This has not been the greatest 12 months for the newspaper industry.
Circulation figures aren’t terrific. The once-great Knight-Ridder Newspaper chain had to put itself up for sale, was sold and partially dismembered. Questions remain about how some of the former KRN newspapers will fare.
The Chicago Tribune Company — a company that owns and runs some excellent newspapers — essentially fired the publisher and editor of the Los Angeles Times who both resisted plans for budget and personnel cuts amid continuing signs of a sagging corporate bottom line.
To paraphrase an old, obnoxious TV commercial: “What’s a big corporate newspaper company to do?”
Here’s one attempt to try something:
Just days after Executive Editor Leonard Downie, Jr.’s surprising memo outlined major shifts ahead for The Washington Post, the first unexpected changes have come — though probably not related to his announcement.
National political editor John Harris (co-author of a recent book with ABC’s Mark Halperin) and top reporter Jim VandeHei are both leaving the paper to join a new multimedia political offering from Allbritton Communications, which is about to launch The Capitol Leader newspaper.
“Several additional nationally-recognized journalists will be joining the venture, creating an unmatched, web-based, one-stop-shop for political news coverage,” an Allbritton release states today. “They will challenge the traditional media for dominance in covering national politics and Congress.”
Wasn’t the last thing that sounded this good the guy who said: “I’ve invented it! SLICED BREAD!!!” And:
Harris said in a statement, “The country is on the brink of what promises to be one of the most intense and consequential presidential campaigns in decades. Allbritton Communications has made a commitment to telling the story of this campaign and its personalities as comprehensively as any news organization in America.
Added VandeHei: “We will put together the best political reporting team in country today and deliver the news the way people want it: fast, fair and first.”
One problem in that description is that this is an era when “fact-based” journalism — fair journalism — is under more attack than ever. A news source that reports something might happen or is likely to happen could come under fiery attack as saying it wants to keep it from happening by merely reporting on it. This is the era when the “mainstream media” has influenced by the tabloids, talk radio and the morphing of news and talk into something called Fox News which has been highly successful (although its numbers are reportedly falling a bit).
The statement continued: “The new venture will combine Allbritton’s new Capitol Hill newspaper, The Capitol Leader, which Harris and VandeHei will lead and the Washington media resources of Allbritton’s ABC affiliate, WJLA-TV, and its 24-hour cable news service, NewsChannel 8, along with national exposure on the CBS Television Network. This unique partnership will include carriage of stories, interviews and regular features on Face the Nation and CBS This Morning as well as CBS Radio. Tying these traditional media together, the new platform will be anchored on the web, pushing the next generation of political journalism: more conversational, more interactive and more transparent in taking the audience behind the scenes of how news happens and how it gets reported.”
And apparently more hype. You almost need to do an hour of meditation after reading this hyperactive description.
Blogger and journalism prof Jay Rosen, who writes a superb media analysis weblog, raises a host of specific questions. His post should be read in FULL but here’s a tiny taste of it:
What VandeHei and Harris are saying is: game is up, guys. Those deals are news, we know how it works, and we don’t have the “institutional bias� that permits the Post and the Times and the Journal to tolerate the gentleman’s agreements, which after all are agreements to bury the story of who leaked what and why, to what effect. This, I believe, is where they think they can blow the lid off the political reporting game and generate some shock and awe for their new venture.
It is an idea only an insider can love. But since this is partly a play for the insiders in Washington it’s easy to see how it became the selling proposition, the “edge� generator, alongside duller and awesomely conventional ideas like: multi-media… “pull back the curtain on…� truly down the middle… fast, fair and first… dream team of political reporters… no institutional biases. I would call some of these notions baggage.
Of course they also said: “more interactive.� Several times, in fact. But I could not find a single detail about it in the small flurry of coverage this week. If the strategy is to be “more interactive,� John and Jim are keeping the strategy a state secret for now.
Rosen’s analysis needs to be read in its ENTIRETY.
He also gives you a host of other links to sites that commented on this subject, including Chris Nolan, Jane Hamsher, and others — and notes that THIS COMPARISON is apt.
As always, Rosen is required reading for anyone seriously interested in media issues.
Joe Gandelman is a former fulltime journalist who freelanced in India, Spain, Bangladesh and Cypress writing for publications such as the Christian Science Monitor and Newsweek. He also did radio reports from Madrid for NPR’s All Things Considered. He has worked on two U.S. newspapers and quit the news biz in 1990 to go into entertainment. He also has written for The Week and several online publications, did a column for Cagle Cartoons Syndicate and has appeared on CNN.