Efforts to professionalize journalism began early in the twentieth century as a response to the hyper commercialization of newspapers and the “anything goes” approach to news that emerged in the late nineteenth century as a means of increasing street sales through sensationalism, twisting the truth, and outright lies.
The impetus for journalistic professionalism originated among publishers who wish to counter the trend and it gained support of journalists who saw it as a means of improving their working conditions and social standing. Journalism training and higher education programs, professional societies for journalists and editors, and codes of ethics and conduct emerged as part of professionalism. These promoted the core values of accuracy, fairness, completeness, and the pursuit of truth.
These efforts improved industry practices, pushed out the worst journalists and publishers, and creating some trust in the content of news. They also created environments in which advertisers were willing to promote their wares in newspapers and made news organizations more financially sustainable.
This is where journalistic professionalism took a wrong turn, however.
It did so in two ways. First, professional journalists were taught and accepted the idea that they should worry about the journalism and leave the business to itself. Second, journalists, along with other employees, decided to seek improvement to their compensation and working conditions through unionization—thus becoming adversaries of management rather than partners in the management of news organizations.
Both developments clearly improved journalism and lives of journalists; however, they also separated journalists from business decisions and removed them from any responsibility for the organization’s actions and sustainability.
Although some protests over editorial interference, owner avarice, and the corporatization of the news industry were heard in the 20th century, few efforts to alter the situation developed because the enterprises were willing to share a sufficient portion of the riches generated with journalists and because companies employed more journalists, improved newsrooms, built networks of bureaus, and provided resources to undertake interesting reporting activities.
That has all changed. The reporting resources are gone, the networks of bureaus are being dismantled, many enterprises can’t afford their own facilities, and journalists are being widely laid off. All of this is being done with little input and influence from journalists and editors precisely because they spent nearly a century denying responsibility and involvement in business decisions.
Today, many journalists are arguing for the creation of new types of news organizations—primarily not-for-profit enterprises—and they are repeating the same mistake. Most are suggesting, or already setting up, organizations in which journalists still have little say on strategy and business matters. Many are content merely with the idea that the new enterprises won’t be profit driven. That, however, is not enough.
Journalists need to be equally responsible in ensuring they produce news and information that has value. They need to be responsible for ensuring their new organizations create the revenues and organizational strength needed to carry out high quality journalism. They need to ensure that organizational decisions make the organizations and the journalism offered viable.
If journalists continue to deny responsibility for the operation and survival of their news enterprises, it will be impossible to create sustainable news organizations for the future.
Showing posts with label employees. Show all posts
Showing posts with label employees. Show all posts
Saturday, January 2, 2010
Saturday, September 26, 2009
PUBLISHERS URGE MORE PUBLIC AID FOR NEWSPAPERS, BUT H.R. 3602 WON'T SOLVE THEIR PROBLEMS
The push for government support for newspaper continues and this week publishers and their supporters—including the Newspaper Association of America—went before the House Joint Economic Committee detailing how the current economic climate has harmed their finances and arguing for preferential changes to tax and pension laws. They asked to be allowed to extend application of the net operating loss provisions from 2 years to 5 years and for changes in laws to allow them to underfund pension funds for a greater period of time. Both would improve their operating performance and balance sheets.
This is a case of the newspaper industry seeking long-term business benefits to solve a short-term crisis caused by poor management decisions and the recession. The leading newspaper firms and their representatives are making concerted efforts to dupe legislators and the public into believing their troubles are part of the general trends in the industry, rather than the result of management decisions and the financial crisis that is diminishing. If the provisions are passed, the public treasury will be diminished for years to come and risks for employee pensions will be increased.
Newspaper executives and other witnesses were sympathetically treated at the hearing this week, but it is unclear whether they will be able to achieve the policies they advocated.
Another proposal that the commercial firms are uninterested in themselves, but expressed sympathy for, would broadening laws regarding charities to include not-for-profit newspapers. Their support was astute because the House Joint Economic Committee’s chair, Rep. Carolyn Maloney (D-NY), has introduced her own bill (H.R. 3602) to allow newspapers to become tax exempt under section 501(C)(3) of the tax code. Her bill somewhat mirror Senate bill 673 by Sen. Benjamin Cardin, D-Md., that was discussed earlier in this blog (Analysis of the Newspaper Revitalization Act, http://themediabusiness.blogspot.com/2009/03/analysis-of-newspaper-revitalization.html). There are some differences in Maloney’s bill that need to be highlighted.
Under Section (b) of H.R. 3602, companies would qualify for tax exempt status through a 3-part test.
First, companies would have to be “publishing on a regular basis a newspaper of general circulation” to qualify. This provision stipulates no periodicity so it does not limit qualification to dailies, which are experiencing the greatest economic and financial difficulties. This language provides the exemption only to established papers and would thus exclude startups until after they were regularly publishing, requiring startups to initially obtain financing through other than tax-deductible donations.
The language in this first test requires that publications be “a newspaper of general circulation” and this will lead to questions whether it applies to newspapers focused on specific audiences in a community—such as African Americans or senior citizens—or papers providing more focused content—such as news and information for a specific neighborhood or devoted solely to politics or crime. This ambiguity could be used by IRS examiners against some papers and could be used by some publishers to take advantage of a policy not intended for them.
The second provision requires that qualifying papers publish “local, national or international stories of interest to the general public and the distribution of such newspaper is necessary or valuable in achieving an educational purpose.” The provision regarding type of coverage is better than the Senate bill because it does not require publication of all 3 types of news—something not done in many local papers.
The third provision requires that content preparation “follows methods generally accepted as educational in character.” This provision is exceedingly vague and its application is unclear because it does not deal with the content of the paper, but with the preparation of the paper. How “the preparation of the material” follows accepted educational methods would seem to require that the papers be part of an educational activity, such as being linked to training in schools or universities. This would highly limit the applicability of the bill to existing newspaper operations.
Like the Senate bill, Section (c) permits papers to carry advertising “to the extent that such newspaper does not exceed the space allotted to fulfilling the educational purposes of such qualified newspaper corporation.” This would require papers to publish no more than an equal amount of editorial and advertising content. This is lower than the limit of postal service limit (75%) and would force most existing papers to drop about 1/3 of their existing advertising or incur damaging costs by printing more news pages than they do now. This would cripple the finances of any daily paper.
Finally, Section (d) of the legislation permits qualified companies to accept tax deductable charitable donations to support their operations.
This bill, like its Senate predecessor, is likely to have limited affects on the newspaper industry because it will not interest newspaper owners because most of their papers are producing profits and it will preclude their abilities to benefit from greater profits when the advertising recovery occurs.
There is a place for not-for-profit media and journalism, but H.R. 3602 S. 673 will not do much to improve coverage or the overall condition newspaper industry. It is likely to continue to gain support from the commercial newspaper industry, however, because it can be used to provide cover for government policies that they really want.
This is a case of the newspaper industry seeking long-term business benefits to solve a short-term crisis caused by poor management decisions and the recession. The leading newspaper firms and their representatives are making concerted efforts to dupe legislators and the public into believing their troubles are part of the general trends in the industry, rather than the result of management decisions and the financial crisis that is diminishing. If the provisions are passed, the public treasury will be diminished for years to come and risks for employee pensions will be increased.
Newspaper executives and other witnesses were sympathetically treated at the hearing this week, but it is unclear whether they will be able to achieve the policies they advocated.
Another proposal that the commercial firms are uninterested in themselves, but expressed sympathy for, would broadening laws regarding charities to include not-for-profit newspapers. Their support was astute because the House Joint Economic Committee’s chair, Rep. Carolyn Maloney (D-NY), has introduced her own bill (H.R. 3602) to allow newspapers to become tax exempt under section 501(C)(3) of the tax code. Her bill somewhat mirror Senate bill 673 by Sen. Benjamin Cardin, D-Md., that was discussed earlier in this blog (Analysis of the Newspaper Revitalization Act, http://themediabusiness.blogspot.com/2009/03/analysis-of-newspaper-revitalization.html). There are some differences in Maloney’s bill that need to be highlighted.
Under Section (b) of H.R. 3602, companies would qualify for tax exempt status through a 3-part test.
First, companies would have to be “publishing on a regular basis a newspaper of general circulation” to qualify. This provision stipulates no periodicity so it does not limit qualification to dailies, which are experiencing the greatest economic and financial difficulties. This language provides the exemption only to established papers and would thus exclude startups until after they were regularly publishing, requiring startups to initially obtain financing through other than tax-deductible donations.
The language in this first test requires that publications be “a newspaper of general circulation” and this will lead to questions whether it applies to newspapers focused on specific audiences in a community—such as African Americans or senior citizens—or papers providing more focused content—such as news and information for a specific neighborhood or devoted solely to politics or crime. This ambiguity could be used by IRS examiners against some papers and could be used by some publishers to take advantage of a policy not intended for them.
The second provision requires that qualifying papers publish “local, national or international stories of interest to the general public and the distribution of such newspaper is necessary or valuable in achieving an educational purpose.” The provision regarding type of coverage is better than the Senate bill because it does not require publication of all 3 types of news—something not done in many local papers.
The third provision requires that content preparation “follows methods generally accepted as educational in character.” This provision is exceedingly vague and its application is unclear because it does not deal with the content of the paper, but with the preparation of the paper. How “the preparation of the material” follows accepted educational methods would seem to require that the papers be part of an educational activity, such as being linked to training in schools or universities. This would highly limit the applicability of the bill to existing newspaper operations.
Like the Senate bill, Section (c) permits papers to carry advertising “to the extent that such newspaper does not exceed the space allotted to fulfilling the educational purposes of such qualified newspaper corporation.” This would require papers to publish no more than an equal amount of editorial and advertising content. This is lower than the limit of postal service limit (75%) and would force most existing papers to drop about 1/3 of their existing advertising or incur damaging costs by printing more news pages than they do now. This would cripple the finances of any daily paper.
Finally, Section (d) of the legislation permits qualified companies to accept tax deductable charitable donations to support their operations.
This bill, like its Senate predecessor, is likely to have limited affects on the newspaper industry because it will not interest newspaper owners because most of their papers are producing profits and it will preclude their abilities to benefit from greater profits when the advertising recovery occurs.
There is a place for not-for-profit media and journalism, but H.R. 3602 S. 673 will not do much to improve coverage or the overall condition newspaper industry. It is likely to continue to gain support from the commercial newspaper industry, however, because it can be used to provide cover for government policies that they really want.
Friday, August 14, 2009
JOURNALISM STARTUPS ARE HELPFUL, BUT NO PANACEA FOR NEWS PROBLEMS
One of the most exciting developments in journalism is the widespread appearance of online news startups. These are taking a variety of not-for-profit and commercial forms and are typically designed to provide reporting of under-covered communities and neighborhoods or to cover topics or employ journalistic techniques that have been reduced in traditional media because of their expense.
These initiatives should be lauded and supported. However, we have to be careful that the optimism and idealism surrounding these efforts not be imbued with naïveté and unbridled expectation. All these initiatives face significant challenges that require pragmatism in their organization and sober reflection about their potential to solve the fundamental problems in the news industry today.
We need to recognize that these online initiatives are not without precedent. We can learn a great deal about their potential from other community- and public affairs-oriented media endeavors. Community radio, local public service radio and television, public access television, and not-for-profit news and public affairs magazines have existed for decades and provide some evidence about the potential of the startups. Most rely heavily on the same types of foundation, community support, and membership financial models that startups are employing and this gives them a head start in the competition of those resources.
Despite sharing fundamental objectives and goals, these existing news and public affairs enterprises exhibit wide differences in the services they provide and their effectiveness in offering them. Many suffer from precarious financial conditions.
For the most part, such initiatives are highly dependent upon volunteer labor, individuals with the best of intentions who contribute time and effort. Those who manage the operations must expend a great deal of effort to train, coordinate, motivate and support these volunteers. This incurs cost and takes time from other activities.
Most of the organizations operate with highly limited staffs of regularly employed personnel and this is especially true in news operations. Professional journalists working in these organizations tend to be poorly paid; few have health and retirement benefits; most do not have libel insurance that protects aggressive and investigative reporting; few have access to resources to invest time and money in significant journalistic research. The consequence of these challenges is that there tends to be high turnover because the operations typically rely on young journalists who use the organizations to gain professional experience and then move on to better funded or commercial firms.
The community and public affairs operations also exhibit widely disparate size and quality in their journalistic activities. Even most affiliates of National Public Radio—which is generally considered the most successful of non-commercial news operations—tend to have small and relatively undistinguished news operations. Most rely upon the exceptional content of the national organization, large metropolitan affiliates, and the best of the content collectively produced by other local affiliates. Affiliates with larger news staffs and quality tend to be limited to those linked to university journalism programs or in the best-funded metropolitan operations.
The challenges faced in these organizations should not deter the establishment of new online initiatives or keep the rest of us from supporting them. We need to be realistic about their potential, however. In the foreseeable future these startups will tend to supplement rather than to replace traditional news organizations. They may be part of the solution to the problem of news provision, but they alone are not the remedy.
These initiatives should be lauded and supported. However, we have to be careful that the optimism and idealism surrounding these efforts not be imbued with naïveté and unbridled expectation. All these initiatives face significant challenges that require pragmatism in their organization and sober reflection about their potential to solve the fundamental problems in the news industry today.
We need to recognize that these online initiatives are not without precedent. We can learn a great deal about their potential from other community- and public affairs-oriented media endeavors. Community radio, local public service radio and television, public access television, and not-for-profit news and public affairs magazines have existed for decades and provide some evidence about the potential of the startups. Most rely heavily on the same types of foundation, community support, and membership financial models that startups are employing and this gives them a head start in the competition of those resources.
Despite sharing fundamental objectives and goals, these existing news and public affairs enterprises exhibit wide differences in the services they provide and their effectiveness in offering them. Many suffer from precarious financial conditions.
For the most part, such initiatives are highly dependent upon volunteer labor, individuals with the best of intentions who contribute time and effort. Those who manage the operations must expend a great deal of effort to train, coordinate, motivate and support these volunteers. This incurs cost and takes time from other activities.
Most of the organizations operate with highly limited staffs of regularly employed personnel and this is especially true in news operations. Professional journalists working in these organizations tend to be poorly paid; few have health and retirement benefits; most do not have libel insurance that protects aggressive and investigative reporting; few have access to resources to invest time and money in significant journalistic research. The consequence of these challenges is that there tends to be high turnover because the operations typically rely on young journalists who use the organizations to gain professional experience and then move on to better funded or commercial firms.
The community and public affairs operations also exhibit widely disparate size and quality in their journalistic activities. Even most affiliates of National Public Radio—which is generally considered the most successful of non-commercial news operations—tend to have small and relatively undistinguished news operations. Most rely upon the exceptional content of the national organization, large metropolitan affiliates, and the best of the content collectively produced by other local affiliates. Affiliates with larger news staffs and quality tend to be limited to those linked to university journalism programs or in the best-funded metropolitan operations.
The challenges faced in these organizations should not deter the establishment of new online initiatives or keep the rest of us from supporting them. We need to be realistic about their potential, however. In the foreseeable future these startups will tend to supplement rather than to replace traditional news organizations. They may be part of the solution to the problem of news provision, but they alone are not the remedy.
Thursday, July 23, 2009
PROFITS, RECESSION, AND RECOVERY
New York Times Co., Gannett Co., Media General , and McClatchy Co. have all reported profits in the second quarter and the results have led to share prices doubling and tripling.
The developments must come as a surprise to those who saw the poor performance of recent quarters and convinced themselves that the newspaper industry is dead and gone.
Admittedly, the positive results in the past 3 months were achieved through restructuring, reducing news staffs to their 1970s levels, heavy cost cutting everywhere, and postponing reinvestments. But it shows there is still life in the industry and that the industry can be expected to recover in the coming year if economic conditions continue their current rate of improvement. As I have said many times, a industry with $50 billion in revenue is not going to ignore that revenue, close the doors, and disappear overnight.
Many have viewed the poor company performance in the past 2 years and then mistaken the steep concurrent drop in advertising as evidence of a general decline caused by long-term industry trends. In doing so, they have disregarded the impact of the economy on newspaper advertising and mistaken the dramatic drop in advertising as being an indicator of the industry's broader condition rather than the shorter-term results of 4 quarters of negative growth that have affected the economy as a whole. Some have also ignored the effects of corporate debt problems had on the industry's overall condition.
In multiple blogs and articles journalists and editors have pointed out that newspapers have fared worse than other media in the recession and used that the fact as evidence that the industry is a death's door. Two decades of research on newspapers during recessions, however, has shown newspapers typically fare worse because retail and classified advertising on which the industry relies are more affected by downturns than brand advertising (See post “The Credit Crisis, Volatile Markets, and Recession and Media” and the articles below). Obviously a lot of newspaper managers and journalists don't pay attention to research about their own business.
If one looks at the newspaper advertising expenditures over time (see Figure below), one sees that they fall with recessions and then recover. This pattern was especially evident from 1991 to 1993 and 2001-2003 when short downturns pushed newspapers into decline.
If one considers different category of advertising, it is clear that the classified advertising—which was a driver of growth in the 1990s—was significantly troubled after 2000, but recovered and spiked in 2005 (Figure 2). Its relative decline by comparison to retail and national advertising is probably the result of some substitution with the Internet, nevertheless newspaper classifieds produced $10 billion in 2008—3 times that of online classified.
U.S. newspapers are in a mature industry with low growth potential once recovery from the recession occurs. Most companies will performance reasonably well after the recovery, but certainly some companies will have difficulties because of imprudent strategies and choices. Nevertheless, the industry as a whole will still remain in place producing revenue for many years to come.
Picard, R.G. (2001). Effects of Recessions on Advertising Expenditures: An Exploratory Study of Economic Downturns in Nine Developed Nations, Journal of Media Economics, 14(1): 1-14.
The developments must come as a surprise to those who saw the poor performance of recent quarters and convinced themselves that the newspaper industry is dead and gone.
Admittedly, the positive results in the past 3 months were achieved through restructuring, reducing news staffs to their 1970s levels, heavy cost cutting everywhere, and postponing reinvestments. But it shows there is still life in the industry and that the industry can be expected to recover in the coming year if economic conditions continue their current rate of improvement. As I have said many times, a industry with $50 billion in revenue is not going to ignore that revenue, close the doors, and disappear overnight.
Many have viewed the poor company performance in the past 2 years and then mistaken the steep concurrent drop in advertising as evidence of a general decline caused by long-term industry trends. In doing so, they have disregarded the impact of the economy on newspaper advertising and mistaken the dramatic drop in advertising as being an indicator of the industry's broader condition rather than the shorter-term results of 4 quarters of negative growth that have affected the economy as a whole. Some have also ignored the effects of corporate debt problems had on the industry's overall condition.
In multiple blogs and articles journalists and editors have pointed out that newspapers have fared worse than other media in the recession and used that the fact as evidence that the industry is a death's door. Two decades of research on newspapers during recessions, however, has shown newspapers typically fare worse because retail and classified advertising on which the industry relies are more affected by downturns than brand advertising (See post “The Credit Crisis, Volatile Markets, and Recession and Media” and the articles below). Obviously a lot of newspaper managers and journalists don't pay attention to research about their own business.
If one looks at the newspaper advertising expenditures over time (see Figure below), one sees that they fall with recessions and then recover. This pattern was especially evident from 1991 to 1993 and 2001-2003 when short downturns pushed newspapers into decline.
If one considers different category of advertising, it is clear that the classified advertising—which was a driver of growth in the 1990s—was significantly troubled after 2000, but recovered and spiked in 2005 (Figure 2). Its relative decline by comparison to retail and national advertising is probably the result of some substitution with the Internet, nevertheless newspaper classifieds produced $10 billion in 2008—3 times that of online classified.
U.S. newspapers are in a mature industry with low growth potential once recovery from the recession occurs. Most companies will performance reasonably well after the recovery, but certainly some companies will have difficulties because of imprudent strategies and choices. Nevertheless, the industry as a whole will still remain in place producing revenue for many years to come. It will do so because more than 45 million people are still willing to purchase a paper daily and retail advertisers still gain better results from newspaper advertising than from broadcast, Internet, and other forms of advertising.
Related Articles of Interest
Picard, R.G. & Rimmer, T. (1999). Weathering a Recession: Effects of Size and Diversification on Newspaper Companies, Journal of Media Economics, 23(4):21-33.
Picard, R.G. (2001). Effects of Recessions on Advertising Expenditures: An Exploratory Study of Economic Downturns in Nine Developed Nations, Journal of Media Economics, 14(1): 1-14.
Picard, R.G. (2008). “Shifts in Newspaper Advertising Expenditures and their Implications for the Future of Newspapers,” Journalism Studies, 9(5):704-716.
van der Wurff, R., Bakker, P. & Picard, R.G. (2008). Economic Growth and Advertising Expenditures in Different Media in Different Countries, Journal of Media Economics, 21:28-52.
Friday, June 12, 2009
SALARIES RISE BUT JOURNALISTS DON'T BENEFIT
Salary data from the annual newspaper compensation study done by the Inland Press Association underscores the points I made in a lecture at Oxford University recently on why journalists deserve low pay.
According to the salary study, average newspaper wages in the U.S. increased 2.1% between 2008 and 2009, but that result was skewed because hefty increases went to producers of interactive (online) content and editorial personnel involved in new business development. Journalists on the average received no or marginal increases depending upon their category.
My lecture, which was carried in a significantly reduced form in the Christian Science Monitor , and redistributed by multiple online sites and blogs, produced shock, anger, and invective by many journalists who missed its point. The text of the full lecture can be found at the website: http://www.robertpicard.net/files/Why_journalists_deserve_low_pay.pdf
Journalists today create very little economic value and are having a difficult time getting people to pay for the social value they create. The fact that newspapers are rewarding those who help create new businesses and revenue streams far above traditional journalists accentuates this point.
I admit that the title of my speech was deliberately provocative. It was meant as a wakeup call from a former journalist who loves the news industry. The reality is that no one deserves either high or low pay. The level of pay is EARNED. Journalists deserve pay based on the economic value they create (evidenced by what the public is willing to pay for news) or on the willingness of the public to support social purposes contributing funds to foundations or non-profit news operations.
In today’s world—in which the mass audience for newspapers and its business model are disappearing—continuing to provide the same types of coverage and content in the past will not create economic value and earn good pay. I do not believe that Internet news aggregators, community journalism, and blogging will ever replace the functions of good journalism and it will not replace the functions of most newspapers in the short to mid-term. There is hope for journalism.
If journalists want to promote good journalism and value creation that makes them earn more pay, they will have to take more responsibility for coverage decisions and content choices so that journalism becomes more valuable. Journalists have shown unusual willingness to leave those decisions to publishers and editors who have stopped acting like journalists. But it need not be that way.
According to the salary study, average newspaper wages in the U.S. increased 2.1% between 2008 and 2009, but that result was skewed because hefty increases went to producers of interactive (online) content and editorial personnel involved in new business development. Journalists on the average received no or marginal increases depending upon their category.
My lecture, which was carried in a significantly reduced form in the Christian Science Monitor , and redistributed by multiple online sites and blogs, produced shock, anger, and invective by many journalists who missed its point. The text of the full lecture can be found at the website: http://www.robertpicard.net/files/Why_journalists_deserve_low_pay.pdf
Journalists today create very little economic value and are having a difficult time getting people to pay for the social value they create. The fact that newspapers are rewarding those who help create new businesses and revenue streams far above traditional journalists accentuates this point.
I admit that the title of my speech was deliberately provocative. It was meant as a wakeup call from a former journalist who loves the news industry. The reality is that no one deserves either high or low pay. The level of pay is EARNED. Journalists deserve pay based on the economic value they create (evidenced by what the public is willing to pay for news) or on the willingness of the public to support social purposes contributing funds to foundations or non-profit news operations.
In today’s world—in which the mass audience for newspapers and its business model are disappearing—continuing to provide the same types of coverage and content in the past will not create economic value and earn good pay. I do not believe that Internet news aggregators, community journalism, and blogging will ever replace the functions of good journalism and it will not replace the functions of most newspapers in the short to mid-term. There is hope for journalism.
If journalists want to promote good journalism and value creation that makes them earn more pay, they will have to take more responsibility for coverage decisions and content choices so that journalism becomes more valuable. Journalists have shown unusual willingness to leave those decisions to publishers and editors who have stopped acting like journalists. But it need not be that way.
Wednesday, March 18, 2009
THE OVERBLOWN JOURNALIST EMPLOYMENT CRISIS
Journalists keep raising the crescendo of the chorus that journalists are losing their jobs and journalism is suffering. They point to the fact that about 10 percent of journalists have disappeared from newspapers since the millennium when U.S. newsroom employment reached a peak of 56,373.
It is true that cutbacks are pandemic these days, and that these employment reductions hit close to home for journalists, but some context is usually useful when considering the numbers and their impact. Let’s take a look at the U.S. numbers.
The American Society of Newspaper Editors has conducted a newsroom employment census for 3 decades and it presents a telling story. According to the latest ASNE newsroom employment figures, there are 22 percent more journalists in newspapers than there were in 1977 (43,000 in 1977; 52,600 in 2007). Even granting employment losses of 2,000-4,000 since the last census, employment is still about 18 to 20 percent higher than it was in the 1970s. That doesn't seem like an industry employment CRISIS, except for those who unfortunately lost their jobs.
If mere numbers of journalists are considered an indicator of quality, the growth of journalist employment from 1970s to 2000 should have made journalism extraordinary in the 1980s and 1990s. No one should have been surprised by the savings and loan debacle, the Soviet Bloc collapsing, the international debt crisis in developing nations , U.S. aid to governments in central America and the Iran-contra affair, child labor in the developing world, the explosive growth of Chinese economy, or rising domestic and international terrorism. But we were surprised and journalists didn't forewarn us. Obviously, the attention of the rising number of journalists was turned elsewhere.
If you look at newsrooms you can see the problem. Most journalists in newspapers do everything BUT covering significant news. They spend their time doing celebrity, food, automobile, and entertainment stories. Look around any newsroom, or just the lists of assignments or beats, and you soon come to realize that 20 percent or fewer of the journalists in newsrooms actually produce the kind of news that most people are concerned about losing.
It is not the mere number of journalists that matters; it’s the choices that editors and publishers make about how to use the journalists available to them. Journalists are a crucial resource and how they are utilized has a significant influence on quality. Few newspapers have cut sections or types of coverage, choosing instead to cut throughout the newsroom and not to reassign journalists to the kinds of journalism that matters most to society.
It should also be noted that decisions where to cut employment in newsrooms have not been equally spread among employment categories either. According to ASNE statistics the number of newsroom supervisors has declined only seven tenths of one percent since 2000; copy editors 1 percent, photographers and artists 10 percent, and reporters 11 percent. There may be reasonable rationales for that, but the numbers seem unusually lopsided to me. If there are fewer reporters and photographers to be supervised and edited, one would expect that fewer editors and supervisors would be required and warranted.
Maybe it’s about time that journalists stop whining about their troubles and initiate some internal discussions about how their own newsrooms are structured and operated.
It is true that cutbacks are pandemic these days, and that these employment reductions hit close to home for journalists, but some context is usually useful when considering the numbers and their impact. Let’s take a look at the U.S. numbers.
The American Society of Newspaper Editors has conducted a newsroom employment census for 3 decades and it presents a telling story. According to the latest ASNE newsroom employment figures, there are 22 percent more journalists in newspapers than there were in 1977 (43,000 in 1977; 52,600 in 2007). Even granting employment losses of 2,000-4,000 since the last census, employment is still about 18 to 20 percent higher than it was in the 1970s. That doesn't seem like an industry employment CRISIS, except for those who unfortunately lost their jobs.
If mere numbers of journalists are considered an indicator of quality, the growth of journalist employment from 1970s to 2000 should have made journalism extraordinary in the 1980s and 1990s. No one should have been surprised by the savings and loan debacle, the Soviet Bloc collapsing, the international debt crisis in developing nations , U.S. aid to governments in central America and the Iran-contra affair, child labor in the developing world, the explosive growth of Chinese economy, or rising domestic and international terrorism. But we were surprised and journalists didn't forewarn us. Obviously, the attention of the rising number of journalists was turned elsewhere.
If you look at newsrooms you can see the problem. Most journalists in newspapers do everything BUT covering significant news. They spend their time doing celebrity, food, automobile, and entertainment stories. Look around any newsroom, or just the lists of assignments or beats, and you soon come to realize that 20 percent or fewer of the journalists in newsrooms actually produce the kind of news that most people are concerned about losing.
It is not the mere number of journalists that matters; it’s the choices that editors and publishers make about how to use the journalists available to them. Journalists are a crucial resource and how they are utilized has a significant influence on quality. Few newspapers have cut sections or types of coverage, choosing instead to cut throughout the newsroom and not to reassign journalists to the kinds of journalism that matters most to society.
It should also be noted that decisions where to cut employment in newsrooms have not been equally spread among employment categories either. According to ASNE statistics the number of newsroom supervisors has declined only seven tenths of one percent since 2000; copy editors 1 percent, photographers and artists 10 percent, and reporters 11 percent. There may be reasonable rationales for that, but the numbers seem unusually lopsided to me. If there are fewer reporters and photographers to be supervised and edited, one would expect that fewer editors and supervisors would be required and warranted.
Maybe it’s about time that journalists stop whining about their troubles and initiate some internal discussions about how their own newsrooms are structured and operated.
Friday, January 16, 2009
BANKRUPTCY AND NEWSPAPER FIRMS
The bankruptcy filings of the Minneapolis Star-Tribune and Tribune Co. are cast by many as a sign of the continuing decline of the newspaper market. However, it is noteworthy that neither firm is owned by a company with a newspaper heritage, but by firms in the newspaper business primarily for financial gain. The Tribune’s owner is from the real estate business and the Star Trib’s is from private equity.
There is no doubt that the newspaper business is facing a difficult time now, but the business origins of the owners are important because their perceptions of bankruptcy, how the community will react, and how the company will be seen afterwards are colored by the norms and mores of those business fields.
Newspaper companies have long played special roles in communities, exercising social and political influence, and promoting corporate responsibility, accountability, and community standards. Publishers and editors have typically sat with the other civic leaders on boards and committees of chambers of commerce, community development organizations, foundations, and local offices of the United Way and the Better Business Bureau.
The roles and influence of newspaper executives were founded on their standing in the community and of perceptions of their respectability, community interest, and fiscal dependability. Newspaper publishers and editors would loathe any hint of financial instability or impropriety that would mar those views. The reputation of the newspaper and its brand were inextricably linked.
Newspaper companies have survived depressions, recessions, war, and all kinds of economic uncertainty in the past. They did so because they were financially solid companies with equity structures and balance sheets that allowed them survive very uncomfortable financial circumstances. Companies like the Tribune Co. and Star-Tribune are based on weaker foundations and come from cultures in which bankruptcy to reduce debts or abrogate contracts—hurting local businesses and their own employees--is just another business tool.
As I have previously discussed in this blog, there are a number of companies with long newspaper histories that are carrying significant debt or struggling with investors. It will be interesting to see how they handle their economic crises and the efforts they make avoid the stigma of bankruptcy. I suspect most will find other ways of dealing with their financial predicaments--unless they feel that the Star-Tribune and Tribune Co. choices have changed the norms for the entire industry.
There is no doubt that the newspaper business is facing a difficult time now, but the business origins of the owners are important because their perceptions of bankruptcy, how the community will react, and how the company will be seen afterwards are colored by the norms and mores of those business fields.
Newspaper companies have long played special roles in communities, exercising social and political influence, and promoting corporate responsibility, accountability, and community standards. Publishers and editors have typically sat with the other civic leaders on boards and committees of chambers of commerce, community development organizations, foundations, and local offices of the United Way and the Better Business Bureau.
The roles and influence of newspaper executives were founded on their standing in the community and of perceptions of their respectability, community interest, and fiscal dependability. Newspaper publishers and editors would loathe any hint of financial instability or impropriety that would mar those views. The reputation of the newspaper and its brand were inextricably linked.
Newspaper companies have survived depressions, recessions, war, and all kinds of economic uncertainty in the past. They did so because they were financially solid companies with equity structures and balance sheets that allowed them survive very uncomfortable financial circumstances. Companies like the Tribune Co. and Star-Tribune are based on weaker foundations and come from cultures in which bankruptcy to reduce debts or abrogate contracts—hurting local businesses and their own employees--is just another business tool.
As I have previously discussed in this blog, there are a number of companies with long newspaper histories that are carrying significant debt or struggling with investors. It will be interesting to see how they handle their economic crises and the efforts they make avoid the stigma of bankruptcy. I suspect most will find other ways of dealing with their financial predicaments--unless they feel that the Star-Tribune and Tribune Co. choices have changed the norms for the entire industry.
Tuesday, March 18, 2008
THE INTERNET, MOBILE MEDIA, AND YOUTH ARE NOT TO BLAME
Traditional media industries and companies are overwhelmed with an atmosphere of consternation and fear today.
Trade publications and industry association meetings are filled with news of diminished budgets, reorganizations, consolidations, and layoffs. People say traditonal media are declining and will soon disappear. Potential employees are wondering if there is a future for them in the industries and senior employees are hoping their jobs will last until they reach retirement. Everyone is pointing the finger,but most of the blame for killing traditional media is laid on the Internet, mobile media, and young people.
There is just one problem with their scenario. IT’S NOT TRUE. We have deluded ourselves into thinking that well established media are dying and that young people are uninterested in traditional text and audiovisual media.
Although new distributors of information and entertainment abound and video on demand and consumer-created content are increasing daily, consumers’ greatest time allocation and advertisers’ greatest expenditures remain with traditional media. Although young people have adopted newer media technologies more rapidly than other population groups, most of their media use still involves film, television, magazines, and non-traditional newspapers.
If the death knell for traditional media is not ringing, why do industry personnel keep hearing bells in their ears?
The reason is that significant changes are underway and most people don’t understand them. We have reached a era when the collective weight of expanded offerings of traditional media and the appearance of new types of media are ending the relatively undemanding operating conditions that existed due to lack of media choice and are removing the effortless profits that traditional commercial media enjoyed for a half century.
Suddenly there is competition. Suddenly there are financial losses. Suddenly there are company failures. Suddenly audiences are no longer satisfied with the “take content on our terms when we want to deliver it” approach that traditional media have offered. Only it wasn’t really sudden. Those factors have been growing incrementally for at least three decades. The problems were certainly compounded by the arrival of Internet and mobile content distribution, but they were not caused by them.
Let’s look at the case of the newspaper industry in the U.S. Readership problems have been evident for half a century. Although actual circulation rose continually throughout the twentieth century, reaching a height of 62.6 million in 1993, penetration has declined steadily at 1 to 2 percent each year since 1950. The pace has been steady despite the appearance of additional types of media. The expansion of network television didn’t increase the loss, the arrival of cable channels didn’t amplify the decline, and the arrival of the Internet didn’t boost the pace.
Today, the Internet is having an affect on advertising, but even that is not disastrous despite the wailing and gnashing of teeth. Total U.S. newspaper advertising was $46.6 billion in 1999 and $49.3 billion in 2006. In financial terms newspaper advertising is rising, but when accounting for inflation it has basically plateaued so one can not say the Internet is killing papers. If we look at classified where the biggest substitution exists, classified advertising in newspapers reached a height of $19.6 billion in 1999 and it was $16.9 billion in 2006. Clearly a decline occurred but it was offset by the fact that newspaper online advertising produced $2.6 billion in 2006. Overall, the business has stopped growing and investors are unhappy, but the industry isn't dying.
Certainly, the Internet is having many effects on established media. Research shows that print media business models have been least disrupted, unlike audiovisual media, but that print media work processes are changing most among media. However, Internet, mobile and other new form of distribution are providing all types of traditional media new opportunities.
Similar things have happened in the television business. The change from a limited number of television channels to hundreds of television, cable and satellite channels spread the audience, reduced the viewers of dominant stations, and made advertisers unwilling to continue paying previous prices. The big 3 networks could count on ratings in the 20s to 30s in the 1970s, but today they achieve ratings in the teens and are fighting to stay among the big 3. Nevertheless, viewers want network programming--on TV, as DVD, as syndicated programming, as downloads. There is no sign that demand for interesting programs is diminishing even if the basic television ratings are falling and new ways of monetizing the content are being developed.
We all need to recognize that changes in traditional operations are painful for industries, companies, and their personnel and that the contemporary changes are placing a lot of stress on management and employees. Everyone would prefer to continue doing things in the old ways they know well, but because of the new conditions those business models, processes, and market techniques aren't working as effectively as in the past.
The biggest challenges facing people in traditional media today are pessimism and lack of vision. Morale in publications and stations continues to drop, and doom and gloom are everywhere. That negativism makes things worse internally, reduces confidence of advertisers and investors, and makes it difficult to think about trying new things or even trying old things in new ways. The first step out of this condition is to stop lamenting the passing of the past. Things will never be the way they were. So get over it. Move on. Discover and embrace new ways of operating and new opportunities to prosper and grow.
Trade publications and industry association meetings are filled with news of diminished budgets, reorganizations, consolidations, and layoffs. People say traditonal media are declining and will soon disappear. Potential employees are wondering if there is a future for them in the industries and senior employees are hoping their jobs will last until they reach retirement. Everyone is pointing the finger,but most of the blame for killing traditional media is laid on the Internet, mobile media, and young people.
There is just one problem with their scenario. IT’S NOT TRUE. We have deluded ourselves into thinking that well established media are dying and that young people are uninterested in traditional text and audiovisual media.
Although new distributors of information and entertainment abound and video on demand and consumer-created content are increasing daily, consumers’ greatest time allocation and advertisers’ greatest expenditures remain with traditional media. Although young people have adopted newer media technologies more rapidly than other population groups, most of their media use still involves film, television, magazines, and non-traditional newspapers.
If the death knell for traditional media is not ringing, why do industry personnel keep hearing bells in their ears?
The reason is that significant changes are underway and most people don’t understand them. We have reached a era when the collective weight of expanded offerings of traditional media and the appearance of new types of media are ending the relatively undemanding operating conditions that existed due to lack of media choice and are removing the effortless profits that traditional commercial media enjoyed for a half century.
Suddenly there is competition. Suddenly there are financial losses. Suddenly there are company failures. Suddenly audiences are no longer satisfied with the “take content on our terms when we want to deliver it” approach that traditional media have offered. Only it wasn’t really sudden. Those factors have been growing incrementally for at least three decades. The problems were certainly compounded by the arrival of Internet and mobile content distribution, but they were not caused by them.
Let’s look at the case of the newspaper industry in the U.S. Readership problems have been evident for half a century. Although actual circulation rose continually throughout the twentieth century, reaching a height of 62.6 million in 1993, penetration has declined steadily at 1 to 2 percent each year since 1950. The pace has been steady despite the appearance of additional types of media. The expansion of network television didn’t increase the loss, the arrival of cable channels didn’t amplify the decline, and the arrival of the Internet didn’t boost the pace.
Today, the Internet is having an affect on advertising, but even that is not disastrous despite the wailing and gnashing of teeth. Total U.S. newspaper advertising was $46.6 billion in 1999 and $49.3 billion in 2006. In financial terms newspaper advertising is rising, but when accounting for inflation it has basically plateaued so one can not say the Internet is killing papers. If we look at classified where the biggest substitution exists, classified advertising in newspapers reached a height of $19.6 billion in 1999 and it was $16.9 billion in 2006. Clearly a decline occurred but it was offset by the fact that newspaper online advertising produced $2.6 billion in 2006. Overall, the business has stopped growing and investors are unhappy, but the industry isn't dying.
Certainly, the Internet is having many effects on established media. Research shows that print media business models have been least disrupted, unlike audiovisual media, but that print media work processes are changing most among media. However, Internet, mobile and other new form of distribution are providing all types of traditional media new opportunities.
Similar things have happened in the television business. The change from a limited number of television channels to hundreds of television, cable and satellite channels spread the audience, reduced the viewers of dominant stations, and made advertisers unwilling to continue paying previous prices. The big 3 networks could count on ratings in the 20s to 30s in the 1970s, but today they achieve ratings in the teens and are fighting to stay among the big 3. Nevertheless, viewers want network programming--on TV, as DVD, as syndicated programming, as downloads. There is no sign that demand for interesting programs is diminishing even if the basic television ratings are falling and new ways of monetizing the content are being developed.
We all need to recognize that changes in traditional operations are painful for industries, companies, and their personnel and that the contemporary changes are placing a lot of stress on management and employees. Everyone would prefer to continue doing things in the old ways they know well, but because of the new conditions those business models, processes, and market techniques aren't working as effectively as in the past.
The biggest challenges facing people in traditional media today are pessimism and lack of vision. Morale in publications and stations continues to drop, and doom and gloom are everywhere. That negativism makes things worse internally, reduces confidence of advertisers and investors, and makes it difficult to think about trying new things or even trying old things in new ways. The first step out of this condition is to stop lamenting the passing of the past. Things will never be the way they were. So get over it. Move on. Discover and embrace new ways of operating and new opportunities to prosper and grow.
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