” Hoyt said, "you lose competition, and you lose the edge, and you lose energy. Competition is good. It sharpens the news gathering, and the investigative reporting." Reflecting on Denver and San Francisco, Hoyt said, "The daily newspaper in a major metropolitan market is the voice of a city. It provides a civic forum that everyone can relate to and come together to talk about. And it can take on complicated problems, and be a watchdog for the community. You need big institutions to cover big problems and big situations."
Article comments
— go to most recent comments1 - Clavos
Tommy, I'm puzzled as to why you include The Miami Herald in your "museum of dinosaur media." As a daily subscriber of many years' standing, I find the paper to be as vibrant and investigative as ever, with a highly competent and inquisitive staff of reporters.
It's true that its circulation has sagged in recent years, and it probably is running short of capital these days, such that as a business, it may well be struggling, but as a newspaper it is as good (or better even) as it ever was.
Late last year, the Herald ran a muckraking series on Medicare fraud that was outstanding, and for which the paper is likely to win yet another Pulitzer.
Its columnists, including such luminaries as Leonard Pitts and Beth Reinhard, are outstanding. Pitts is nationally syndicated and runs in dozens of newspapers. he is himself a Pulitzer winner, and his column of September 12, 2001 is considered by many journalism critics to be one of the finest such ever written.
Like many others, the Herald is struggling to find its niche in the new order of journalism, but a dinosaur it is not.
2 - Tommy Mack
Clavos,
You speak to my distinction exactly. There is considerable difference between journalism and business. I added the Miami Herald to my museum because it is for sale. Like the Chronicle, it may not find a buyer.
However, the Herald could be folded into the Ft. Lauderdale Sun Sentinel and have its name survive.
Tommy
3 - Baritone
There is much to lament at the possible, perhaps probable death of newsprint journalism. Any of us who were not weaned before a keyboard and monitor find this prospect very disturbing.
We are most of us accustomed to perusing the newspaper at breakfast, during a lunch break, in our easy chair of an evening or even on the john. It's a comforting and comfortable habit.
While most of us who write here at BC are to one degree or other inured to using computers, it still is just not the same animal.
Each morning I dawn adequate clothing and saunter out to the mail box at the street and retrieve my morning newspaper. I pour my coffee, fix my toast or bowl of cereal and check out what's happening in the world. I am used to the look, the feel, even the smell of newsprint.
While it is hard to imagine that print newspapers will survive in any real measure for more than a decade or so (if that,) it is even more difficult to imagine the day without them.
What with the advent of more and more portable electronic media, it is, I suppose, likely that what journalistic organizations manage to survive far into the century will have turned in whole or large part to cyber space. Virtually every news organization of whatever stamp has a significant presence on the web. Versions of newspapers, magazines, etc., are available to the internet via computers, wireless phones and whatever else is out there skulking in the cyber darkness. We old farts will likely just have to grin and bare it. Perhaps it will ultimately ease our laundry bill what with no more ink stains on our shirts derived from toting the newspaper under our arm on the way to work.
But, what of wrapping the garbage or lining the bottom of the bird cage?
B
4 - Cindy
Here's your newspaper B.
5 - roger nowosielski
Nice link. Still, not the same. Writing into the screen may have supplanted the traditional way of putting the pen to paper or chugging along with the old Remington, the keys clucking, Raymond Chandler way.
Reading is not the same in terms of taking notes, writing on the margins, etc. There's something to be said for tactile experience.
6 - Dan(Miller)
Once upon a time, a chisel and a piece of rock were needed to record the news. Delivery was, I suppose, a bit of a nuisance. Things changed, and then there were newspapers. I hardly ever read newspapers now, because any English language newspapers that I could get would be days old. I can buy Spanish language newspapers, and sometimes do, so that I can puzzle through them, dictionary in hand. Mainly, I buy them for the advertisements. Like all newspapers, they are also good for house breaking puppies. If we had any birds in cages, newspapers would probably also be more useful than a computer for lining the cages.
The internet (regardless of whether Mr. Gore invented it on the way to discovering Global Warming) is, for me at least, a far superior vehicle. I can scan four or five on-line papers in less than an hour before breakfast. The Latin American Herald Tribune is at the top of my list, followed by la Prensa in Spanish (Google does a pretty good translation, and there is even an English language section), followed by several aggregators. When I find an interesting article and want to know more, it generally has multiple links to more information. Friends often send me e-mails with links to articles they found interesting and thought I might enjoy. That would be quite inconvenient to do with articles only available in traditional newspapers. I am on the mailing lists for various on-line newspapers, which send daily e-mails with links to their articles.
With these resources, I am not confined by the whims of various print publishers, nor do I have to wait until tomorrow for news which broke after it was time to go to press. I can easily pick and choose from a far wider variety of sources than were I limited to the paper editions of a couple of newspapers. If I wish, I can interact by sending inane letters to the authors of articles, whose by-lines are often accompanied by an e-mail address, or by posting such stuff on the web site bulletin board. Writing a "letter to the editor" can be fun, but not quite as much fun. Sometimes, when I post a comment, another reader will post something to let me know that I am an idiot. Instant gratification is good. And, of course, it's all free. Were I so inclined, I could purchase subscriptions to newspapers which provide all of their print content on the web. Thus far, I have not felt a need to do that.
The likely demise of traditional newspapers doesn't bother me much. They once did a pretty good job, and it would be odd to see a photo of President Truman holding up a computer monitor headlining his defeat by Governor Dewey. Yeah, I'm old enough to remember that, barely. Life goes on, just fine. Sometimes, it even gets better.
Dan(Miller)
7 - Matthew T. Sussman
Baritone, I've heard a lot of wistful essays similar to yours. "Aw, I used to read the PAPER while drinking COFFEE and eating TOAST! The world is changing!!" Crimony. I used to poop my pants and drink from a sippy cup myself, and while I fondly look back on those times, I don't get broken up over it.
I read newspapers in high school and college. Once I graduated and began traveling, I didn't feel the need to sit down and read a newspaper front to back.
Now, maybe it's because my job takes me to different newspapers all across the country, but maybe I get my fill by watching people put together the paper, occasionally using the down time to peruse through a couple-of-days-old edition laying around.
But while watching print newsrooms vanish is sad, watching radio news slowly erode and even witnessing local TV stations shed their staff, I am aware that their void will quickly be filled by other mediums.
And it could just be the job security talking, but newspapers will never go away. People need something to read on the bathroom, on the train, in the airplane, and wherever wi-fi just isn't that great. Nobody's talking about the death of the publishing industry as a whole -- matter of fact, there seem to be more books out there -- and magazines seem to be holding steady.
I could go on and on, because I'm very passionate about this subject, so I'll stop before I challenge Ruvy to a word count-a-thon.
8 - Matthew T. Sussman
Also, this isn't a politics story.
9 - Dave Nalle
Suss-man surely you know by now that everything is political.
Dave
10 - Baritone
Cindy,
Yeah, I know. They're trying. But you don't get the sounds, or the smell, or the frustration of trying to fold the paper just so, so you can read holding it in one hand while sipping OJ with the other.
Matthew,
Ah me. I am just of an age that I now possess a "legal carry" for a maudlin license. I understand exactly what you and Dan (Miller) are saying. Progress, progress, progress. But many of us prefer those things that came to us in our formative years, the early days of adulthood. We make our choices and form our habits fairly early in life.
I'm not crying crocodile tears about it. I'll muddle through. And, I assume that our local paper will still be out there in the box for a few more years, at least.
But, there may come a time in your life when you start seeing the sign posts of your existence fading into the mist. With most "progress" much is often gained. But something is also lost.
Oh, and Matthew. Be patient. Those days of pooping your pants and drinking from a sippy cup will return all too soon. You'll be home again. :-/
B
11 - Clavos
You're a romantic, B-Tone.
12 - Baritone
Clav,
With a measure of cynicism, yes, guilty as charged.
B
13 - Cindy
Ah, romantics :-)
14 - Baritone
Matthew,
RE: Your #8. Granted, much of the discussion has NOT been of a political or even business nature. But the article certainly focused on the business realities facing the print media, and there is little in this point in time that is less political than economics.
While I am the primary guilty party for having brought up the "warm and fuzzys," once again I give notice that I am a licensed, card carrying - uh - maudliner guy. Mr. Wistful is the name. Warm and fuzzy is my game! Kick-ass warm and fuzzys, I should add, so keep a safe distance.:%)
B
15 - Cindy
"...everything is political." --Dave Nalle
yeah!
B,
I am a hopeless romantic. Wistfulness--yeah, comes with the territory (sometimes). But ouch, to be stuck at wistful. Joyful--that I like.
16 - Cindy
B,
Here is some joy for you:
Go here. Take the first song (Pata Pata, Miriam Makeba). Get something to use for percussion--drums, pots, spoons, whatever. Then give them out to your family. Now, play that song and you form a conga line through the house. Lotta joyfulness. :-)
17 - STM
What Tommy fails to mention here is that newspaper circulation is declining all over the world, so it'd be reasonable to conclude that not every news organisation is guilty of operating poor business models.
The one I work for has seen a circulation fall from over 700,000 to around 670,000 in the past five years or so - well before any impact of the global recession hit. That makes it worse, of course, but the real reasons lie elsewhere.
It is still doing well and is edited by someone who really likes to have a go - and it tops the circulation charts in this country - but circulation falls of that magnitude should be a concern for any publisher. We've found we can sell an extra 50,000 copies with giveaways (CDs, promotions, etc) but it's cost prohibitive and circulation falls back to its normal level immediately afterwards.
In this case, the slide has been halted somewhat by the inclusion of some premium products on top of all the other inclusions - including a glossy mag and a much-lauded lifestyle liftout.
I suspect there are a couple of reasons for the fall but one of the main reasons IS new media, and the fact that we live in an information age in which newspaper readers are literally dying off and younger people haven't been trained to read them because it's easier to sit at a computer for five minutes and call up a website or watch a TV news broadcast.
There were always two copies of competing afternoon papers and either one of the two morning papers on our kitchen table when I was a kid. That's still the case in my house (except the afternoons have closed down years ago - back in the late 80s, early-to-mid 90s, which is true of other big afternoon newspapers across the globe). But other people tell me their kids just don't read them.
Certainly studies are showing that to be the case, at least in terms of falling readership.
We have tried to counter that in Sydney with a giveway afternoon commuter newspaper handed out at bus stops and railway stations across the city. It appeals to younger readers, and is something that has also been done in London.
Hopefully, those younger readers get in the habit of reading a daily newspaper and are encouraged to buy a daily paper through their experience with the giveaway paper.
Perhaps the other key to all this actually is in staying relevant and accepting that your audience in 2009 is a lot different to the one you had in 1979.
Also, despite the quote in Tommy's story about newspapers in America grilling politicians, that and - a free press - certainly isn't a uniquely American institution. The British have been doing it, and so have we, for centuries. A free press forms one of the pillars of these great democracies too, as it does elsewhere in the world where free speech is regarded as THE great right.
I do find some - certainly not all - American newspapers badly presented, hard to read and uniquely boring though, and too often they seem aimed at an "elite" audience. Elitism is a surefire way to lose touch with a large chunk of your readership, and balance is the key.
For instance, I think the average Joe or Joanne is more interested in say, how company executives on multi-million dollar paypackets are screwing the system while workers lose their jobs, or how much they can save on their groceries by shopping smart, than they are about where to get the best latte or where to see the latest arthouse film from France about a depressed writer, his drug-addict girlfriend and their threesome with a bi-sexual neighbour.
That, of course, and navigating through all the political spin and bullshit to deliver the REAL story to readers is what the press is about, and why I love working for it. There's been some deviation from the path in the past few decades, and I suspect it's the influx of journalism school graduates who sometimes think they are bigger than the story.
Once upon a time, the only way to become a reporter was to work first as a copyboy (or girl). That certainly gave people a real hunger, which transferred to their newsgathering skills.
Tommy's right though - it will survive, and the recession might even be a godsend in a way: the press traditionally survives recessions (and did better than most other industries in the Great Depression) as advertisers retreat to "old" media to get more bang for their buck, and readers turn to something that gives them a view literally in black and white.
Perhaps even the use of now-accepted terminology here - my use of "new" and "old" media - is symptomatic of the problems we are facing.
Patient's still warm and vertical, however, at this stage ... even if it's looking a bit ill.
18 - Ruvy
Matt,
A real newspaperman (someone reminded me rather forcefully that I'm not a journalist) has outdone me for the word count-a-thon.
So stick it where the sun don't shine and where the newspaper cleans the ..... oh we were talking abut cage liners and fish wrapping, weren't we?
I grew up being able to read up to seven newspapers in English and having a choice of about 20 or 30 dailies and weeklies in foreign languages. I found the great newspaper strike in New York - the one that closed the Daily Mirror and a passel of other papers - a very tragic event.
Nevertheless, the newspaper strike did resurrect the Brooklyn Eagle for a while, and being a Brooklyn boy, it was nice to see Bronx natives stuck reading the Eagle.
But, living in Israel, where everything costs a fortune, it is just plain cheaper to read the St. Paul Pioneer Press or New York Times for free, or peruse the English version of Yediot AHronot or Arutz Sheva - also for free - on the computer. The free giveaway commuter paper Yisrael Hayom has given both Ma'ariv and Yediot AHronot a run for their money and they both sell (near where Yisrael Hayom is given out) for 2 shekels a piece (about four shekels more than what they are worth).
I sit at my desk, drink my morning coffee and peruse the headlines and the stories. If my desk had more room, I'd eat my toast there too.... If I really get rich, I'll buy a handheld computer with internet access, and sit on the throne thinking great thoughts while perusing Arutz Sheva, and enjoying that "no pressure in the intestines" feeling.
When I was a kid, I wanted to go to printing school. Boy, am I glad I didn't!
The world moves on Baritone! And yes, Stan is right, newspaper readership is declining world-wide. So, at some point, we will all just have to get with the program....
19 - Tommy Mack
Newspapers are all about politics and always have been. They include lifestyle, local news (public relations releases and police blotters), business (more public relations) and sports (public relations and scores). But, it is the Op-Ed that makes a paper.
The idea of “investigative journalism” is an oxymoron. If it is not investigative, it is not journalism. It is (you guessed it) public relations.
With the possible exception of PBS and NPR, television and radio are about selling beer and cars. Journalism is a luxury. They have limited Op-Ed, if any. Newspapers endorse candidates. Television and radio report those endorsements.
Being an editorial columnist is like being an unelected public official. There is political gamesmanship involved.
I call out Congressman Nalle on some issue and claim he is a point missing, libertarian loon. The Congressman responds and accuses me of being a left leaning, communist sympathizing socialist muck-raker. We play this show to our constituents and stir the debate, being careful to keep both of our names in plain view. At best, after some time of name calling and public relations, we agree to disagree and have our pictures taken in that agreement. He gets reelected and I get to be critical of him for another term. At worst, I endorse his opponent, drive him from office and take up the game with another “opponent.”
Of course, one of us would have to be a crook for that to happen. Besides, Congressman Nalle and I both know that “government in the sunshine” is a load of radio and television. Politics is done in private.
The bombing of Britain made radio news important. The assassination of Lee Harvey Oswald made television news important. They best cover natural and human disaster. Both of those mediums are dominated by talk and sports " interesting to listen to and look at, but insignificant for decision making purposes.
Media convergence threatens the check and balance system of government, a purely political institution. My concern is that we are running out of press and that threatens our freedom.
Tommy
20 - roger nowosielski
I don't know whether this would add any to the discussion, but my interest in a decent paper (apart from when I'm looking at at out of boredom) would be good writing and good analysis. The readership has been declining for years, as STM says, but not only because of the new media but also because of the declining literacy.
I suppose comparing the reading trends today with that in past would tend to confirm that, as well as what kind of stuff (novels) people read - trash or good works.
21 - Baritone
Cindy,
Hey, I have a "joy" license as well - (Well, actually I'm just a trainee.) The Makeba song is cool. I often go back to "Where the Hell is Matt" from time to time as well. I can even go to Youtube and watch my son doing Pink Floyd's "The Wall." That's not a particularly happy show, but it makes me happy to see my kid.
B
22 - Tommy Mack
As Charlie Brown would say, "Oh. Good grief."
I used the word "oxymoron" when "superfluity" is what I meant.
Tommy
23 - Cindy
B,
That is your kid? The yellow coat tails guy? Very cool; he sings! Oh, I have to say, joyless though it may be, Pink Floyd's The Wall album is my fav by them.
24 - STM
Way to go, B/tone... he looks like he's going OK.
That's not a bad cover, and your son's band looks pretty popular. I love Floyd. The Wall is one of my faves, but I think Money's my all-time favourite.
He's pretty good though mate, except for the Seppo accent :)
25 - Baritone
He's not with the band. The production included my son as "Pink," the band, a small orchestra, child & adult choirs plus all the graphics on the screens behind.
He is actually an operatic tenor. That was the 1st rock music he had ever really performed. As to the accent, that came at the behest of the director. It was tough for him as he only had about 10 days to learn the whole thing. He's been living and working in Germany. This was a one night gig. Roger Waters will only allow one performance of the show at a time.
It rained during the entire performance. At one point early on he ran across the stage, hit a wet spot and went down hard. (I think it can be seen in one of those Youtube clips.) Somehow he came back up on one knee and some thought it was a "bit." He actually hurt his neck and back in the fall. He completed the performance soaking wet and in pain. He recovered in a few days. But, he does look pretty cool, I must say. :%)
B