I don’t know about you, but my life seems to get busier with each passing day.
I just finished publishing my second book in a month, began work on a major project to help raise money for a press association, conducted more webinars than I can remember during the past few weeks, and summer convention season kicks in tomorrow, even though summer is still a few weeks away.
My email is filled with messages each day from publishers and other newspaper colleagues who want advice about something going on at their papers. The questions come from the tiniest papers with just one or two folks, including the publisher, on staff, to folks running large regional and national groups.
If you think it sounds a little overwhelming, you’re right. I recently read a biography of George Washington and learned, not surprisingly, he often felt as if he was in over his head. I know the feeling, George. I’m sure many of us share the same emotion.
Like a lot of people in our business, I sometimes want to throw my hands in the air and ask, “Am I really making any difference at all?”
Then someone like Joey Young, comes along. You’ve probably heard of Joey, the “whiz kid” from Kansas who keeps creating successful community newspapers in defiance of the choruses of “You can’t do that.” Joey has a habit of reminding me how well things are going in Kansas.
Then there are the publishers, editors and ad managers lining up at conventions to tell me how well their papers are doing, while everyone seems to be telling them they should be dying.
I remember hearing from the CEO of Adobe Software several years ago. He wrote to thank me for the work I had done to make Acrobat a viable product. He told me, “What you did may have saved our company.”
I was looking for an email yesterday and was surprised to find a five-year-old message from a business leader in New Orleans who was excited about a plan I had created, at his group’s request, to lure a new daily
newspaper to the city after its long-standing daily newspaper moved to a digital-first format, abandoning their traditional daily model.
I felt a rush of adrenaline as I read the words he wrote five years ago: “I love it!”
Those of you who know me well know that one of my degrees is in theology, and I love keeping up with what various groups believe. I often say I have a little Quaker in me, even though I’m not Quaker, because I love the Quaker belief that a single individual, even when standing alone against great opposition, has a significant chance of being right.
When I was being told no one would ever print a newspaper ad or page from a PDF file, by the very people I thought would be most excited about the possibility, those voices didn’t sway me. That’s one of the things the head of Adobe thanked me for all those years ago.
When I read, as we all do, that newspapers are dying, it doesn’t slow me down, because I know the truth.
Two months ago, a friend told me he attended a civic club meeting and the guest speaker was the daily
newspaper editor from his town. My friend told me he was shocked when the editor told the group that
newspapers were near death and they would be better off to find alternative sources, primarily online news sites, to get their information.
My friend was surprised that I wasn’t surprised. It’s enough to get a guy down, but not me. At least not for long.
I just think about Roger Holmes and those papers in Western Canada and his work to move them back into local hands. And I think about Victor Parkins in Tennessee, whom I just got off the phone with, and his papers. He told me they are doing really well, increasingly better each year.
I think about some of the biggest names in the business who contact me to let me know they read my columns and agree with my thoughts that local management of newspapers is the only way to keep them successful.
Last night, I was on the phone with legendary newspaper consultant Ed Henninger. We talk almost every day. The conversation moved toward the topic of newspapers, as it always does, and our concern for groups that continually press the “newspaper is dying” message.
Then Ed told me about one of the national newspaper groups he works with as a consultant.
He said, “You know what the difference is with them, and why I like working with their group?”
Obviously I asked.
“The difference is, they leave the management of their papers in the hands of the publishers and staffs, and they have good newspapers because they do.”
I know I’m preaching to the choir, but sometimes the choir needs to be reminded that they sound good.
The printed word isn’t dying. You can find the books I publish in bookstores and all the usual online retailers.
The printed versions outsell the digital versions by a long shot. Most of the studies I find show a 4 percent drop in digital book sales during the past year.
Why have some of our brethren fallen for the “print is dead” line? Well, that’s another column for another day. My 800 words were used up 90 words ago.
I don’t know about you, but my life seems to get busier with each passing day.
I just finished publishing my second book in a month, began work on a major project to help raise money for a press association, conducted more webinars than I can remember during the past few weeks, and summer convention season kicks in tomorrow, even though summer is still a few weeks away.
My email is filled with messages each day from publishers and other newspaper colleagues who want advice about something going on at their papers. The questions come from the tiniest papers with just one or two folks, including the publisher, on staff, to folks running large regional and national groups.
If you think it sounds a little overwhelming, you’re right. I recently read a biography of George Washington and learned, not surprisingly, he often felt as if he was in over his head. I know the feeling, George. I’m sure many of us share the same emotion.
Like a lot of people in our business, I sometimes want to throw my hands in the air and ask, “Am I really making any difference at all?”
Then someone like Joey Young, comes along. You’ve probably heard of Joey, the “whiz kid” from Kansas who keeps creating successful community newspapers in defiance of the choruses of “You can’t do that.” Joey has a habit of reminding me how well things are going in Kansas.
Then there are the publishers, editors and ad managers lining up at conventions to tell me how well their papers are doing, while everyone seems to be telling them they should be dying.
I remember hearing from the CEO of Adobe Software several years ago. He wrote to thank me for the work I had done to make Acrobat a viable product. He told me, “What you did may have saved our company.”
I was looking for an email yesterday and was surprised to find a five-year-old message from a business leader in New Orleans who was excited about a plan I had created, at his group’s request, to lure a new daily
newspaper to the city after its long-standing daily newspaper moved to a digital-first format, abandoning their traditional daily model.
I felt a rush of adrenaline as I read the words he wrote five years ago: “I love it!”
Those of you who know me well know that one of my degrees is in theology, and I love keeping up with what various groups believe. I often say I have a little Quaker in me, even though I’m not Quaker, because I love the Quaker belief that a single individual, even when standing alone against great opposition, has a significant chance of being right.
When I was being told no one would ever print a newspaper ad or page from a PDF file, by the very people I thought would be most excited about the possibility, those voices didn’t sway me. That’s one of the things the head of Adobe thanked me for all those years ago.
When I read, as we all do, that newspapers are dying, it doesn’t slow me down, because I know the truth.
Two months ago, a friend told me he attended a civic club meeting and the guest speaker was the daily
newspaper editor from his town. My friend told me he was shocked when the editor told the group that
newspapers were near death and they would be better off to find alternative sources, primarily online news sites, to get their information.
My friend was surprised that I wasn’t surprised. It’s enough to get a guy down, but not me. At least not for long.
I just think about Roger Holmes and those papers in Western Canada and his work to move them back into local hands. And I think about Victor Parkins in Tennessee, whom I just got off the phone with, and his papers. He told me they are doing really well, increasingly better each year.
I think about some of the biggest names in the business who contact me to let me know they read my columns and agree with my thoughts that local management of newspapers is the only way to keep them successful.
Last night, I was on the phone with legendary newspaper consultant Ed Henninger. We talk almost every day. The conversation moved toward the topic of newspapers, as it always does, and our concern for groups that continually press the “newspaper is dying” message.
Then Ed told me about one of the national newspaper groups he works with as a consultant.
He said, “You know what the difference is with them, and why I like working with their group?”
Obviously I asked.
“The difference is, they leave the management of their papers in the hands of the publishers and staffs, and they have good newspapers because they do.”
I know I’m preaching to the choir, but sometimes the choir needs to be reminded that they sound good.
The printed word isn’t dying. You can find the books I publish in bookstores and all the usual online retailers.
The printed versions outsell the digital versions by a long shot. Most of the studies I find show a 4 percent drop in digital book sales during the past year.
Why have some of our brethren fallen for the “print is dead” line? Well, that’s another column for another day. My 800 words were used up 90 words ago.
For our freedoms, is a ‘C+’ grade good enough?
Gene Policinski, inside the First Amendment
Gene Policinski is chief operating officer of the Newseum Institute and senior vice president of the Institute’s First Amendment Center. He can be reached at gpolicinski@newseum.org.
Follow him on Twitter:
@genefac
When it comes to our core freedoms, is a “C+” grade good enough?
A new First Amendment Report Card, released by the First Amendment Center of the Newseum Institute, gives our First Amendment freedoms — religion, speech, press, assembly and petition — a composite grade of C+.
The grades were assigned by 15 panelists from across the political spectrum, some of them experts on First Amendment issues overall, and some who focus on specific areas such as religion or press.
Assembly and petition — the rights to gather peaceably with like-minded people without government restriction or prosecution, and ask the government for changes in policies and practices — received the highest marks, at a “B-.” Religion and speech were graded at a “C+,” while press was given a “C.”
On press, for example, panelists pointed to President Trump’s campaign threat to “open up” libel laws to sue media outlets more easily; the administration blocking certain news organizations from attending White House briefings; the “fake news” phenomenon; and the president’s general enmity for the press.
Assembly and petition received the highest grades, with panelists noting that recent protests and political marches were classic demonstrations of both freedoms, and that the government took no action to crack down on them or the resulting press coverage.
Perhaps you — or I, since I didn’t participate in the grading — might have rated the freedoms differently. Good. That would mean we were thinking critically about those basic freedoms, which define us as citizens and enable our democracy to function as such.
And no doubt some people will say that in a contentious world, and with an electorate split straight down the middle on most issues, it would be too much to expect a more favorable assessment of the First Amendment.
But I’ll admit that a “C+” leaves me uneasy.
For too long, too many of us have either taken those freedoms for granted, assuming that they will always be there, or considered them in narrow ways (believing, for example, that freedom of speech is not for those with whom we disagree, or that so-called fringe faiths are not really covered by freedom of religion).
Many more of us live in ignorance of the freedoms that were so dearly won. Each year, when results of the First Amendment Center’s State of the First Amendment survey are released, the survey consistently finds that large numbers of Americans — sometimes more than one-third — cannot name a single freedom provided by the 225-year old amendment.
The report card, titled “The First Amendment in the Age of Trump,” nonetheless reflects issues that are not limited to the president’s first 100 days, or to the time he spends in office.
Some of those issues have been simmering for years. The Tea Party and the Occupy Wall Street movements raised issues around speech, assembly and petition to new levels of awareness. The “culture wars” around matters of faith — from the silly, such as whether to call them “Christmas” or “holiday” trees, to the very serious, such as federal policies that might discriminate against Muslims — have raged for decades, and show no signs of abating.
Surveys dating well back into the 1990s chart a growing public apprehension about the credibility, motives and bias of the news media, and a worrisome erosion of support for the press’s role as a “watchdog on government.” Amid worsening public opinion, journalists have also had to contend with shrinking resources as they attempt to track government officials’ performance and measure government effectiveness.
The quarterly report card is not intended, and could not be, the final word on our First Amendment freedoms — the issues are too complex and the disputes too numerous, and filled with far too many twists and turns.
But the grading system will serve to call our attention, particularly over time, to a need to defend one or more freedoms from momentary threats and longer-term assaults on our free expression and religious liberty rights.
Stay tuned — a new First Amendment Report Card will be issued each quarter, prompting us all to take a closer look at how we understand, defend and practice our First Amendment freedoms.
And maybe one day we’ll get to add another grading area — one where you and I and our fellow citizens get an “A” for effort.