Newspapers Matter

Reviving my role as a Wall Street equity analyst, I conducted an interview with the publisher and the editor of the Cleveland Plain Dealer as part of a small fundraiser for the Cleveland Film Society. While the formal discussion probably lasted 45 minutes, the conversation continued throughout the remainder of the evening. The conclusion was that newspapers matter. While I would like to think that is an obvious point, the revelation for me was that newspapers need to re-engage their respective communities to remind them of that fact.

The audience seemed dazzled by Egger & Goldberg, the typical criticism stifled. There seemed to be a better appreciation for the complexities of the business and the difficult decisions that needed to be made daily. Perhaps if papers were more direct with their community they would both get more respect and better readership.

Terrance C.Z. Egger became publisher of the Plain Dealer in May of 2006; among his many achievements to date was the hiring of Susan Goldberg in May of 2007. They are a terrific, convivial team that did a nice job of communicating their passion, especially for the active role a newspaper can play in its community.

Recognizing that Cleveland has a perpetual cloud over it, Susan is trying to shake it loose. It doesn't hurt that the Cavs and Indians had exciting post-seasons with the Browns continuing that momentum. With that as a backdrop, the front page has changed dramatically and has come to life. More color, more local stories, less structure, a left hand bar highlighting content -- just like a real newspaper. Cleveland is a sports town; the coverage has been beefed up with tremendous promotion of the individual columnists. Restaurant reviews appear on line first so that readers can comment resulting in a print version that captures both. Readers can contribute photographs and commentary each week on high school sports and other topics. Blogs have been launched, albeit with some controversy; but better to make mistakes and learn from them than sit still and get passed over. In short, rapid progress is being made; towards what eventual end is less clear, but that is an industry issue, not a local one. .

Major metropolitan papers need to increase their relevance to their readers. They can no longer be everything to everyone as the resources are constrained. Tradeoffs need to be made about what can be covered comprehensively and what cannot. Newspapers need to focus on what makes them distinct in their market and stick to their core strengths. Increasingly, community dialogues are taking place online; newspapers are doing a better job of participating, More data driven stories are being developed that should result in stories with potentially longer shelf lives.

Newspaper matter as they can help ferret out the good guys from the bad. They can keep the dialogue civil. They provide a watchdog role

All told, I was more optimistic about the newspaper industry at the end of that evening than I have been in some time. The industry won't return to its former profitability but it strikes me as far from dead.

Comments

[ParacleteofKavorka]

Journalism is so bad nowadays. Especially with local news, I have to read almost to the end of an article before I know what it's about. If it's about some city council issue, they'll say so and so said this, then so and so said that, over and over before you find out what happened in the first place. I guess the word chronology is unknown to them.

Also, politicians don't 'attack' each other except in the reporting. They 'say' things no matter what the content is. If an article says Sen. X attacked the president's plan, you might as well stop reading any more. It's bias one way or the other.

[KindAndThoughtful]

Thanks for the post. Journalism will always come down to intelligent content, accuracy and fairness. The technology will change, but not the guiding principles.

[Justis]

I don't think that more "color" is going to make the PD--a conservative rag--any more "relevant" to the long-suffering region of northeast Ohio. I would encourage Clevelanders to get their information and entertainment elsewhere, from as many and diverse sources as possible. If the PD were to die as a result, so much the better.

[Hadashito]

What appears in major newspapers these days as never before, except for some notable examples of yellow journalism and muck spreading political hackery in the past, are editorials and news articles strongly influenced by owners, publishers, and editors who are, in turn, dictated to by their bosses. Corporate ownership has destroyed the credibility of even the most (formerly) respected newspapers like the NYT and WashPost. Local newspapers, which include most of the country's print media, carry mostly news wire articles which are identical across the board. That fact may be inavoidable, but the worst journalistic sin being committed by our major papers, especially, is ignoring of important developments, and the elimination of investigative reporting. We regularly read important stories on the more serious websites that never appear in the print media or TV. American journalism has failed miserably in pursuing its Constitutional mandate. The Plain dealer is no exception. The publisher's denial of the editorial staff's desire to endorse Kerry in the past election is only one example. Ohio politics under Republican Party domination has had some, but only a little, investigative reporting in the Plain Dealer, although some (by Sabrina Eaton, for example) has been exemplary. Prettifying the Plain Dealer is not journalism. Freeing up the newspaper content from corporate influence is the only way to restore its credibility.

[anghiari]

I'm sorry Lauren, where did you say you've been the last ten years? Newspapers of every ilk have been in the throes of trying to re-engage their local communities for the last decade.

[asherah]

I live in Cleveland, but alas, it is not the format of the PD that is so bad, but the content of the paper. Making it a regional USA Today doesn't do much for those of us who still want to read and engage with thoughtful journalists. They do have one gem at the PD -- Karen Long.

[Escritor07]

If newspapers die out, who's going to write the news stories that the hip get "on the internet?" News on the net is either AP re-writes of local newspaper stories or generated by AP itself, or produced by news services such as the NYT or Washington Post. By hollowing out newsrooms to save money, newspapers are shooting themselves in the foot. And despite all the clamoring about "liberal bias" the truth is that many newspapers actually have a right-wing tilt in their news coverage.

[playera]

Many years ago we subscribed to the Plain Dealer Sunday paper. One of the reasons was the Sunday Magazine. Back then (early 90s) they started adding writers who wrote in a style that I suppose was meant to be cutting-edge cool. I totally missed it. Whatever they were writing about and the style were just too stupid to have any interest from me. Now, the PD is too conservative and Republican. The web page has little of news, except the local weather.

[SunSinger]

On one hand, newspapers are considering the sad fact that the print media may soon be gone with the wind. So now we have the old media competing on line for clicks and reads and SEO.

On the other hand, newspapers are committing suicide locally by taking on more syndicated material while getting rid of local reporters and editors with local contacts.

Not to long ago, for example, the Atlanta Journal-Co­nstitution (AJC) made a splash nationally by firing its popular, long-time book review editor. Nobody expected this splash, which included such blogs as "Critical Mass," to cause the paper to re-think what they were doing. In short, instead of using local reviewers, who know something about Georgia authors, we're seeing more stuff from the Associated Press and others who don't live here.

If the AJC, and other newspapers with similar approaches, want to become "just another website," with very little local relevance, they've got the formula down pat.

Malcolm R. Campbell

[Jillmz]

Lauren, I'm sorry - it looks like the hyperlink didn't come through so here it is:

http://www.writeslikeshetalks.com/2007/11/17/lauren-rich-fine-wplain-dealers-goldberg-egger-in-interview-on-huffpo/

[Jillmz]

Hi Lauren - I've written a post here in response to this post by you. I hope you don't mind - it's in my voice and it's lengthy and that's why I didn't include it here. But if you would like me to graft some of it over to here, if you think it would be relevant, I would do that.

Thanks.

[loril]

You might enjoy the Plain Dealer, then. It's bias is decidedly conservative. And the Cleveland readers who are being driven away in droves are not. I was raised in a family where we subscribed to more than one paper. Reading the paper was a ritual I enjoyed from a young age.

However, Cleveland is now a one-newspaper town. The PD has a stranglehold on news coverage. The lack of multiple points of view is a factor in driving astute readers to other sources (Huffpo being one such example).

Maybe I am weird...bu­t I want to read the newspaper for news...not sports coverage or restaurant reviews. (I mean, this extra stuff is nice...but I am mainly interested in getting more important news for my buck. I can get tips on dining out from friends or from other local entertainment mags.) The traditional media outlets (big newspapers and tv networks) have become too homogenized and too beholden to their boards of directors and the "top 2%" types that call the shots. Sure, the public can make comments on the PD website...­but if the Big Bosses don't like the comments (or if local Republican politicos get their panties in a bunch...th­ese comments will get deleted: See the LaTourette debacle)

I won't even get into the whole trap of discussing the "liberal bias" charges. In my world of Fox News, Hannity, Rush and Coulter (and the Plain Dealer!) this is just not the case. But lately I have come to believe that right wingers live in a parallel universe where these people simply do not exist on the airwaves and thery see only crazed lefties everywhere­...

[WorkingClass]

Good riddance to news papers. Lets get rid of teevee next.

[tjdestry]

Goodness, judging from the comments, I guess the only newspapers that will survive are those that (A) admit that they are an abject failure and that all the cool kids are on-line and (B) put in more coverage of the conspiracies, cover-ups and suppressed inventions, not to mention fringe politicians with brand-new innovative ways to end all war.

Meanwhile, newspaper circulation is well down but the industry does, from the non-trendoid, non-tinfoil side of the world, seem viable. The major issue is to connect with readers more locally and more personally, and what is outlined here is, as said, a good start that will require adjustments as it goes along. What I see as the major adjustment is creating core content that is sparked with but not overwhelmed by that local, personal content, and then getting rid of, or at least hiding, the Brittny Spears coverage and the wire service filler junk that is used to justify an 8-section doorstop. The print product has to come down to no more than 40 pages and would do better at 32 or even 24. And I don't know how giant corporate metros can do that unless they are willing to microzone the product and microzone the advertising that goes into each edition.

But, as evidenced here, part of the problem is that the hipsters have already decided newspapers are dead, and so the question is, how do you market to the majority who don't feel that way without constantly swatting away the noisy group that tends to dominate public discourse?

[ScienceLady]

I have seen a shift to the right in the PD in the past few years. I suppose it is trying to connect with the religious, conservative, moral-high-ground communities, reaching ever further to the sprawling suburbs. Where people are trying to move further and further from those annoying city people and their bad schools. There are plenty of new McMansions advertised in the PD in communities so far from Cleveland the PD won't even be delivered there. What does a paper write about when the communities they serve have Check Cashing, tanning and nail salons on every corner? They hire alot of religious journalists. We pray alot and hope for divine intervention.
Where is the health and science and technology section?
I am an electrical engineer and I live in Cleveland (Parma actually), Why? Because my family lives here, and my husband and I have professional opportunties made only possible by science and technology.