Readers’ Views on the Newspaper Industry

Last week I wrote about the tumult in the newspaper industry, specifically the battle that’s been raging between the Boston Globe’s Newspaper Guild union and the New York Times company’s management. Many of you wrote to me with insightful comments, a sampling of which appears below. Add your comments here. Thanks to everyone for writing in!

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As a 20-plus year subscriber to the Cabot Market Letter and a former reporter, editor and owner of small daily newspapers, I feel compelled to offer a much different view of the present state of the newspaper industry. The newspaper unions, including the guild, via ridiculous work rules have saddled newspapers with unnecessary expenses for decades. Union members benefited handsomely from their contracts and now those very contracts have, in large measure, brought about the rapid decline and failure of many daily newspapers.

Yes, ad revenue has fallen off dramatically and the industry as a whole was quite late in embracing the Internet. However, it is interesting to note that many small dailies and weeklies have continued to post operating profits albeit not at the level enjoyed in past decades. Very few small dailies and weeklies are unionized and their reporters and editors do not feel it beneath them to cover mundane community events. Most reporters and editors at daily newspapers, particularly the larger ones like the Globe, shun such reporting as shallow and unsophisticated. Each wants to be another Woodward or Bernstein.

Many reporters and editors at larger newspapers actually believe they cannot get involved personally in their communities because it would be a conflict of interest. Some news departments actually have written policies forbidding community involvement by newsroom employees. On the other hand, editors and reporters at good small dailies and weeklies are very much involved in their local communities and their reporting conveys that important closeness. Further, reporters at smaller papers often write five to 10 stories every working day while their union brethren at larger papers are hard pressed to produce one story per day.

Newsroom employees at smaller papers count their success in the number of subscribers while those at larger papers remain obsessed with press club awards and Pulitzer Prizes. Most large dailies have each story edited at least twice by different editors. That way each editor can blame the other(s) for any errors. At my newspapers each story was edited once and the reporter’s initials were printed at the end of each story followed by the editor’s initials. Those people took pride in their craft and liked their initials displayed for all readers to see. You will never see that practice at larger newspapers where archaic work rules continue to suppress individual initiative.

As to your view regarding depreciation and amortization, I am sure the New York Times Company shareholders are keenly concerned about these accounting practices. Consider the return the company could have gotten on the $1 billion they foolishly paid for the Globe in better times. In summary, I do not feel sorry for the Guild workers, or for that matter any other union employee at the Globe. They gorged at that table for a very long time and now they will starve at that same table in the not too distant future. No newspaper can survive, much less prosper, with a backward-thinking unionized workforce when they have to compete with non-union forward-thinking web employees who are allowed to prosper sans union rules.

P.Z.
San Diego, California

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Many newspapers are in trouble because of the progress of the electronic age. You can get most news items, even newspaper content on the Internet. I am one that does not think this kind of progress is good for us. The Internet has caused many problems we did not have before. Progress is not always good.

Thanks,

J.W.
Salem, Virginia

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In reference to your Boston Globe article. It is not my aim to be rude however, permit me to say the way the news print media focuses on certain subjects–reporting only that which they will use to make their point–borders on unfair and biased reporting. Example, the absolute refusal of the print media to print President Obama’s middle name, Hussein. Also, the absence of written historical reports concerning the president’s location and activities during his eight or nine year stay in Indonesia. And I only use Obama as one of the most flagrant one-sided abuses of the print media. (I happened to vote for him and support most of what he is proposing.) Another example might be the contribution of news media to the demise of the nuclear power industry in the U.S.–during a 20-year period when all of Europe and China have been building this ecologically sound energy industry.

So you who write and print newspapers, magazines, etc., may be somewhat deserving of the closeout of entire news group systems such as the Boston Globe–at least from a fairness in reporting standpoint. This is one major opinion (major = many) of those living in the Midwest U.S.

I do not countenance any man or woman losing their job. It is a crushing blow and an indictment against our free market economy, which should be able, with some government help, to provide jobs for all those willing to work. Having witnessed, via my aviation career, the ups and downs of aviation employment cycles–I am sympathetic with all workers and well-led unions. But a case can be made which says the reporters and editors’ one-sided presentation of the news–has contributed to the lack of readership and thus the company’s downfall. Perhaps there is a lesson in all this. Perhaps not. It is for the reader to decide based on unbiased facts reported.

Respectfully,

M.B.
Park Hill, Oklahoma

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Now, if only the New York Times and Los Angeles Times and rags owned by Gannett would just go away and we could get back true and accurate reporting “What a Wonderful World it Would Be!”

G.C.
Sun City West, Arizona

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Unions are causing the problems in this nation today. They have controlled the “forced benefits” for decades and now are surprised as these companies begin their financial demise. Everyone is going to have to cut back on everything. The unions are being rewarded by the Obama administration for his election success.

H.