Ink for needless art

One of our pet-peeves while working in radio news years ago was the gratuitous use of what we called “actualities” -- small snippets of sound, or comments by newsmakers or observers.

When they really added substance to a story, and they often did, such devices were invaluable. But using an actuality just for the sake of using an actuality was – and is -- sloppy. It adds nothing to the story.

Such is the case with unnecessary “art” for daily newspapers and other print media.

I was reminded of this yesterday (1/26/10) when the Rapid City Journal ran a photograph of Chris Nelson, South Dakota Secretary of State. It was attached to a short story in which Nelson reminded candidates, political parties and others, that the deadline for campaign finance reports is just around the corner. The story was likely a routine press release out of Nelson’s office. Certainly not a big story, but probably worth some ink. But Journal editors could have done without the photograph.

Is it important that I know what this guy looks like? If so, I could take a peek at any of the 100+ photos of him that the Journal has used over the past few years (Okay, okay, I didn't really count them all).

I’ve never met Chris Nelson, but I suspect he’s doing a pretty good job as Secretary of State, based upon what I’ve heard and read.

Oh, yes, did I mention he’s running for Congress? Now that’s the Chris Nelson story that deserved an accompanying photo!

Fighting "...irrational negativity"

This has been an interesting week.

The Denver Post’s parent company has filed for Chapter 11 bankruptcy. The New York Times is positioned to start charging for its on-line content. And the Rapid City Journal’s owner – Lee Enterprises – reports revenues for 2009 dropped by 18.2 percent.

In fact, Lee indicated that its yearend report was actually encouraging news. Fourth Quarter revenues were down by 14%. Lee owns the Rapid City Journal, the Bismarck (ND) Tribune, the Casper Star-Tribune, and several Montana papers among its stable of some 53 dailies. They also operate more than 300 “specialty” publications in 23 states.

Lee CEO Mary Junck, in a letter to stockholders, ticked off a wide range of Lee accomplishments, including the refinancing of $1.3 billion of debt and streamlined operations.

“Through intense collaboration, our editors redesigned our pages to a reduced width of 11 inches, gaining approval from readers and advertisers,” Junck wrote. That move helped Lee shave newsprint usage by 31 percent.

Interestingly, Lee has launched a public relations campaign to combat what Junck called the continuing, “irrational negativity” about the future of newspapers. One of the PR steps was producing the "business card" similar to the one shown here for the Rapid City Journal, touting the audience and performance of Lee. Click on the card to see how the Journal and other Lee papers are attacking that negativity. Similar cards were done for all of Lee’s 53 daily newspapers.

Meanwhile, over in Colorado, Denver Post CEO Dean Singleton is promising no layoffs as a result of imminent Chapter 11 bankruptcy for MediaNews Group, a Denver-based organization that owns the Post, Boulder Camera, and 52 other daily newspapers. The Wall Street Journal reported this week that MediaNews has been “teetering for months.” The bankruptcy will reportedly reduce MediaNews debt from $930 million to $165 million, and Singleton suggested employees play up the positive aspects of the Chapter 11 filing.

Perhaps Singleton and Junck – and many newspaper executives have been talking with one another about how to paint a rosier picture.

To be sure, we’re hopeful that newspapers can re-invent themselves into a sustainable product that endures for years to come. Perhaps I’m old fashioned (perhaps??!!) but thumbing through and reading the morning paper is a joy I don’t want to give up.

On-line news just isn’t quite as cathartic. Especially if you have to pay for it, after having enjoyed free access to the New York Times for such a long time. One of the last holdouts offering free access to its on-line version, the Times will likely announce within the next few weeks exactly how it expects to monetize its on-line services.

We support charging for these services. But exactly how such fees are assessed and at what level will be a challenge. We like the “tease” approach being used by the Black Hills Pioneer (a Seaton publication), whereby you can read a paragraph or two – and possibly enjoy a photo – before being prompted to click a link to “…read more.” That’s when readers can subscribe to the full-meal deal and read the entire paper on-line.

On-line journalism is likely to continue to grow. We trust it will also get significantly better. If newspapers can survive and then thrive in a modified form, that would be a good thing, giving us some choices.

For now, we’re entrenched with one foot in the print world and one in the on-line world. We can live with that.

E & P shutters the windows

A bit of surprise – but not shock – as we learned today about the closing down of Editor & Publisher magazine, the 125-year-old house organ for the newspaper business.

Considering the plight of newspapers all across the country, I suppose it shouldn’t have come even as a surprise. Ad revenues down. Subscriptions down. And morale down.

My familiarity with Editor & Publisher first came in graduate school at Iowa State University about 40 years ago. I’d already been in the broadcasting business for a dozen years or so and was very familiar with Broadcasting magazine, the institutional publication that kept tabs on the radio and television business.

As Broadcasting leaned more heavily toward the financial and entertainment side of electronic media, Editor & Publisher, it seemed to me, had a flair for keeping tabs on the journalistic soul of the media. I never saw much of that in Broadcasting magazine.

Perhaps it was an ironic omen of things to come, as Editor & Publisher fades into oblivion – or at least struggles to survive in another form.

Broadcasting & Cable, meanwhile, continues to dance with the business of broadcasting, though many of us old timers would hardly recognize it today.

More bad news for Lee

This has not been a good year for Lee Enterprises. That’s the company that owns the Rapid City Journal, Chadron (NE) Record, and the Hot Springs (SD) Star, among many others. Their most visible property is the St. Louis Post-Dispatch.

Lee this week (7/30/09) reported a loss of $24.5 million during the last fiscal quarter. Its advertising is off more than 24% from last year, and circulation is down by more than six percent.

The company is based in Davenport, Iowa.

In earlier postings about Lee, we noted that they were going through many of the same kinds of problems being encountered by virtually all of the newspaper industry. There were layoffs at many of their properties in Wyoming, South Dakota and Montana.

We paid $2.00 for a Wall Street Journal yesterday and observed that USA Today, the Gannett property started by South Dakotan Al Neuharth, now goes for $1.00 a copy. These hefty newsstand prices do little to offset the record losses being endured by papers across the country.

Leveraging new acquisitions on the backs of papers that are doing well has been a common woe among several big newspaper chains – including Lee Enterprises. It’s something of a “local” chain, and we’re sorry they’ve fallen victim to this trend.

We love newspapers and hope Lee is able to fend off its own demise. But the prognosis is not good.

A change of direction

Since we've been something of a rabble rouser when it comes to open government in South Dakota, we should give credit where credit is due. This is not in any priority order -- in fact, it basically starts with the late comers first.

God bless Governor Mike Rounds for seeing the light and accepting a philosophical change of direction for the state. His signing of a new open records law yesterday (3/19/09) was something of a turnaround for the governor, who has claimed previous versions were not strong enough in protecting individual rights. The new law, which takes effect July 1, importantly contains a presumption that government documents should be open to the public, unless there are good reasons for keeping them under wraps.

The new law is far from perfect, but it's lightyears ahead of what exists right now -- basically allowing bureaucrats at any government level to make decisions about what should and should not be open to the public. In other words, it generally presumed that only documents required to be kept by government would be made available -- if officials wanted to make them available.

I don't know what motivated Republican State Senator Dave Knudson to get behind and push for a new open records law. Perhaps he saw it as a good resume-builder for would-be gubernatorial candidates. Maybe he simply believed South Dakota was due for more open government. Whatever the incentive, he did his homework and navigated his SB-147 handily through the legislature. Thanks, Dave.

Democratic Senator Nancy Turbak Berry should certainly be acknowledged for giving high visibility to open government last year, when she introduced a similar open records law -- but without a lot of the politically-worded baggage necessary to get it through the legislature. Her early spadework, along with that of several others legislators, was critically important.

And, of course, a multitude of candidates last election thought it was important enough to publicly speak out and advocate a stronger open records law. Near the head of that list of folks was Nyla Griffith of Deadwood, a Democrat whose campaign last year for a seat in the State Senate fell short.

Certainly, South Dakota newspapers played a role in pushing through the new law, and they deserve recognition. However, this was NOT just a media deal. It was a citizen movement, and it was growing significantly. I suspect that had as much to do with final approval of the new law as anything. Politicians seem to sense such groundswells --- at least the good ones do.

Little to cheer about

This October 11, 1954 photograph of Deadwood-born actress Dorothy “Dotty” Provine appeared in the once ubiquitous Seattle Post-Intelligencer. Provine was then a 19-year-old co-ed cheering for the University of Washington in their football battle against the University of Oregon.

There was little to cheer about that day, since Washington lost to the Ducks, 26-7.

There’s even less to cheer about today around Seattle. The economy is a mess, Boeing Aircraft is struggling mightily, and the newspaper has gone under.

Unable to find a buyer, Post-Intelligencer has announced that it’s shutting down print operations. This dire situation was suggested in our earlier posting about the Post-Intelligncer. Declining advertising revenue and subscriptions have taken their toll. After 146 years of serving the Pacific northwest with a printed newspaper, today (3/17/09) is their last edition.

More details about the Seattle shutdown can be found in this New York Times story. The upshot is this: while the print version is folding, Hearst Corporation says an on-line version of the Post-Intelligencer will continue. Reports indicate that only about 20 jobs will remain in the newsroom.

Here’s the statement made yesterday in the Post-Intelligencer newsroom by publisher Roger Oglesby:

- 30 -

for the Post-Intelligencer.

~

Seattle P-I may shut down

In perhaps the most vivid example of hard times for the newspaper industry, the Seattle Post-Intelligencer has been put up for sale by Hearst Corporation. They say if they don't sell the paper within 60 days, they will shut down the newspaper and operate only a website -- or close down both the newspaper and the website.

In a news release, it was noted that the paper has lost money since 2000 and that Hearst is not prepared to continue operation of the paper, which it has owned since 1921.

It was a somber scene on Friday as Hearst Newspaper President Steve Swartz shared the sad news with the P-I editorial staff.

"All the ads fit to print"

It was a first – another a sign of the continuing hard times for the newspaper industry – as display advertising appeared on the front page of the New York Times.

The Wall Street Journal has been adorned with front-page advertising since 2006, but it wasn’t until this Monday (1/5/09) that “The Gray Lady” began accepting front-page display ads. The Times is the largest metropolitan daily in the United States.

In their own story about this new strategy, the Times on Sunday (1/5/09) acknowledged that the move would likely be seen by traditionalists as a "commercial incursion into the most important news space in the paper."

Yup.

Lee stock in the tank

Tough times continue for Lee Enterprises, the media company that owns the Rapid City Journal, which includes a number of associated weeklies like the Lawrence County Star, the Hot Springs Journal, the Belle Fourche Post & Bee, and the Chadron (Nebr) Record.

One year ago, the Davenport, Iowa, publisher saw its stock trading at $14.91 per share. Just before the 2008 holidays, a Lee share went for just 30 cents per share, and it’s been over a month since its stock has seen anything above one dollar.

Lee owns 49 daily newspapers, and its poor financial showing means that it has fallen below standards necessary to be listed on the New York Stock Exchange. Business Week reports that Lee plans to announce a strategy within the next 10 days that would allow them to keep their NYSE listing. Being forced to trade over-the-counter would be a severe black-eye for the firm, which continues to struggle with lower advertising revenues and declining circulation numbers.

Nonetheless, Lee officials say their circulation numbers are not as bad as the rest of the industry, which has seen a decline of some 20% over the past year.

Despite my arm-chair criticism of some practices at the Rapid City Journal – and the fact that I’ve become a habitual user of internet services – I’m hoping that Lee Enterprises and the Rapid City Journal will get through these difficult times.

Call me old fashioned, but I believe there’ll always be a place for print journalism products. While it’s hard for me to imagine a world without my morning newspaper, it’s clear that the industry will have to become more creative in finding ways to retain its relevancy in this glitzo-techno era.

Newspapers take another hit

Just a decade ago, hardly anyone in the United States got their news from the internet. In an historic shift, some 40 percent of people looking for world news now get it from the "Worldwide Web,” which has moved ahead of newspapers as a source of news.

That’s a key research finding announced this week by The Pew Research Center for The People and the Press. Pew surveyed 1,489 adults during the first week of December and found that Television remains the top source for world news with 70 percent of respondents turning to the TV for their news fix.

While not a surprise, the growing prominence of the internet reflects the enormous plight of the newspaper industry, which continues to struggle with declining circulations and resulting drops in advertising revenue.

You’ll find complete results of the study on the Pew Research Center website.

Rushville native new BSA president

Rushville, Nebraska native John Gottschalk has been named President of the Boy Scouts of America. Late last year, he retired as publisher of the Omaha World-Herald, capping a successful journalistic career that started back at the Sheridan County (Neb) Star in the 1950s.

His father, Phil Gottschalk, was publisher of that small Nebraska weekly in Rushville, which had been founded by John’s maternal grandfather, Bill Barnes. The younger Gottschalk performed a variety of duties at the weekly, including back shop work. After high school in Rushville, he went to the University of Nebraska, majoring in political science and journalism. After graduating from the University of Nebraska, Gottschalk bought the Sidney (Neb) Telegraph in 1966 and later also served as Mayor of Sidney. He sold the paper in 1974 and went to work for the Omaha World-Herald in 1975 as an assistant to the president.

Reading through John Gottschalk’s community involvements and philanthropic activities takes more than a few minutes. His civic accomplishments are many and varied; he and his wife, Carmen, have even served as foster parents, caring for more than 100 infants awaiting adoption.

With declining advertising revenue and circulation figures, most major dailies in this country are struggling for their very survival. The Omaha World-Herald, under John Gottschalk’s leadership, has girded itself from many of the demons knocking at the doors of nearly all newspapers across the country and appears to be doing quite well, thank you very much.

John Gottschalk helped diversify the company, which still has the World-Herald at its core, giving it a robustness not realized by many larger papers. The World-Herald is the 53rd largest newspaper in the United States, even though it’s in the 75th largest metropolitan area.

The paper is the only major newspaper in the country that is owned by its own employees.

It still publishes both morning and afternoon editions – something that used to be routine in most cities – but has become a real rarity in the 21st century.

We’re sure that even the World-Herald is facing some tough times, but they’re faring much better than most of their counterparts, thanks largely to John Gottschalk.

I suspect the Boy Scouts of America will benefit from his leadership as well.

Emerging figure in U.S. media

In a sharp contrast to media mogul Rupert Murdoch, a little-know but wealthy Mexican billionaire named Carlos Slim has become a significant stakeholder in the New York Times Company. Unlike Murdoch, who likes a “hands on” approach to his media holdings (New York Post, Dow Jones Company, Wall Street Journal, etc.), Slim indicates that he has no plans to become involved in day-to-day dealings at the struggling newspaper.

The 68-year-old Slim made his fortune by buying inexpensive properties and then turning them into valuable investments. He’s best-known as owner of TelMex, the largest phone company in Mexico. He has begun turning over operation of TelMex to his sons, apparently in a move to begin easing out of decision-making roles. This is consistent with his approach to his 6.4 percent stake in the Times. He has reportedly become quite a philanthropist, too. With holdings near $60 billion, that's not surprising -- but good to hear.

Interestingly, Slim lists Warren Buffett, “the sage of Omaha,” as someone he admires. With New York Times ad revenue down by 14 percent during the first half of this year, perhaps Slim -- like Murdoch at the Wall Street Journal -- will be tempted to offer advice, although it would have to resonate strongly in the ears of the Ochs-Sulzberger families, which apparently still control 70% of the Times.

Newspapers across the country continue their struggles to survive. Gannett Company said last month that they’re cutting some 1,000 newspaper jobs, and closer to home, Lee Enterprises is paring jobs in Montana, Wyoming and South Dakota.

Nice graphics, but...

We sometimes pick up a copy of USA Today while traveling; otherwise, we seldom read it because most of its stories lack the depth necessary to gain an understanding of the topics covered. That’s okay if they're reporting on the misadventures of Paris Hilton – but a disaster when covering suicides in the military (USA Today, 5/30-6/1, 2008).

Even Pentagon consultants appear to provide data that supports the headline, "Army tallies record number of suicides among soldiers."

Near the end of Gregg Zoroya’s story lie the naked facts that “one in four of the victims had never deployed overseas” and that less than one-third of the 115 Army suicides in 2007 were personnel stationed in Iraq or Afghanistan.

Nonetheless, Senator Patty Murray (D-Wash) cites the statistics as “a tragic reminder that repeated deployments …are taking a heavy toll.”

Contrast that statement with the fact – also buried near the end of the article – that the Army suicide rate is lower than among civilians, “when adjusted for age and gender similar to military demographics.”

Loss of life is a very sad event. Suicides are more so. It is unfortunate that the USA Today format doesn’t allow for greater depth on covering such sobering subjects. This story suggests conclusions that on closer scrutiny appear misguided, and it raises even more questions – questions not likely to be addressed any time soon by USA Today.

Have military suicides tracked civilian suicides? What are the longer term trends? How do we reconcile “multiple combat deployments” as a key factor, when the highest percentage of victims have never deployed overseas?

USA Today is an economic success story, with circulation second to none. Perhaps that’s because its glitzy graphics and superficial stories satisfy a citizenry seeking entertainment and superficiality rather then substance. On-the-move citizens apparently find the publication meets their needs. Some of us, however, believe that USA Today nurtures only our shortened attention spans and desire for colorful graphics. It’s like overdosing on sweets and snack foods.

Perhaps it’s time to order a full healthy meal and renew our subscriptions to the New York Times and the Wall Street Journal. Gaining an understanding of complex issues is important, if we are to seriously address the issues facing our country.