Santa Cruz Observer

What if community newspapers committed to quality? Here’s one that tried

By TOM HONIG

Back in what now seems like the heyday of newspapers — like the 1990s — journalists like me would sound off about the future of the business, and we would generally argue that as long as we kept doing good work, a successful future was guaranteed. 

It didn’t work out that way 

Community newspapers aren’t what they used to be. Many have folded. Most others have maybe one-tenth the staff that they did 20 years ago. 

The reaction to that from people like me is frustration that borders on outrage. And as good reporters, we started looking for a villain. To some, the villain was easy to find — the business people that owned the paper. Some publishers just waved the white flag and went out of business. A significant number sold out to the  hedge funds — the embodiment of evil for a lot of us. 

It was those hedge funds that figured out how cut staff and trim resources to pull profits out of the business even as circulation dropped and advertising plummeted. Good journalism took a back seat while good reporters and editors lost their jobs. Coverage suffered; community meetings went uncovered and in some cases, investigation of wrongdoing slowed or even ceased. 

Of course, it’s more than just the journalists that were hurt. One can argue that civic responsibility goes out the window when local news disappears. As readership drops, so must civic knowledge. As news coverage decreases, people might still know that, say, crime is up, but they may not know that the local city council actually might be doing something about it. That’s because nobody covered the meeting.

But the thirst for news remains. But now instead of reading curated news, people have turned to social media or national media for their information. As we all know, social media is like the Wild West, with truth doing battle with rumor and disinformation. In newsrooms of old, we used to have an ironic saying when a great rumor got disproved: “Another great story ruined by oververification!” 

Or, as Mark Twain supposedly said: “A lie travels around the globe while the truth is putting on its shoes.”

The question remains: is it all the hedge funds’ fault? Are they the true villains? The answer, of course, is more complicated. And as bad as the budget-cutters are, the answer is more likely found on the comics page of long ago. It was the great Walt Kelly and his comic strip Pogo, that said it best. “We’ve met the enemy and he is us!”

Here is Exhibit A. In an article for Bloomberg New Service, Joe Nocera  recently profiled the former owner of the Reading, Pa., Eagle. Here’s what he said:

“ You sometimes hear journalists saying that if only their paper’s owner had beefed up the staff, had given reporters more time to do better stories, had made the paper indispensable to its community, maybe the economic decline of the paper could have been averted. What is instructive — and discouraging — about the Reading Eagle is that is exactly what (chief executive (Peter) Barbey did. 

“He bet that good journalism could keep the Eagle solvent. And he bet wrong.”

Nocera goes on to tell the story of Barbey,  who took over the Eagle in 2011, and committed himself to maintaining editorial quality 

But by 2016, things went bad.

 Reports Nocera: “Quarterly circulation declines accelerated. And as circulation declined, so did the Eagle’s ad revenue. In 2017 the grocery stores stopped printing inserts in the Eagle and switched to direct mail.  The drugstores stopped advertising, as did the car dealers.”

“Both the Eagle’s subscribers and its advertisers were gravitating to the internet, especially Facebook. Using Facebook, advertisers could target Reading consumers for a fraction of what an ad cost in the Eagle. Subscribers, realizing that they could get all the Reading news they needed via Facebook, stopped paying $180 a year for the newspaper.”

The story ends poignantly. Facing the worst, Barbey and the ownership sold the paper. To the Media News Group. Owned by Alden Capital, a hedge fund that owns papers across the country. 

And yes, layoffs have followed.

Loss of small newspapers and the vainglorious national presidential campaign

By TOM HONIG

The loss of meaningful local journalism continues across the country, and at the same time the presidential campaign has taken on the look of a reality television show.

The two are related. 

For years, as a reporter and editor at the Santa Cruz Sentinel, I noticed that the percentage of voter turnout — compared to the number of eligible voters — stood at about 30 percent. And 30 percent was roughly the percentage of newspaper readers in Santa Cruz, at least according to readership surveys. 

I’d be willing to bet that there’s no such correlation anymore. As I watch the made-for-television events for presidential hopefuls, it appears to me that voter interest has changed. The old 30 percenters were as involved with local and state issues as they were with the national stage. Local and state issues were the ones covered by local print journalists, and they were the ones who kept interested readers informed. 

Now, with newspapers in retreat and not covering local issues well, potential voters have turned  their attention to the national scene.

National presidential politics in 2019 is dominated by charismatic and telegenic  personalities and nationally known politicos. The front-runners busy themselves with daring populist proposals that are unlikely ever to be implemented, while the incumbent just seems to make up stuff if it helps his self-image. More and more, candidates are searching for the sound bite, some sort of attack one-liner that will make it to the news shows. Exhibit A: Kamala Harris attacks Joe Biden. Exhibit B: Everybody else attacks Kamala Harris. 

All  that comes at the expense of regional candidates who probably have more real-life, hands-on experience in governing than the celebrity senators who are leading in the polls. 

For years, as reporter Tim Craig of The Washington Post points out, American voters paid attention to the nuts and bolts issues of politics.  Governors who had proved themselves in office — Carter, Clinton and even Reagan — moved on to the national stage after having demonstrated a record of actually working in a bipartisan way.

Says Craig: “For the first time in a generation, political observers say, polls show no sitting or former governor is a front-runner for either political party’s nomination battle, at least so far. Experts say national politics is losing the bipartisan influence and executive experience that governors once brought to the table.”

And as Terry McAuliffe, a former Virginia governor and longtime Democratic strategist, points out:  “Governors are the most important people in the country. . . . They should be at the forefront. Nothing happens in Washington, and all the action is in the states.”

Not that you’d notice if you only read political blogs and watched cable television.

In fact, I bet that more people could name the two dozen presidential candidates and the CNN moderators than could name their own county board of supervisors. 

That’s what you get when you get your news from social media or cable TV. 

What Starbucks is saying about newspapers -- but not everyone agrees

By TOM HONIG

One of my favorite wall posters from years ago was a picture of the San Francisco Chronicle and a mug of coffee with the caption "Caen and Coffee." Everyone in the greater Bay Area knew what that meant -- an interlude with the great Chronicle columnist Herb Caen and a few minutes with your coffee to get caught up on the latest gossip.

Coffee and reading the newspaper seemed like a perfect match. That's why this news hit so hard: Starbucks will soon stop selling newspapers in its cafes. Sigh.

It figures, though. The ubiquitous cellphone has taken the place of newspapers at public places -- cafes, restaurants and the like. All during my working years my favorite getaway during the day was a quick lunch or snack at a local eatery. And I always took a newspaper or magazine with me. No longer. I sit there just like everyone else, staring -- maybe gawking is a better word -- at Twitter, Facebook or even just my e-mail.

Let's face it. Most people -- especially on the younger side -- just don't read the paper. Starbucks isn't ending newspaper sales just to be difficult. If the papers just sit there on the shelf and then go into the recycling bin at the end of the day, who can blame them for cutting back?

In a New York Times story about Starbuck's decision, the only people expressing regret were the older folks. More typical was this reaction: “I think it makes total sense; it’s not a surprise. I don’t think there is any upside to keeping the paper. If you look around in this Starbucks, there’s no one buying a newspaper. It’s just another casualty of change. Another casualty of the internet.”

That sentiment is particularly stark for us old-time print people. Many of us spend our post-newspaper hours venting  at the horrible hedge funds that now control most small- and medium-market dailies. And yes, they deserve any enmity they get. But there's also the realization that the newspaper that so many of us took pride in producing is just, well, not so marketable anymore.

The impact of the lessened role of words in print is huge. As I've written previously, social media and dramatic video on news shows appeal to emotions, while the written word is better at explaining events in a more rational way. 

That's why I was impressed by a sentiment expressed by a radio journalist by the name of Nikki Medoro of KGO radio in San Francisco. Writing on Twitter -- yes, she acknowledged the irony -- she asked: "Could the answer to 'how we got here' be the rise of social media and the demise of newspapers? Could the solution be as simple as quitting social media and buying an actual paper?"

Then she adds: "I know it's silly that I'm on posting this ON social media ... buy ya know ... that's where we are."

I appreciate her sentiment. Maybe newspapers are still worth fighting for.

Robert Mueller wasn't made for the video-clip era

The absence of an electrifying Washington moment in Wednesday’s two-stage testimony by (Robert) Mueller not only deprived Democrats of the crystallizing episode they needed to drive public opinion on impeachment, but it also meant Republicans had no reason to budge from their anti-impeachment stance.

-- Carl Hulse, The New York Times

 

By TOM HONIG

Is that what it takes to get anything done in politics these days? Do we really govern only by electrifying Washington?

Count me as one who found Robert Mueller's testimony before the Senate and the House refreshing. He might just as well have walked into the hearing rooms and said, "Read the damn report."

Social media and cable news rely, more and more, on the zinger. Get the best three or four words you can and get them ready for video clips. If they're the perfect combination of wit, alliteration and nastiness, the video will spread across the media, maybe even making it to the apex -- the late-night comedy shows.

Admittedly I can appreciate a good one-liner. After all, I wrote headlines for years, always in search of a grabber. But that doesn't mean that the lack of electricity should doom public discussion and ultimately government actions.

There's a good deal of evidence that the electrifying moment is setting the agenda these days. The president is a master of the form. So is presidential hopeful Kamala Harris, who knew that  by  informing Joe Biden that she didn't think he was a racist actually was just another way of saying that he might be a racist. When she said it, she zoomed up the polls.

Maybe there is something positive about the quick hits. They move people at the time, but tomorrow will bring a new outrage, another zinger and another issue to think about. Maybe in this fast-paced environment a short attention span is a good thing.

But let's all take a moment to appreciate Robert Mueller. He wasn't on Team Red or on Team Blue. He sat there, unashamedly a man of another era in Washington, answering some pretty obnoxious questions with unsullied dignity.

I decided to take a break from commentary because of all the noise. In five years, things have only gotten worse

By TOM HONIG

This tiny corner of the blogosphere has been quiet since April of 2014. I had decided that the din from social media and from cable television had drowned out the world of independent commentary, the kind in which the reader might not be able to predict what was about to be written or said.

Now it's 2019, and even though few will notice, I’ve decided to contribute a word or two again.

In the last five years, the noise has only increased. In that time, a blustering figure somehow found his way into the White House, and he’s  taken what used to be described as the United States onto a wild ride of nastiness unimaginable just a generation ago.

Not that he deserves all the blame. A considerable amount, sure. But his allies and opponents decided to match his fictional ramblings with questionable tactics of their own. The public debate features accusations and cross-accusations of the "how dare you" kind, with base motives ascribed to each side, a kind of blaring public debate that makes me wonder what happened to the days of discussion groups, amicable political dialogue and genteel salons.

Somehow, then, through the noise appeared this gem in my local bookstore: "On Democracy" by E.B. White. Yes that E.B. White, author of  "Charlotte's Web" and "Stuart Little" and co-author of the classic "On Writing" by Strunk and White. It turns out that White also wrote extensively on what democracy means and on how it's practiced. The book, newly published and edited by his granddaughter, Martha White, features essays on the health of our democracy during some of the most challenging years of the 20th century. From 1928 to 1976, White held firm, first against the Nazi threat, through the Joe McCarthy era and on into the 1970s, offering wise words on the care and feeding of our public debate, the very essence of a healthy democracy.

He speaks to a 21st century audience that would do well to pay heed. He writes of the power and limits of the majority -- and the same of various factions that have rights as well. He writes of the threats from outside and inside our nation, and most importantly, of the danger of overemotional passions that can result from demagogues.

Then there's his view of the importance of newspapers. As that industry dies off -- more on this in the days to come -- its fading role in today's mass media carries with it these words of warning:

"One of the earliest truths (and to him most valuable) that the author of "Mein Kampf" discovered was that it is not the written word, but the spoken word, which in heated moments moves great masses of people to noble or ignoble action. The written word, unlike the spoken word, is something which every person examines privately and judges calmly by his own intellectual standards, not by what the man next to him thinks."

And here he quotes Hitler: "I know that one is able to win people far more by the spoken than by the written word...'

I bet Hitler would have loved Fox News, MSNBC, Twitter and Facebook.

What's the down side of high-speed media?

By TOM HONIG

Looking over my previous post about the demise of daily journalism, it would be easy to infer that I was somehow enjoying it. Just the opposite.

The daily news cycle was -- and is -- an effective way to stay informed. It's speedy enough to satisfy the informational needs we all have, but slow enough that it gives the journalist time to actually present a cogent, fact-checked and well-edited report to the public.

But that daily news cycle has been replaced -- by instant messages, tweets and other quick forms of updates. Some new organizations are actually uploading information from police scanners -- those notoriously inaccurate updates that go out over the air before anyone has time to know whether there's any truth to the report.

News today is high speed. And in a world driven by clicks and page views, there's tremendous pressure to put information up immediately and damn the consequences if something isn't right.

The clicks and pageviews are driving journalism, and the consumer -- the reader, the viewer -- is the worse for it. Getting the real story takes time. And time is the one thing that today's journalist doesn't have.

Those of us clicking on stories want to be entertained. So what do we gravitate to? Well, as humans we're drawn to controversy, to splashy headlines, quick reads  and maybe an opinion column or two that underscores our already-decided political opinion. 

We look at this stuff on our cellphones. Chances are that we're looking at Facebook, and what we're reading is information selected from our friends who are spoon-feeding us opinion pieces that we agree with. There's little chance, for example, that a Democrat will ever see a Facebook post from a conservative source.

Let's pause. After all, this isn't a screed against modern communications and media. Lightning-fast media consumption isn't going away, plus I consume as much of it as anyone. But it's still worth examining what we're doing to ourselves as we continue to do no more than dip a toe into the ocean of information.

An old friend with a background in daily journalism recently sent me her insight, and it's well worth repeating here:

"What we need in all forms of the media are life-long career journalists who are savvy enough to put stories in PERSPECTIVE because they’ve been around and they KNOW THE TOPICS, aren’t just parachuting in an grabbing the first talking head they find for a news quote.  I have to believe that will come back in some form, because as cities, states and a country, we will flounder without them. Politics and money creep in at the expense of the environment, the public interest such as food stamps and health care and contraceptive rights,  and even saving of lives in disaster. ( 'Good job, Brownie.')  I hope it doesn’t take a national disaster for those journalists to re-emerge."

 

My sentiments exactly. The wish for a return to what we had  sounds so damn quaint that I might as well distribute this article via Pony Express. But our speed has a cost. Ferreting out accurate stories takes time. And time is something that today's journalist doesn't have.

 

 

'What we have here is the demise of daily journalism'

By TOM HONIG

I have this mental image of a guy who looks like Dick Cheney in a plush, walnut-lined meeting room, telling his people: "Gentlemen, what we have here is the demise of daily journalism."

This slow death is playing out locally. Word has leaked out from Santa Cruz County's own Ken Doctor, who runs the brilliant Newsonomics website and has reported today that the hedge fund ownership of Digital First Media -- owner of 75 daily newspapers including the Sentinel -- is contemplating selling off  its newspapers as well as shuttering its experimental "Thunderdome" digital news hub.

That news comes on top of this week's purchase of the Good Times ownership by Metro newspapers,which essentially means a takeover of the Good Times by the smaller Santa Cruz Weekly.

Back to the Dick Cheney guy. What's at work here is that print journalism, along with online journalism, is morphing out of the daily news cycle and going into a 24/7 online and mobile service, punctuated perhaps by a weekly print edition -- complete with advertising support.

Daily newspapers are out in the cold. Sure, most of them do a fine job of tweeting and updating the news on their mobile sites -- but there's little revenue to be gained that way. Most revenue remains with the daily printed edition, but because of layoffs, cutbacks in salaries, training and hiring, the quality of the print product is declining. Fewer people read a daily newspaper. Not just in Santa Cruz, either. It's across the country, with the possible exception of The New York Times and The Wall Street Journal.

The daily cycle makes little sense anymore, when you think about it. Even the nightly news on TV isn't attracting a crowd. News consumers want the bulletins immediately, and if they want context, they'll turn to something more in depth than a daily can provide.

What's next? Things could play out in a number of ways. The owner of the Metro group, Dan Pulcrano, is the proud owner of the best local website URL -- SantaCruz.com. With the support of the weekly print edition, there's a lot of opportunity; the challenge is going to be whether The Metro has the resources to invest in experienced and talented journalists.

The Sentinel's outlook is murky. With much of the newspaper's production now in Chico, a sale would be complicated, with another outside investment group far more likely to take over than some local person or partnership. Admittedly, though, the asking price might be cheap -- no press, no building, no infrastructure. Essentially, you'd be buying the nameplate.

Even so, I wouldn't invest in a daily news operation. The Dick Cheney guy's words are ringing in my ears.

 

 

A former print editor looks at the news

By TOM HONIG

This morning I made my usual journey through the day's news -- reaching for the iPad while still in bed, nosing my way through Google news, Politico, the latest stock prices and the like. Not an unusual morning for most of us -- us ADD news consumers who look over dozens and even scores of headlines in search of, what, maybe two articles that interest us enough to actually read all the way through.

I almost forgot. I also happened on a mildly amusing video of Jimmy Fallon (or was it Jimmy Kimmel?) imagining a phone call between Barack Obama and Vladimir Putin. And then there's the obligatory glance at Facebook to see what my lefty friends think is important today.

Such is the state of news consumption. One would think that this former print newspaper editor would be more in-depth, more thoughtful than that. One would imagine a retired former editor ambling to the curb to pick up his morning Wall Street Journal and New York Times.

No. Like much of our culture, I've joined the quick and dirty crowd, reaching out into the webosphere for whatever meanders in my direction. Disclosure: I do receive The Wall Street Journal online (as a retiree of  the Santa Cruz Sentinel, a one-time member of the Dow Jones family, I get it gratis) and I actually pay for The New York Times.

But like most folks, I'm not a devotee of one publication or one news organization. Call it fear of commitment.

So it felt like a trip down memory lane yesterday when I went to lunch alone except for two print newspapers -- The Journal and the Sentinel. A depressing journey.

For those paying attention, the Sentinel is in the early stage of a "new look" -- brighter, more colorful and, chiefly, cheaper to produce. Like its many sister newspapers all over California, it's now produced elsewhere, with local reporters here and production people toiling away at desktop computers in Chico. 

The less said about the new look the better. But at least it stilll has some good local content, especially considering the small staff now out trying to cover the news. 

But even more depressing was something I saw in The Wall Street Journal: a misspelling in a headline. (Prairie without the first "i"). Yikes! Yes, I've committed such an error in my time, but I have never -- ever -- seen such a misstep in the Journal.

It's probably not fair to form a conclusion based on just two observations. But times are changing and the extra care that goes into preparing a good print publication is a luxury no longer possible in a fast-moving, "read-it now" and "see it now" world.

What's the impact? Stay tuned.

 

 

Bezos a white knight? Don't count on it

By TOM HONIG

I was at a journalism conference in 1999 or so when somebody in the audience asked a Los Angeles Times panelist why the Times had expanded into the online world and exactly what The Times had planned.

His answer was pretty good: "It's just like when you play Monopoly and you land on Marvin Gardens. You buy it even though you don't know what you're going to use it for."

That insight came to mind this week when Jeff Bezos found an extra $250 million in the pockets of his jeans and purchased The Washington Post and a few other Post properties.

Since then, the chattering class has taken hold. (Although the funniest reaction came from The Onion, right here, which reported: "Bob Woodward Gets New Job.")

Ever hopeful of a white knight, some journalists say that it's Bezos's way of saving good journalism, arguing that the future of newspapers resides with civic-minded billionaires in place of the traditional civic-minded millionaires of a generation ago.

Skeptical observers say that Bezos has an agenda. After all, if his motive is philanthropic, why didn't his foundation make the purchase? Is he trying to increase his political influence for his own economic interest? Does owning the Post help Amazon in some particular way?

Like every question about the future of journalism, no one -- including Bezos -- can know how it will all shake out.

But it's worth remembering this: what happens at the Post -- or The New York Times or any other paper of national influence -- probably won't affect the average American newspaper. For community newspapers across the counry, there's no Bezos bailout on the horizon.

The problem your average newspaper faces actually doesn't involve content -- or at least, not directly. The problem is that the advertising revenue that newspapers once enjoyed has gone elsewhere: to Google, to Facebook and especially to Craig's List. Without that ad revenue, news staffs have been cut, never to return. And without adequate staffing, content suffers and the audience (once known as the readership) goes away.

Even Bezos can't fix that.

 

For Weiner, Sanford and Spitzer, is the goal public service or the lure of political power?

By TOM HONIG

Public service is an honorable calling, but for some, it's more about their own ego and the ambitious pursuit of power.

How else can you explain Anthony Weiner, Elliot Spitzer and Mark Sanford?

Sanford fell into disgrace with his infamous romantic journey to Argentina. Spitzer -- Mr. Law Enforcement -- decided that prostitution laws didn't apply to him. And Weiner ... the less said, the better.

Yet all three think that the world can't do without their presence in public life. In fact, Congress has not been improved by having Sanford back. The people of South Carolina could easily find someone else to serve in his place. Spitzer is hardly the only qualified person for the job of New York City comptroller. (If his service there was so damn important, why did he instead run for governor back in 2006?) Or, as a spokesman for his chief opponent said:  “It’s clearer and clearer that for Eliot Spitzer, this campaign is not about the needs and struggles of New York’s middle class – it’s all about Eliot Spitzer.”

And Weiner doesn't even have the modicum of taste to drop out of the race for mayor of New York. The city has done fine without him over the past couple of centuries, but he's arrogant enough to think that the city is in need of his services. It's not. He actually said this: "I want to bring my vision to the people of the city of New York. I hope they're willing to still continue to give me a second chance."

Why should they? Just so Weiner can add to his resume?

What's the lesson here? For voters, it's this: is someone running for office because they want to serve? Or is it because it satisfies their self interest? Those are questions worth asking.