How to Save America's Newspapers

Posted by Walter Brasch, The All Spin Zone at 4:01 AM on August 20, 2008.

It’s time to get back to basics in the newspaper publishing industry. As profits have fallen, so has the quality of reporting and editorial oversight when newsroom staffs are cut beyond the bone in order to maximize ownership return on investment. Have the owners and publishers in the newspaper business forgotten their true value proposition to their readership?


Executive management at the Allentown (Pa.) Morning Call recently laid off more than two dozen persons from its newsroom, most of them veteran reporters drawing higher salaries. Management plans to cut 35–40 positions, according to a letter sent by publisher Timothy Johnson. The cuts are about one-fourth of the news staff. The remaining reporters are being told to write more stories under the same deadline constraints. Coverage of local meetings has been put into secondary importance; bureaus have been combined. The Morning Call is not alone.


About 85 percent of all dailies with more than 100,000 circulation, and about half of all dailies with circulations under 100,000, have cut the number of reporters and editors, according to a survey conducted by the Pew Research Center for the People and the Press. During the first half of this year, newspapers laid off or froze more than 6,500 news positions. This was the biggest loss in three decades, according to the American Society of Newspaper Editors.

With the layoffs, news quality has suffered. A newsroom filled with younger reporters -- they aren’t paid as much as the senior reporters who were terminated or laid off -- leaves a newspaper vulnerable to a newsroom with less knowledge of the community and how to gather, report, and write news. Almost no newspapers have proofreaders. About 40 percent of all newspapers report they have fewer copyeditors today than just two years ago. No proofreaders means more typos. Fewer copyeditors means sloppier copy, more factual error, and a lot more stories that are incomplete.


During the past few years, newspaper owners demanded and were getting at 20–40 percent profit, among the highest for any industry -- and that includes Big Oil. With newsrooms and the news product already lean, the owners kept taking and taking.


And now there’s an economic recession. Subscribers are questioning their annual $150–250 investments. Businesses are folding, and the ones remaining are reducing newspaper advertising budgets.


Go to any journalism conference, and you’ll see a lot of hand-wringing. Reporters and editors are whining about how bad it is. They rightly blame owners and publishers. But, they also blame readers for accepting abbreviated news drops from TV and myriad cable networks. They whine about the Blogosphere and Internet domination. They complain about the short attention span of their readers. It’s this and it’s that. And so, with the help of $500 an hour consultants who eruditely harrumph their grandeur of divine guesses, they make cosmetic changes. They follow the 24/7 cable networks and increase entertainment and gossip. They give us more syrupy “feel good” news. They say they want to be “relevant.” Editors at the Morning Call, like many newspapers, are placing light features and how-to columns higher than hard news. Some changes improve the product, most are band-aids. A decade ago, the American Society of Newspaper Editors published a study that revealed Americans wanted less, not more sensationalism, gossip, and celebrity news. Apparently, no one was listening to the people.


The system is broken, and it’s the owners’ fault. They have already “maximized profits” by low salaries and minimal benefits, giving veteran reporters “involuntary terminations,” significantly reduced employee education programs, cut the number of pages, reduced the page size, and increased the use of material provided by syndicates rather than local news staff. These latest cuts are deep into the muscle. Owners of the Morning Call, like owners at hundreds of other newspapers, apparently believe that reducing quality improves profits. The owners of the newspaper industry need a course in Basic Journalism 101.


A quality news product will increase circulation.


Increased circulation will bring more advertising.


More advertising brings better profits and allows even more news quality.


Cutting reporters, benefits, employee training, and news coverage is not the way to save newspapers.


[Walter Brasch, an award-winning former newspaper reporter and editor, is professor of journalism at Bloomsburg University, a syndicated columnist, occasional contributor to ASZ, and author of 17 books. He is former president of the Keystone (Pennsylvania) professional chapter of the Society of Professional Journalists and is currently president of the Pennsylvania Press Club. His latest book is Sinking the Ship of State: The Presidency of George W. Bush.]

Tagged as: newspapers, allentown, morning call