GANAHL ON MEDIA: A Fed Bailout?

Want to start an argument with a journalist? Easy. Demand their reporting notes, insist they reveal the names of confidential sources, or suggest they seek government funding to keep their legacy media afloat. And that’s the controversial suggestion Leonard Downie Jr. and Michael Schudson make in their report The Reconstruction of American Journalism commissioned by the Columbia University Journalism School.

The two are no strangers to the practice and study of media. Downie, a former executive editor of The Washington Post teaches at Arizona State University, and Schudson is a professor at the Graduate School of Journalism at Columbia University. The Columbia Journalism Review published a 35-page summary (which I have read) of the complete 100-page October report (which I have not read) on media’s current condition and strategies to salvage the legacy.

Reactions to the report have been widespread and range from CJR’s digitally published comments to media columnists such at The Washington Post’s Howard Kurtz, to even Twitter where the debate can be followed as #columbiajreport. An ironical footnote to the report’s release is it occurred in the same week The New York Times announced plans to reduce its newsroom by 100 positions, and the Audit Bureau of Circulation reported newspaper circulation declined almost 11% in 2009. Please see the accompanying table published in The New York Times.


So, how did Downie and Schudson incite this debate?

They conclude, “Fewer journalists are reporting less news in fewer pages, and the hegemony that near-monopoly metropolitan newspapers enjoyed during the last third of the twentieth century, even as their primary audience eroded, is ending.” They remind us that the number of newspaper editorial employees has dropped 33% from 60,000 in 1992 to 40,000 today.

But, you might ask, aren’t all things, including the business models of media moguls, shaped by evolution? Isn’t survival of the fittest a business world imperative? Not necessarily.

The duo quotes a Knight Foundation commission that suggests independent reporting “is as vital to the healthy functioning of communities as clean air, safe streets, good schools, and public health.” In fact, it is this reporting, or accountability journalism as they call it, which “undergirds democracy” as it performs the press’ watchdog function. They believe that only legacy media and their outsized newsrooms can sustain this type of reporting.

While they celebrate the plethora of online news operations launched by entrepreneurs, philanthropists and universities, they conclude, “it is unlikely that any but the smallest of these news organizations can be supported” by current online revenue.

Given the enormity of responsibility the pair ascribes to legacy media, namely the perpetuation of democracy, their six strategies to save newspapers seem almost simplistic. These strategies include reduced taxes through nonprofit status, increased philanthropic donations, university-supported reporting, wider access to public databases, heightened pressure on public broadcasters to provide local news, and government funding of editorial functions.

Certainly, it’s highly unlikely the government will appoint a media czar to restructure an industry already well on its way to being reinvented by its more innovative practitioners and experimental consumers. Still, the report is a provocative analysis of media’s traditions, foibles and best practices. And it should be studied because it may inspire novel and enduring changes.

GANAHL ON MEDIA: How Dire Is It?

Today more people rely on the Internet than newspapers for national and international news. For those involved in traditional media, the question of the moment is survival. How threatened are traditional media? How deep is this crisis, and when will it get better?

In a word…the crisis is dire. Hopefully it will get better, but this may take a very long time.

Consider total reported advertising revenues for the first half of 2009. Advertising Age reports that overall ad revenues measured by Nielsen are down almost 16% during the first 6 months 0f 2009 when compared with the same period in 2008.

The only two media categories among the 19 measured categories reporting increases during the first half of 2009 are Cable TV with a 1.5% increase and Spanish Language Cable TV with a 0.6% increase. Internet ad spending is down 1% during this period. Please see the table titled Year-to-Year Change in Ad Spend, by Media published September 2, 2009 in Advertising Age.

The media most impacted by this crisis are newspapers. Richard Pe’rez-Pena reports in The New York Times that newspaper revenues fell almost 29% during the first half of 2009 according to the Newspaper Association of America. Also, the NAA reports that the current rate of decline in newspaper ad revenues is accelerating from the 2007 decline of 16.7%, and the 2006 decline 7.9%.

More over, the current precipitous decline represents long-term erosion in newspaper ad revenues. Ryan Chittum concludes in the Columbia Journalism Review that “(the 2009 decline) understates just how awful the numbers are…You have to go back to 1965 to find a year with revenue lower in 2009 dollars than what this year is projected to be.” Do the math…newspapers are an industry with revenues little improved for almost 45 years ago!

Declines in newspaper circulation mirror its revenue declines. The NAA reports paid circulation for daily newspapers totals 48.497 million in 2008. This translates to a 41.8% penetration level of the total 116 million US households in 2008. The last time paid circulation for daily newspapers totaled 48 million was in 1945! Paid circulation for daily newspapers peaked at 63.34 million in 1984.

There are several websites devoted to chronicling newspapers’ traumas. One of the most interesting is Paul Gillin’s Newspaper Death Watch. The NDW tracks those forces that Gillin thinks will “ultimately destroy 95% of American major metropolitan newspapers.” These forces include newspapers’ high fixed costs such as equipment, paper and labor.

Gillin calls himself an optimist and thinks “this painful decline will give birth to a new model of journalism built upon aggregation and reader-generated content." His site lists 12 metropolitan dailies including the Rocky Mountain News and the Baltimore Sun that have closed since the site’s beginning in March 2007. It also lists 8 dailies including the Seattle Post-Intelligencer and the Ann Arbor News that have ‘adopted hybrid online/print or online-only models.’

Another site, paper cuts uses mapping software to depict ‘layoffs and buyouts at U.S. newspapers.’ St. Louis designer, journalist and site creator Erica Smith reports almost 32,000 newspaper jobs have been lost, and 31 daily and weekly newspapers have closed since June 2007. The site also reports salary and benefit reductions at various newspapers.

Of course other media are also severely impacted. Jason Fells reports in FOLIO that according to the Publishers Information Bureau consumer magazine ad pages fell almost 30% in the 2nd quarter of 2009 compared to the same 2008 time period. This compares to the 11.7% ad page decrease in 2008 when compared to 2007.

And, what about media’s future? How guarded are the predictions? Pe’rez-Pena reports in the NYT that while the rate of decline in advertising revenue seems to be slowing, many analysts think it will be 2010 before we see any substantial improvement.

Marshall McLuhan On Media Messages

McLuhan's 'medium is the message' mantra seemed so revolutionary 40 years ago. Hot media...cold media...media being the extension of human senses...it was all so new to those raised by Father Knows Best, Leave It To Beaver and I Love Lucy. TV's technology, its fast cuts and tight shots mesmerized us. McLuhan was the first to recognize video's impact on culture.

But what about today? Is the 'medium still the message?' No...not at all. The multi-media milleu of the social network mirages and their 'converged' partners no longer overwhelm the senses with their novelty. No...the medium is no longer the message. Its role as content is now replaced by the audience...the audience is now the message, and the medium serves only as...the medium.

Today the medium is just that...the medium. It is a conduit, a scrapbook, a personalized e-billfold with pictures and tweets and pokes and tags and groups and blogs. Today...the medium is the medium, the audience is the message and the individual is both the sender and receiver of its own content.