REICH COMMUNICATIONS

Saving Local News

 

The Los Angeles Times last week reported on a new bill that's being considered in California to help support local newsrooms in the Golden State.

The bill, brought to the state legislature by an Oakland representative, would charge a usage fee to large social media platforms like Google, Meta (Facebook) and others that take news stories from local media and link to them.  Essentially, they're filling their pages with content created by journalists who they're not paying. Yet they make money by selling ads on their sites.

The new bill seeks to help remedy the inequity by charging fees to the big platforms and then distributing the money, under a formula yet to be determined, to local newsrooms to help support journalists.

I expect the Googles and Metas to fight this.  But it could help keep local journalism alive, especially as it is so important in these times where we need to keep a closer eye on government officials everywhere.

Here's a link to the article... 

Some good news for newspapers

Newspapers continue to struggle with ways to monetize their online content.

The internet almost killed papers years ago, as their classified ads sections, which had been goldmines, disappeared when free online sites like Craigslist siphoned away their small but lucrative ads.

As print newspaper readership dropped, many found it harder to maintain lucrative display ads. Retailers experimented with online ads, and many consumer product marketers had already migrated over to TV, with its mass audiences.

Early attempts to monetize their news content proved tricky and futile, since consumers, especially younger ones, were reluctant to pay for what they had been getting for free for so long.

Some papers are finding a solution, even if a partial one. The New York Times last month announced plans to begin charging a subscription fee for since of its newsletters, like those offering news and political analysis.

And now some papers that have cut back or even totally eliminated print editions are planning to revive them, online, as newsletters sent to opt-in paying subscribers. The Spokane Spokesman- Review, for example, will be bringing back the defunct evening paper, the Daily Chronicle, as a paid online newsletter. When that paper closed in 1992, its daily circ was less than 20,000, from a peak of 72,000 in the 60s.

With people now hungry for local news, digital subscriptions are up to 10,000 after less than 2 months.

There are similar stories in other cities. Many newspapers continue to struggle, but I'll take any good news I can get when it comes to the newspaper business.

Lou Grant

 

The New York Times - Hardly "Failing"

 

Despite name-calling from a past president, The New York Times seems to be doing very well, thank you.

The paper reported last week that it has nearly 8 million subscribers and it expects to exceed 8.5 million by year-end and 10 million by 2025.  Revenues and profits were higher than expected, as digital subscriptions are helping make up for declines in print advertising. Overall advertising in The Times rose by 66 percent as marketers are returning to pre-pandemic levels.

It's a good sign that people DO care about news and accurate reporting, even after the previous administration continually tried to undermine legitimate news organizations.  Investigative reporting by The Times and other major news organizations like The Washington Post, major-city dailies and the broadcast networks are uncovering abuses from the previous administration, while helping keep our current leaders focused and straight.

That's the way it's supposed to work, and that's good news.

A First for The New York Times...for a Good Reason

When the New York Times chooses to endorse a candidate, they usually use the main editorial column to announce and explain their choice.

But in something I don't recall ever seeing as a reader of the Times for more than 50 years, yesterday's paper devotes the entire 10 pages of the Sunday Review section to making -- effectively, I believe -- the Case Against Donald Trump.

As you can see at the right, the cover page of the section lists several issues with the current White House.  Inside, starting with a two-page spread under the headline "A Man Unworthy of the Office He Holds," The Times lays out a detailed and comprehensive case for Americans to vote the current president out.

This is not based on fake news and speculation.  The paper recognizes that we face a real threat to our precious democracy, which is why it has taken this unprecedented step.

Most of my friends feel as I do, but some may still be wavering or planning to vote Republican.  This election is not about party politics.  It's about more than a single issue like abortion, which I understand is important to many people.  It's about a larger issue -- the very soul of our nation, which reflects to ourselves and to the world who we as a people are.

That's why I ask you to vote him out.

You can read the whole section online here

 

 

 

 

 

Covering the Media... Again

 

While there are many great agencies throughout the country, New York remains the heart of the advertising and PR industries.  Unlike during the “Mad Men” era, they’re no longer huddled together on Madison Avenue, but they’re still here in New York.

Until Stuart Elliott retired from The New York Times a bit more than five years ago, the newspaper of record always gave significant coverage to the ad and media business and, to a lesser degree, public relations.  Stuart’s column was a must-read, as was Randall Rothenberg for a while before him and, for decades, Phil Dougherty. 

Until December 2014, The New York Times had a regular column devoted to the business of advertising and media since 1935.  Now, there’s an infrequent story about an agency or a campaign. 

It seems to me that The Times would want to step up its coverage of the ad business.  The ad column drew readers and sold papers…something that’s a challenge these days for newspapers.

Another popular column in The Times was the “Media Equation,” written occasionally by Jim Rutenberg.  The column became most popular under curmudgeon David Carr, who covered the media from 2002 until his death in 2015. 

The Times announced yesterday they’ve hired Ben Smith, the editor of BuzzFeed, to cover the media.   

I’m looking forward to reading him starting early in March.

Now, if The Times could only get back to serious coverage of the ad and PR business again.  Long overdue.

Put on the Blinders

Over the past three years, we've become accustomed to dumb statements and actions coming from the president and the White House.  Some we try to ignore and others are truly offensive and/or damaging to us and our society.

This one could fit in either category... an order by the White House to all federal agencies to stop subscribing to The New York Times and The Washington Post.

Clearly, the president wants to put blinders on us so we see only what's right in front of us, or in this case, only the news (or lies) he would prefer we see, rather than the truth of what's happening.

The facts of the Ukrainian quid-pro-quo episode, along with the attempts to cover it up, are right there in front of our eyes, so even with blinders, it can't be missed. 

But what's most troubling is the president's attempts to stifle the news media.  It's the type of move one of his autocrat heroes would pull.  It is not what an American president should be doing...even this one. 

Compared to so much of the chaos he is doing every day, this move is a small one.  But it should be noted and decried.  It is NOT the American way.  We will not allow blinders to be placed on us.

 

 

 

 

Final Edition

 

I was going to write about a special insert that was in the New York Times two Sundays ago, but then the nation got caught up in the horrific events in El Paso and Dayton, along with the aftermath of accusations, denials and the usual "thoughts and prayers" that too often seem to replace any meaningful action.

The Aug. 4th editions of The Times included a standalone section titled "A Future Without the Front Page."  The lead story began with some important questions:

"What happens when the presses stop rolling?  Who will tell the stories of touchdowns scored, heroes honored and neighbors lost? And who will hold mayors, police officers and school boards accountable?  Local newspapers, starved for advertising and subscribers, are closing across America, leaving a void that the splintered threads of Facebook and Twitter may not be able to fill."

It's happening at a time when the nation is in turmoil, with a government that's out of control and trying to operate in the dark, outside the vision of its citizens.  In many cases, it's been newspapers that have exposed lies, self-dealing, and many things the administration has tried to do outside the public's view.

The section tells the story of the last days of The Warroad Pioneer, a weekly paper that's served the people in northwestern Minnesota for 121 years.  And it tells the larger story of local newspapers nationwide struggling to keep people informed of local happenings.

A sidebar cites some sad and alarming numbers...  Over the past 15 years, 2,100 local papers -- nearly a quarter of all newsrooms -- have closed or merged.  It's not only the small papers like the Warroad Pioneer that have been hit, but also dailies in major markets like Denver, Cincinnati, Tucson, Tampa and New Orleans.  More than 200 counties throughout the U.S.now have no newspaper to inform of local happenings -- local politics, local businesses, local issues and the ultimate local news -- deaths in the community.

There are still about 8,600 local newspapers, but many are a shell of their former selves.  To save money, publishers often decimate the newsroom -- the place that creates the product that gives a newspaper its value. 

A few large media companies like Gannett have swallowed local newspapers, often rolling them up under one regional masthead.  But inevitably, local news coverage suffers.  One example close to home for me is The Journal News.  The northern New York City suburbs had been served well for decades by a few small chains like the Macy newspapers.  But when Gannett bought them, it shut down more than a dozen truly local mastheads and lumped them as one as The Journal News, covering three counties that include several sizable cities including Yonkers (population 185,000) and Mount Vernon, New Rochelle and White Plains, each with upwards of 65,000 residents.

Where the local papers each had reporters dedicated to the local city hall, school board and police, the combined papers now have one reporter who covers the education beat for the entire area -- an area with more than a dozen cities and several dozen towns and villages, each with its own school system.  Coverage of local schools, understandably, is almost non-existant.

The Times section refers to papers like these as "ghost papers."  They are now little more than a means to carry national and regional ads for area car dealers, supermarket chains and department stores, and the big healthcare systems.  Gannett provides pared down national and international stories via its USA Today, and it runs some regional stories that it picks up from other regional Gannett papers.  The Journal News has a handful of feature and local reporters who tell me they are hard-pressed to cover any but the biggest regional stories.

Many areas now have regional cable news channels.  But TV news is a different animal and it's costly to produce local news stories that do more than skim the surface.  And logistics make it impossible for a local news channel to do truly local reporting, since they cover large regions in order to be economically viable.  NY1 News is an exception, but it covers all of New York City, with 8 million-plus inhabitants.

A house ad on the back page of the special section explains why we need local newspapers.  It says...

   Securing one more interview.

   Fact-checking claims.

   Listening to unheard voices.

   Triple-vetting sources.

   Braving intimidation.

   Reporting from multiple angles.

   Asking the right questions.

   Following the full story.

And the tagline... 

      The truth is worth it.

 

This is why we need newspapers.  We need to be informed if our Democracy is to function as a democracy.  Newspapers do a crucial job. 

We need to support our papers so they can continue that crucial work for us.

 

 

Helping Keep Democracy Alive

 

It’s no exaggeration that newspapers are helping keep democracy alive in the U.S. these days.

 

Attacks from the highest levels of our government, tweet by tweet, have been aimed at undermining a crucial pillar of democracy – a free press.  In the face of taunts from the president that the major media are “fake news,” journalists strive to remain unbiased as they uncover and report the truth about what’s happening in our government.  It’s no easy task, since this administration – led by the president – spouts a steady stream of outright lies.  

 

Newspapers and, to some degree, broadcast and online news outlets continue to expose lies, misdeeds and incompetence that we, the taxpaying public, should know about.  Our leaders at the very top seem to have forgotten that they work for us and that we pay their salaries and their expenses – even expenses such as constant travel to private golf clubs.

 

Our news media are so important -- especially in these crazy times.

 

That’s why it’s so troubling to see that newspapers continue to trim their newsroom staffs – the very people we rely on to find and report the truth to us.  These are the people who keep us informed and analyze what's happening not only in Washington, but around the world and around the corner. 

 

 

The latest “State of the News Media” report from the Pew Research Center shows that newsroom jobs at U.S. newspapers dropped by 47 percent in the ten years from 2008 to 2018.   The number of employees handling digital reporting for newspapers more than doubled during that time, but the addition of 6,100 digital reporting jobs put only a small dent in the overall loss of 33,000 newsroom jobs over the ten-year period.

 

Employment in all newsrooms, including newspapers, broadcast, cable and digital, dropped from 114,000 in 2008 to 86,000 last year.

 

Local news coverage, especially, has taken a major hit as smaller newspapers either fold or get bought out and homogenized by the big media conglomerates like Gannett, who then cut back on their local reporting staff. Most major cities now have only a single newspaper serving them and a few, like New Orleans, no longer have a newspaper that publishes seven days a week.

 

A big part of the problem for newspapers has been dwindling readership and less ad revenues.  It's kind of a catch-22 -- as circulation declines, advertisers look elsewhere to invest their marketing dollars.

 

What can we do?  The most important thing is to read newspapers, either in print or online.  Growing online readership is helping to keep The New York Times and The Washington Post economically viable.  It's a win-win: read a newspaper to stay informed and help newspapers do what they do best -- report the facts and shine a light on our government and our elected officials.

 

Credibility: A Key Asset in PR

 

One of the most valuable things a person in public relations can earn and maintain is credibility. 

The media are, understandably, a skeptical group.  It's their job to verify information they are given, especially when it comes from a spokesperson for a company, organization or politician.  And if that spokesperson gets caught lying, their credibility goes out the window.  Media people won’t ever trust anything coming from that person.

Sometimes a spokesperson gets incorrect information, whether intentionally or in error.  A good and confident PR person will push back and try to convince his or her bosses to stay with the truth or, at worse, say nothing.  It’s not always easy and many of us have been pushed to give in and tell lies.

I feel bad for any PR person who works for a boss who lies and puts that spokesperson in an untenable position with the media.  I could never imagine working for Sarah Sanders’ boss, who constantly lies, contradicts himself and makes or tweets off-the-cuff statements that often create a frenzy, as politicos and the media try to figure exactly what he meant.

But I don’t feel sorry for Sarah Sanders.  She agreed to the job she’s in and, through so many presidential lies, has remained there, often repeating or reinforcing her boss’ lies with yet more lies. 

The White House media have long been on to her game, yet they must rely on her since she is the media gatekeeper to the president.

The Mueller report has proven she is a liar.  On at least two occasions, the report shows, Sanders made "erroneous" statements and, when called out on them, lied again when she explained why she lied.  She lied about the lies when under oath before Mueller and his investigators.  Even when her lies have been exposed, she has not apologized and instead went on the attack against Democrats who have been saying there’s been Russian interference in our elections.

New York Times White House reporter Peter Baker said Monday that “a press secretary’s most important asset is credibility.  If you don’t have that, there’s not much point.”  We all make mistakes, he added, but the key to credibility is to own up to them.

CNN analyst and American Urban Radio reporter April Ryan said about Sanders, “She has acknowledged that she lied under oath.  You can’t trust her.  End of story.”

Ryan has called for Sanders to be fired, saying, “She’s been caught in lie after lie. It’s beyond spin.  In any other job, if someone acknowledged they’d lied under oath, they’d be gone.. terminated.”

In the Washington Post, media reporter Paul Farhi wrote that, “to some extent, Sanders’ credibility is a moot point, given her increasing isolation from and limited contacts with the press.” 

This administration, under Sanders’ hand as press secretary, has, as of today, set a record for the longest stretch – 43 days -- without a media briefing.  So far this year, she has held only two press briefings totaling about 30 minutes.  This, as the spokesperson for the man holding the most important job in the world.