Obit already written for legacy newspapers

By Ron Brochu

The best time to have been a print journalist was 1976. “All the President’s Men” was dazzling movie goers, romanticizing the tough investigative journalism that exposed the Watergate break-in, unseating a passel of low-life political operatives including President Richard Nixon.

Bob Woodward and Carl Bernstein inspired a generation of J-school grads to crusade for justice from newspaper bully pulpits. Those who reported accurately and fearlessly stood an excellent chance of advancing within an honorable craft. Daily newspapers and their reporters earned high public respect.

Nothing lasts forever. Over time, newspaper credibility diminished in tandem with circulation as an incoming crop of journalists felt entitled to respect without earning it. Nonetheless, reporters and editors exhibited an indignant swagger that insulted traditional subscribers. Publishers, meanwhile, addicted to 30 percent profits, raised advertising rates and slashed newsrooms to perpetuate an ailing business model .

It was a gambit that only a monopoly could sustain, as demonstrated in the Twin Ports. Unable to satisfy greedy stockholders, the former Knight Ridder Inc. purchased many daily and weekly competitors here and elsewhere in a last ditch effort to raise advertising rates. But they already were too high for retail customers, which typically earn profits ranging from 10 to 20 percent of those mustered by corporate newspapers.

As a Duluth News Tribune city editor and Superior Daily Telegram executive editor, I sat through countless meetings at which managers dutifully endorsed silly corporate initiatives designed to maintain hoggish earnings. At one time, the “Flavor of the Month” was demanding greater employee accountability. Later, our charge was to cultivate “richer” stories, even if they had already been broadcast on TV. Our motto: “We may not be first, but we’ll be best.”

Then we moved our focus to reporting on “core communities” rather than providing regional coverage. Focus soon slid to enhancing Internet products. Gimmicks such as live game coverage offered the technological equivalent of 1950s television. Today, the DNT is constantly revising its design, with each day’s cover looking more clownish that the last. So far, however, pre-Internet profits have refused to rebound.

It happened because reporters and editors held the idealistic tenants of journalism in much higher esteem than doggedly covering the news in every corner. When hiring reporters, editors gave much more credence to college pedigree than local connections and knowledge. Even after years of tenure, some newsrooms represented little more than an upscale monoculture. In Duluth, for example, the vast majority of writers and editors reside east of Lake Avenue, knowing and caring little about West End or West Duluth.

Meanwhile, publishers cared more about meeting corporate profit targets than ensuring their customers could meet their own goals through effective, reasonably priced advertising programs. Relationships with civic and corporate moguls proved more important than aggressive reporting, as the DNT proved with its early aquarium coverage.

At all levels, serving owners and egos became the prevailing goal, having more importance than serving customers and challenging institutions.

After working for 25 years at traditional metro papers, I believe the damage is irreversible. People young and old have lost trust in legacy publications. Once lost, that loyalty is nearly impossible to recover. The obituary has already been written; it needs only to be published.
Published in the Sept. 15, 2008 Reader Weekly