The Internet Is Not The Problem

Because I've become concerned about the continuing loss of arts -- in particular, book -- coverage in metropolitan newspapers, I've been reading more about the management of newspapers. This is a topic I knew -- and still know -- little about, and it's proving to be an enlightening education. In a review very much worth reading in The New York Review of Books, Russell Baker takes a look of the state of journalism today. Discussing The New York Times, The Washington Post, and The Wall Street Journal (the WSJ's owners, the Bancroft family, has put the paper up for sale. See here, here and here for the ongoing story), Baker writes:

"Family control has sheltered all three newspapers from Wall Street's most insistent demands, allowing them to do high-quality—and high cost— journalism. It was said, and widely believed, that the controlling families were animated by a high-minded sense that their papers were quasi-public institutions. Of course profit was essential to their survival, but it was not the primary purpose of their existence. That one of these families might finally take the money and clear out heightens fears that no newspaper is so valuable to the republic that it cannot be knocked down at market for a nice price. Murdoch at the Journal is a dark omen for journalists everywhere. When the sign in the shop window says "Everything For Sale," it is often followed by 'Going Out Of Business.'

and of the results when the stock market bubble burst in the early 2000's, he says:

Journalism was being whittled away by a Wall Street theory that profits can be maximized by minimizing the product. Papers everywhere felt relentless demands for improved stock performance. The resulting policy of slash-and-burn cost-cutting has left the landscape littered with frail, failing, or gravely wounded newspapers which are increasingly useless to any reader who cares about what is happening in the world, the country, and the local community. Cost-cutting has reduced the number of correspondents stationed abroad, shriveled or closed news bureaus in Washington, and crippled local reporting staffs which once kept an eye on governors, mayors, state legislatures, small-town rascals, crooks, and jury suborners. It has also shrunk the size of the typical newspaper page, cutting the cost of newsprint by cutting news content.

Baker gives little credence to the argument that the Internet is the great enemy of print publishing, suggesting, in fact, that it should make for better journalism. He puts the blame squarely on corporate management, who has moved newspapers' responsibility away from its publics and to its shareholders.

At Book/Daddy, Jerome Weeks, noting Baker's article, says:

"...So the next time a newspaper announces [that] it's trimming or killing book reviews, remember: It's not because of New Media, it's not rising illiteracy, it's not from any purported loss in advertising from the publishing industry. The cutback is the direct result of management decisions on what to value, which readers to sacrifice, how to please Wall Street."

Finally, on a more humorous, but not unrelated note, here's the beginning of Leonard Pitt's recent column, "No Escape in the Era of Viral Knowledge," retitled "Harry Potter Hype is Impossible to Ignore" for my local paper. Pitts is a Pulitzer Prize-winning columnist for The Miami Herald, which was my local paper for quite a while, and considered one of the best newspapers in the country. The Knight family sold the paper last year, and Pitts makes a not-so-subtle allusion to what may be going on as a result (besides the fact that the first item in the online banner-below-the banner today is "Holy Cow: bovine loose in Miami Lakes"):

"Harry Potter dies in the new book. It's tragic, really. Accidental cauldron explosion. Eye of newt and wing of bat everywhere. He gets impaled by a flying dragon snout. His last word is: 'Rosebud.'

"OK, I made that up. Please stop shrieking now. And for heaven's sake, don't cancel your subscription. We only have 17 subscribers left, and there's a rumor that if we lose one more, it'll be the end of free soap in the lavatories."

If you want to find out what's been happening to book coverage of late, and how you can help stem the tide, check out the National Book Critics Circle's Campaign to Save Book Reviews here.

Arts Coverage and Artblogging

Terry Teachout, the Wall Street Journal's drama critic, wrote recently about several topics that are of rising interest to me these days. One of them is the cut-back in arts coverage in newspapers, particularly book coverage and stand-alone book sections (Teachout fails to mention the related firing of respected arts critics by these newspapers). The other is what some believe to be a connection between the reduced coverage and the rise of "artbloggers." As to the latter, Teachout mentions a "testy" column by Time's film critic Richard Schickel , in which Schickel said: "I don't think it's impossible for bloggers to write intelligent reviews. I do think, however, that a simple 'love' of reading (or movie-going or whatever) is an insufficient qualification for the job. . . . we have to find in the work of reviewers something more than idle opinion-mongering."

Teachout disagrees with Schickel about the value of artbloggers, noting that some of the most thoughtful and informed writing about the arts appears in blogs (Note: the thougtful and informed bloggers he mentions are, in fact, journalists who happen to blog about their subject- e.g., Tyler Green, who blogs on the visual arts at Modern Art Notes, and Teachout himself.) Teachout does admit a distinction, though:

"One of the most important civic duties that a newspaper performs is to cover the activities of local arts groups -- but it can't do that effectively without also employing knowledgeable critics who are competent to evaluate the work of those groups. Mere reportage, while essential, is only the first step. It's not enough to announce that the Hooterville Art Museum finally bought itself a Picasso. You also need a staffer who can tell you whether it's worth hanging, just as you need someone who knows whether the Hooterville Repertory Company's production of "Private Lives" was funny for the right reasons.

"...blogging, valuable though it can be, is no substitute for the day-to-day attention of a newspaper whose editors seek out experts, hire them on a full-time basis, and give them enough space to cover their beats adequately. The problem is that fewer and fewer newspapers seem willing to do that in any consistent way. I don't care for the word "provincial," but I can't think of a more accurate way to describe a city whose local paper is unwilling to make that kind of commitment to the fine arts.

"...I got my start reviewing second-string classical concerts for the Kansas City Star 30 years ago. Now that such entry-level jobs are drying up, I fear for the future of arts journalism in America."

I couldn't have said it better myself, which is why I quoted Teachout instead. So, folks, as I've said before (click here for a recent post), if you're interested in getting involved in stemming the tide, join the National Book Critics Circle Campaign to Save Book Reviewing by clicking here.

And What Does It Get Us?

The Columbia Journalism Review yesterday posted a story by Craig Flournoy and Tracy Everbach about the fall-out of the slash (through layoffs, buyouts and attrition) of 30% of the journalists at the Dallas Morning News. The authors spoke to nearly half of the 200 who left, and dozens of those who stayed. The report is an indictment of the paper's management, and of its "strategy" to be responsive to its subscribers. It's well worth reading.

I've been posting over the past few months about the recent cuts in book sections and book coverage in various metropolitan dailies -- and as a result, the firing of respected book critics -- here, here, here, and here. Arts coverage (including book reviews) is often the first to be hit, but this story makes it clear that it's not the only area affected by the panic afflicting some newspapers, whose strategy seems to consist of firing as many journalists as they can to lessen their costs. Instead of looking for new and untrammeled paths around the admittedly tough issues caused by digital competition, they seem to be destroying what readers turn to newspapers for (see Mark Bowden's article on the gap that newspapers fill). Flournoy and Everbach, both in their interviews and hard analysis of the Dallas Morning News' content, paint a disturbing picture of the effects of this behavior.

Have the Morning News' actions translated into more readership (or at least more satisifed readers)? Hardly. From October 2006 through March 2007, the daily circulation of the paper suffered a decline of 14.3% compared to a year earlier. This is more than twice the decline of any other large newspaper. And reader satisfaction has fallen 19%, according to the latest survey.

Esther Thorson, an associate dean at the University of Missouri's School of Journalism, whose recent study examined four years of financial data at hundreds of newspapers, and who has studied media for 20 years, says that "those who try to cut the newsroom to maintain profitability are doomed to failure."

“'That’s not a business model,' she says. 'That’s a death model.' Thorson found that larger newsroom investments would translate into greater profits. 'A newspaper is a rich environment of information and entertainment,' she said. 'That makes it a fabulous locale for advertising. But if your product is degraded and circulation plummets, why would advertisers want to invest in that?'"

Gee, even someone without my background in marketing can figure that one out.

Meanwhile, back on the arts desk these days, the Dallas Morning News has no architecture critic, no television critic, and no book critic.

(For information about the National Book Critics Circle Campaign to Save Book Reviewing, and how you can get involved, click here.)