Nathan Bomey | USA TODAY November 21, 2019
Gannett named a mix of leaders on Nov. 20 from the old Gannett and its acquirer, New Media Investment Group, to lead the media company.
Mike Reed will serve as CEO of the newly combined public company, which took on the name of Gannett Co. when the merger was finalized Nov. 19. He previously was CEO of New Media. Paul Bascobert will serve as CEO of the new company’s operating subsidiary, Gannett Media Corp., as previously announced.
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Like many of you reading this column, I’ve been in the newspaper business a long time. I began delivering daily papers for the Johnson City (Tennessee) Press-Chronicle when I was eight years old. It’s amazing my parents allowed me to deliver papers after my brother, who was twelve-year-old at the time, was killed while walking home from his paper route six years earlier. So, when I say newspapers are in my blood, I mean that literally.
For more than 25 years, I’ve worked as a consultant with thousands of newspapers in the U.S. and abroad. In that time, I’ve seen a lot of changes, and not just in the areas of technology and production.
Some of the changes have been exciting. Working on the development of the PDF printing method in the ‘90s has been one of the highlights of my career thus far. Traveling to major universities and professional groups to discuss the upcoming digital revolution in the late ‘90s and early 2000s was another interesting time.
Being invited to address groups including the National Economic Association, the National Press Club, and others about the effects of various elements on the newspaper industry, as well as the effects of the newspaper industry on society in general, has been a highlight of my career to date.
An issue that has concerned me over the past ten or so years has been the lack of unbiased leadership in our industry to keep us on track in accomplishing our core duties, while steering us away from negative influences that could be detrimental to our industry’s future.
Whether out of a fear of upsetting powerful players in the industry or just being too quick to take bad advice, we’ve taken more than a few wrong turns over the past ten or so years. That’s why I’m so excited about some of the work I, as well as others, will be involved in over the coming months.
My schedule this fall is probably the busiest of my career. A quick glance tells me I’ll be in just about every corner of the United States, as well as a lot of states in-between, to work with groups who are serious about helping newspapers take steps toward a brighter future. Let me share a little about a couple of these efforts.
The North Dakota Newspaper Association Foundation is hosting a gathering in Bismarck in October 2019 to gain a better understanding of how newspapers can play a more vital role in the lives of potential readers in their mid 20s to late 30s.
On the Foundation’s “dime,” dozens of millennials from throughout North Dakota will descend on Bismarck, spend an evening together, then spend the following day in focus groups, which I will lead, all in an effort to learn what we can do to better meet the needs and interests of persons in this age group.
On December 6, I will be in Fort Worth, Texas, at the invitation of the Texas Center for Community Journalism, to meet with publishers to discuss digital journalism. There is no ulterior motive. No one has anything to sell. The goal is simply to spend a day together studying what is working, what isn’t working, what should be left behind, and where community newspapers should be considering as we face the short- and long-term future.
I’ve noted with great interest the work Al Cross is doing at The University of Kentucky Institute for Rural Journalism and Community Issues. The work being done by the Institute to deal with the issues of newspaper ownership and creation of new community newspapers could bear significant fruit.
A very successful young business owner stopped by to see me at my office last night around ten o’clock. Yes, it was a late day for both of us.
He is the owner of a very successful company with several offices around the world. His company is a leader in its industry and I’ve been quite impressed as I’ve watched this group of young executives dominate their market so quickly.
What the young owner said to me took me by surprise.
“You know,” he began, “you’ve got what we all want.”
I wasn’t quite sure where he was going, so I asked.
He continued, “We have grown like crazy, we have employees around the world, and we’re making a lot of money.”
I was still lost. It sounded to me like he had what most people want already.
That’s when he landed the punch. “You do important work,” he told me, “and you love what you do.” After a pause, he continued, “I would trade with you in a heartbeat.”
I could have shared some of the difficulties of my work with him, but instead let his words sink in.
“Well,” I told him, I’d trade my age for yours, so how about we trade jobs and I get to be 28 and you be my age?”
We both laughed.
Let me leave you with this thought: We do important work…vital work. Don’t let anyone fool you or lead you to think we don’t.
I’m busier than I’ve ever been. I often work 12 and 14 hour days. It’s 1 a.m. as I write this column. I don’t do it because I’m getting rich. Trust me, I’m not. I do what I do because our work is so important, so vital.
As fall comes to an end, I’ll share with you some of what we learn about millennials, the digital future, and anything else I learn in my travels that might be helpful.
Tim Gallagher | Editor & Publisher | November 21, 2019
If you want to understand how to save the newspaper business, start by moving out of a house you have lived in since 2000.
As I dumped thousands in movies and music, I comforted myself with the mantra, “I can stream it. I can stream it.” The shift in media in less than two decades is profound. Any movie, song, game or TV show you want you can stream.
The question we all face in the newspaper industry is how to compete in a world in which the chief competitors—entertainment companies and technology companies—have collaborated and adapted to the new world.
Not only do these competitors perform better in the technology world, they often take our greatest asset—local content—to drive audience and profit for themselves. We must stop that content rip-off if we hope to survive.
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Mason Walker | Pew Research Center November 20, 2019
Americans continue to be more likely to get news through mobile devices than through desktop or laptop computers. Roughly six-in-ten U.S. adults (57%) often get news this way, compared with 30% who often do so on a desktop or laptop computer, according to a Pew Research Center survey.
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Marc Tracy | New York Times November 20, 2019
The deal to create the largest newspaper company in the nation — which became official at 4:10 p.m. on Tuesday — came about with remarkable speed for a merger that will reshape the media landscape.
In August, Gannett, the parent company of USA Today and more than 100 other dailies, and New Media Investment Group, the owner of the newspaper chain GateHouse Media, announced their intention to join forces.
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Neil Mara | Donald W. Reynolds Journalism Institute | November 18, 2019
After President Donald Trump released a partial transcript of the much-disputed call with Ukraine, Washington Post readers were treated to a story about an almost exact parallel from 45 years ago.
“That time Nixon released doctored transcripts during Watergate,” teased the headline on a Sept. 25 article by Gillian Brockell.
In it, she explored Richard Nixon’s problems when he gave Congress only transcript excerpts of the infamous Oval Office tapes and claimed they exonerated him. Later release of the full tapes showed the opposite, similar to recent testimony by administration officials that seems to upend Trump’s claim that his call transcript shows no quid pro quo in pushing Ukraine to investigate an opponent.
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Statisticians disagree on the number of commercial messages we are exposed to each day. Some say 1,000. Some say as many as 3,000. And others claim the number is closer to 20,000.
With estimates all over the map, all I can say for sure is that we live in an over-communicated world which has a short attention span. There is no way that anyone can notice and digest every single message.
This presents a challenge. How can we break through the clutter when we’re creating ads? How can we gain – and hold – favorable attention?
1. The first step is to simplify the essential message. Henry Wadsworth Longfellow wrote, “In all things, the supreme excellence is simplicity.” Apple’s first marketing brochure in 1977 quoted Leonardo da Vinci: “Simplicity is the ultimate sophistication.” Simplicity was more than a slogan to Apple’s Steve Jobs. It was a requirement. Years later, when he was overseeing the design of the iPod, Jobs insisted that each prototype pass a strict test. If he wanted to access a song or a function, he wanted to get there in no more than three clicks.
Smart salespeople know that it is better to communicate a simple concept than a complicated one. And successful advertisers know that simply stated points have more consumer appeal than long explanations.
I remember a radio spot which featured the sound of a car with a dead battery. For 25 seconds, listeners heard the groaning “err errr errrr” of a battery which was fading. The only words were in the voiceover at the end: “This wouldn’t have happened with a DieHard battery.” Additional words would have killed the drama. The message was simple and clear.
2. Next, use your audience’s language. I remember visiting someone in the hospital and hearing a conversation between two doctors on the elevator. Although I wasn’t trying to eavesdrop, I couldn’t help but hear what they were saying. It wouldn’t have mattered if it had been confidential, because I didn’t understand a single word of their technical discussion. When the elevator stopped at their floor, I remember saying to myself that they would have to speak in plain language when they met with their patients.
It’s the same in marketing. We must speak in terms that our target audiences can easily understand.
3. Then eliminate unnecessary words. Thomas Jefferson once wrote, “The most valuable of all talents is that of never using two words when one will do.” In other words: edit, edit, edit.
The most effective advertising slogans capture the essence of their products in only a few words. “Snap, Crackle, Pop” works better for Rice Krispies than “Our cereal is well known for its distinctive sound.” “Nothing runs like a Deere” is more memorable than “John Deere equipment operates more efficiently than the others.” And Nike’s famous “Just do it” slogan has more impact than “Get into action instead of just thinking about participating in sports.”
Simple messaging should not be limited to national advertisers. Local businesses need it, too.
(c) Copyright 2019 by John Foust. All rights reserved.
By Judy Patrick
The First Amendment isn’t getting the appreciation and respect it deserves. Increasingly battered and misunderstood, it needs all the support it can get as divisive politics and advancing technologies drag us in new directions.
Many Americans don’t even know the basics.
Of the five freedoms guaranteed by the First Amendment, 71 percent of Americans can name at least one, according to the 2019 State of The First Amendment poll by the non-profit Freedom Forum Institute.
That’s certainly an improvement over 2018, when a pitiful 60 percent of those polled could name at least one of the five freedoms. But consider this: Of the 1,007 Americans polled for the 2019 survey, just six people correctly named all five freedoms.
In case the pollsters call you next year: The First Amendment guarantees freedom of speech, the press, religion and the right to petition and the right to assembly.
Better yet: We all need to work harder at being citizens who understand our rights, our responsibilities, how government works and what we value.
These powerful First Amendment freedoms, for example, give us all the courage to be independent thinkers and to live our lives how we want to. They allow us to challenge authority in ways unheard of in so many other parts of the world. It enables the press to act independently, hold government accountable and tilt at the occasional windmill.
Gene Policinski, president of the Freedom Forum Institute, said these freedoms help define who we are as Americans. For him, the First Amendment is the “blue collar amendment” – because it’s such a workhorse, going to work every day in a real down-to-earth way.
Yet confusion is increasing. More people in this year’s survey incorrectly thought the First Amendment includes the right to vote (up to 14 percent from 2 percent in 2018) and the right to bear arms (up to 16 percent from 9 percent in 2018).
There is some good news. The poll did not find substantial erosion in trust in journalism with 72 percent of those polled agreeing that it’s important for our democracy that the news media act as a government watchdog, down from 73 percent in 2018. Policinski, however, worries that result may be skewed, reflecting people’s loyalty to their individual “information bubbles.”
The emergence of powerful social media platforms has also muddied the waters; 65 percent of those polled agreed that social media companies such as Facebook and Twitter violate users’ First Amendment rights when they ban people. They don’t. The First Amendment’s protections apply to the government, not private companies.
But the First Amendment presents us with all sorts of emotional and intellectual challenges. It’s easy to support free speech when we agree with what’s being said. It’s far more challenging when we disagree or abhor what is being said, printed, painted, built or sung.
Indeed, the First Amendment has challenged us as a society as we have debated topics such as school prayer, flag burning, printing classified information, curfews, the teaching of evolution, protests at military funerals, blue laws, Christmas displays in public parks and mandatory measles vaccinations.
The rhetoric around such issues can be alienating. An increasing number of us, for example, think the First Amendment goes too far in the rights it guarantees (29 percent in 2019, up from 23 percent in 2018 and 2017).
Maybe we just need another Norman Rockwell for an idealistic re-boot.
In the 1940s, as the U.S. headed into what would become World War II, Rockwell’s series of freedom paintings helped Americans understand the freedoms at stake. His four iconic works captured parts of the First Amendment (freedom of speech and religion) and added the freedoms to be free of want and fear.
Despite President Franklin Roosevelt’s oratory, the “four freedoms” he outlined in 1941 speech failed to resonate with the public in a meaningful way. For help, the White House reached out to the nation’s artists and musicians.
“[Rockwell] wanted to interpret them in a way the average American could understand,” said Stephanie Plunkett, chief curator of the Norman Rockwell Museum in Stockbridge, Mass.
But it was a challenge. “The Four Freedoms are so darned high blown. Somehow I just couldn’t get my mind around it,” Rockwell is quoted as saying.
But by using scenarios from real life in small-town America, did just that. Rockwell’s “Freedom of Speech,” featuring a man standing up and speaking up in a crowded meeting room, was based on an actual town meeting in Arlington, Vt. The man was a farmer unhappy with a school project that would increase his taxes. “He gave his opinion, nodded his head and sat down,” Plunkett said.
Rockwell’s idealistic “Four Freedoms” have remained popular, both providing a sense of what led America to World War II and as underscoring ideals that remain important throughout in the world, Plunkett said.
A special touring exhibit, “Rockwell, Roosevelt & The Four Freedoms: Enduring Ideals,” has been on display in Normandy, France, since May as part of the 75th commemoration of the D-Day invasion.
The exhibit returns to the U.S. from France this fall, making stops in Houston and Denver before returning home next fall. Here are the details: Le Memorial de Caen, Caen, France, through Oct. 27; Museum of Fine Arts in Houston, Texas Dec. 15, 2019 through March 22, 2020; Denver Art Museum, Denver, May 3, 2020 through Aug. 23, 2020; Norman Rockwell Museum in Stockbridge, Mass., Sept. 12, 2020 through Jan. 17, 2021.
Judy Patrick is the New York Press Association’s Vice president for editorial development. Follow her on Twitter at @JuteNYPA. Patrick wrote this article as one of NYPA’s first Relevance Project initiatives. The Freedom Forum picked it up and posted it. Newspapers across the country are invited to re-print the article and the artwork with attribution if they choose. Visit https://www.freedomforuminstitute.org/2019/10/23/its-time-americans-stepped-up-and-learned-about-the-first-amendment/ to read the article online.
No apology needed for good journalism – even when you don’t like it
The First Amendment battlefront lately has been found more often than not at colleges and universities, with the most recent conflicts involving a full-on assault on traditional standards of a free press.
Harvard’s student government voted Sunday to support a petition condemning the student newspaper, The Harvard Crimson, for the factual reporting of protests against U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) some weeks ago. Among the newspaper’s “sins”: Contacting ICE officials for comment about the protest.
The petition demands that the newspaper “apologize for the harm they inflicted on the undocumented community” by reporting on the protest, refrain from again calling ICE officials for comment on immigration stories and declare a “commitment to protecting undocumented students on campus.”
The school’s Undergraduate Council said by reporting on the protest and asking ICE officials for reaction, the newspaper sparked “fear and feelings of unsafety” among students on campus. A student government statement included its view that “it is imperative for The Harvard Crimson to commit to journalistic practices that do not put students at risk.”
In response, Crimson editors said “fundamental journalistic values” demand that the newspaper seek comment from a variety of persons and organizations on any given story, as one means of ensuring “a fair and unbiased story.”
If the Crimson controversy over being exposed to “other” views were an isolated incident, it might be dismissed as a singular disconnect between a few student leaders and the very purpose of a free press — but it wasn’t.
Northwestern University’s student newspaper last week apologized for its reporting of an appearance and speech on campus by former Attorney General Jeff Sessions, for staff members posting photos on social media of some student protesters and for using a student directory to contact students to interview them about the protests.
The editors wrote that “any information The Daily (Northwestern) provides about the protest can be used against the participating students (and) while some universities grant amnesty to student protesters, Northwestern does not. We did not want to play a role in any disciplinary action that could be taken…” The editors also said the photos and interview requests were, in retrospect, “retraumatizing and invasive.”
The First Amendment protects a free press for the very reasons all of these college journalists faced criticism — and Harvard’s news operation, if not Northwestern’s, pushed back. Documenting the facts and circumstances of public events and issues is a core duty of a news operation so that a collective readership can make informed decisions about the issues raised by the story’s subject.
In fact, there are journalist codes that call on a free press to seek “truth and report it” and to “minimize harm.” The emphasis on the former is accuracy, context and seeking full responses by all involved. As to the latter, the possibility of any harm occurring is to be minimized or avoided, but not to the extent that other valid principles are abandoned.
Moreover, every journalist eventually has to come to grips with the plain fact that some news will bring pain to some people, from stories exposing corrupt politicians or giving voice to vulgar or hateful participants at public events to accounts of tragedy and injury that may cause those involved to relive terrifying moments.
Asking journalists to file less than full reports of events inevitably will lead to the perception — and, in some cases, the reality — that those reporting the events are shaping “the news” for larger purposes, worthy or sinister. In an era when vastly reduced resources combined with political opportunism give rise to less reporting and more critics of “fake news,” a free press ought not to buy into self-censorship and news judgments based on non-news goals.
Accurate reporting of public events in matters of public interest empowers all of us to shape opinions, make informed decisions and at times cast votes, whether we like that information or not. Informed discussion, debate and decisions are not aided by less information.
Journalism that falls short of the full truth will not eliminate the potential for harm or help society explore solutions for larger issues; rather, it is an abandonment — or a betrayal — of the intellectual exchange and conflict in the “marketplace of ideas” that is fundamental to the First Amendment and democracy.