Couldn’t make it to the Society of Professional Journalists discussion last night about saving the SF Chronicle. I figure a blog entry would be the appropriate place to give my Rx. After all, the blogs and everything digital are what’s killing the Chronicle at internet speed. All of that has brought on the concerns of good groups like SPJ, which should be alarmed at what it all means to journalism.
To me, the question of saving the Chronicle seems to be a tad misguided. What did the horse and buggy folks do when they saw Henry Ford gaining on them? That trade rolled over and died, and exists today only as sheer nostalgia at places like Central Park, or among those who live in the past permanently like the Amish of Intercourse, Pa.
Like it or not, the market is the arbiter and will force change. There’s little we can do to change it. Unless we take some extraordinary measures that re-positions and places value on newspapers and their role in society.
The newspaper will no doubt will have to become like the horse and buggy–a relic of the past. But it will be more than that if it can transition from being the first draft of history, to offering real history. That’s the role change that’s necessary. The place for breaking news, or what passes for news for mass consumption is the net, where everything is quick and speedy and now. So you go on-line. You pick up your PDA. You go to cable. You get what you need, and then you get back to your life.
Where do you go to watch Watergate unfold before your eyes? The newspaper.
Where else can news junkies get the real hard-hitting, “this is what matters” stuff? That’s a nostalgic sense of the news, but it leads people back to newspapers.
Watergate could have been broken on-line had it been around. But what newspapers as institutions have are huge staffs of veteran people, an archive, and a watchdog mission. They are the churches of journalism, built on the First Amendment. For that reason they need to stay around. Except they can’t when papers like the Chronicle claim to lose $50 million a year.
So how do we save daily newspapers?
We treat them as non-profits and not for-profit businesses. The Catholic Churches in San Francisco save millions in taxes. They don’t need your offering on Sunday. What if the big media owners were to spin off their properties to non-profit foundations. Treat the newspaper business a public service. We’d save the newspapers, help veteran writers and editors keep their jobs, and get better journalism.
Subsidizing the newspaper wouldn’t be such a bad idea. We already have a model in broadcasting with PBS and NPR.
I admit that even non-profit newspapers and media have trouble in these tough times. Poor management can still wreak havoc on the bottom line. But even a non-profit doesn’t deserve to be in business if it loses $50 million a year like the Chronicle.
I grew up in San Francisco and read the Chronicle because of Peanuts, Herb Caen and the Sporting Green. In high school, I delivered the Chronicle, and I was even covered by the Chronicle (I was Mayor for a Day).
I’ve written for the Chronicle (and the Gate), and have some friends who still work there.
I think the paper should survive. But only after a real shift in how we view them.
For-profit, mass circulation newspapers are dead.
The newspapers that have a chance of surviving are publicly-funded,non-profit, community focused papers dedicated to public service.
Does anyone want to be in that business?
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Since AsianWeek went on-line only, I blog here from time to time. To be alerted when I post email me at:
emil@amok.com