December 2008 Archives

Journalists, accountants and bankruptcy experts found accord Thursday on the No. 1 issue facing Tribune Co. as it begins its Chapter 11 bankruptcy adventure:  It isn't owner Sam Zell.  It isn't the company's huge indebtedness.  The question, said Los Angeles Times editor Russ Stanton, is "whether this is a viable business."

In one way, Stanton told a gathering at USC's Annenberg School for Communication, the answer is already clear.  "I think big-city newspapers, the way we have known them, are not long for this world, as they're now configured."

The editor of the Tampa Tribune, Janet Coats, got the attention of her Facebook friends last Saturday when she posted this message: "Janet is preparing to fire a shot over the bow." I figured Janet's staff at the Tribune was about to score a scoop in the Sunday paper. But a quick check of Tampa Bay Online didn't turn up anything that matched her provocative post.

Then I saw it. "This Newspaper Is Fighting Back." And before I read on, a quick word came to mind: "Yes!!"

So this is how it ends:

- Detroit newspapers have lost so much revenue they plan to publish and distribute a traditional paper only two days a week, according to the Wall Street Journal
(and reported here).

- NPR has lost so much revenue that it will cancel programs once considered the network's future to conserve resources for its decades-old hits, according to an NPR announcement.

- NBC has lost so much revenue it announces it will only program four hours a week of traditional prime time entertainment next fall. Yes, that's correct: four hours a *week* -- read on. (The press release is available here.)

- The Tribune Company, owner of the Chicago Tribune, the Los Angeles Times and a host of other newspapers, has lost so much revenue that it filed for bankruptcy protection from its creditors, sending shockwaves throughout the industry.

And all of that was just last week.

They may be moving too ineptly and too slowly, but newspapers are confronting the reality that their longtime role as gatekeeper of information has reached an end.  My former boss, McClatchy's Howard Weaver, used to put it this way:  Some newspapers are still standing guard at the gate; problem is, because of the Internet, the fences are all down.

One of the results is that the old days of one-way communication - the newspaper telling its readers what was important, take it or leave it - are fading away.  Two-way communication is the order of the day.  But only now are those of us who've spent our lives in the media coming to grips with what that means:  It doesn't just mean readers and listeners get to talk; it doesn't just mean that the media listens; it also means that their feedback is acted upon.

The financial press has been taking it on the chin lately for its coverage of the nation's economic mess. Some of it's well-earned. At least several financial writers have acknowledged they should have asked more questions about the long period of easy credit, soaring asset prices and ever-growing leverage on Wall Street. To my eye, the criticism is overcooked. 

Early in this year's primary election season I did a study on bipartisanship for the Center on Communication Leadership of the University of Southern California. I'm afraid I was not very optimistic that Republicans and Democrats would be able to get together on much of anything after the Clinton and Bush years of what some call "hyperpartisanship."

Now I'm not so sure.