To cut costs, newspapers cut days of print publication

This post was published in the Wilson Times Nov. 23, 2019.

If you like a good newspaper to linger over on a Saturday morning breakfast table, you might have to rearrange your table soon. McClatchy, which owns the Raleigh News & Observer, the Charlotte Observer, the Durham Morning Herald, and a total of 29 daily newspapers in 14 states, has announced it will stop publishing a Saturday print edition in the next few months.

For lovers of ink-on-paper news delivered to your door, this is the topper to a quarter-century trend of newspapers abandoning daily printed papers and putting profit-and-loss spreadsheets ahead of newspapers’ solemn duty to inform the public by reporting the news without bias or prejudgment. (Wilson readers are blessed to have a local daily that is not owned by a giant corporation that sees newspapers not as a solemn duty but as a potential profit stream.)

McClatchy Corporation has financial reason to drop days of publication, cut employment and trim investment in news reporting. On Oct. 8, the company reported a drop in stock price from $2.73 at close to 49 cents a week later.

McClatchy has been a train wreck for a long time. McClatchy, publisher of the Sacramento Bee since 1906, bought Knight Ridder, publisher of some of the most respected newspapers in the United States, including the Miami Herald and the aforementioned N.C. dailies. In March 2006, McClatchy paid $4.5 billion for Knight Ridder, which was known as one of the best newspaper chains, one that saw journalistic principles as an obligation. You’d be hard pressed to find a journalist on McClatchy’s corporate board.

Another worrisome newspaper development last week was the merger of Gannett with Gatehouse Media. Gannett, best known for USA Today, will be part of a conglomerate owning 250 newspapers. This degree of consolidation in news media once would have brought out anti-trust concerns, but now it’s just a routine business transaction.

On the cusp of the Great Recession, McClatchy overpaid for Knight Ridder and is still burdened with debt from that transaction. The once-powerful and profitable properties bought from Knight Ridder became unsellable in the depressed market and its sharp drop in newspaper advertising. The corporate office ordered layoffs and job consolidation to cut costs.

Just as in other newspapers, news employees were jettisoned to save money, making the newspapers less valuable to investors and readers as news coverage shrank. McClatchy consolidated jobs, such as publisher, which used to be a local position, a spokesman and business leader for each newspaper. McClatchy has already consolidated publisher and editorial positions in its North and South Carolina properties. Even these cuts and veering from traditional staffing were not enough to cover the rising debt.

So McClatchy has made the decision to “transition to digital,” meaning eliminating more costly print editions altogether. A number of major newspapers across the country have cut back on publication days. Dropping the Saturday print edition is a less drastic cut than some papers have taken. But the cuts are not over. It is apparent to my household, subscribers to the N&O for nearly 40 years, that print subscribers are expendable. When we went to renew our subscription, we found the three-month subscription cost about quadruple what an annual subscription cost a few years ago.

When I called to object to the price jump, I was expertly steered to a part-digital subscription. I now get the print edition Friday, Saturday and Sunday and have digital access all seven days. This hybrid plan for one year costs what print-only costs for three months.

The crisis in the newspaper business goes far beyond the “forget print” perspective at the N&O. Newspapers around the country are folding, leaving residents with no neutral resource about local government, crime, nonprofits, churches, jobs, industries, elections. The crisis in the loss of newspaper advertising is also a crisis in American traditions of vigorous public debate, informed voters and access to the ballot.

We are losing more than a day of print publication.

Impeachment unfolds in deeply divided nation

This article was published in the Wilson Times Oct. 16, 2019.

The first day of public hearings in the U.S. House impeachment inquiry took place in a far different political atmosphere from the 1973-74 Watergate hearings and subsequent House Judiciary Committee impeachment hearings.

Wednesday’s hearings showed that partisan rancor would play a much larger role this year than it did in the Nixon hearings. Some Republican members and staff saw fit to attack witnesses’ integrity and engage in speechmaking rather than asking witnesses for information. The minority counsel seemed lost and confused as he tried to put words into the mouths of witnesses. Rep. Jim Jordan, an Ohio Republican, used his question time to blurt so many accusatory questions so fast that the witnesses had little opportunity to respond, which was fine because his questions were not really questions anyway.

Ambassador William Taylor and the State Department’s George Kent handled themselves and the situation admirably. These two career diplomats who had served under Democratic and Republican presidents respectfully responded to some loaded questions by saying they could not answer because they had no knowledge of the matter. When asked about his view on impeachment, Taylor responded that he had no view; he was a career professional who served the president, whoever the president might be. The impeachment question is one the Constitution leaves to members of the House, he told the questioner.

Taylor and Kent were in many ways as impressive as John Dean was in 1973. Dean had a seemingly encyclopedic recall of facts and incidents he observed as White House Counsel. Taylor had notes about episodes he had observed, a lengthy, thorough opening statement and detailed responses to questions. Kent was unperturbed by disrespectful, even angry questions.

In 1973, Dean’s testimony was dismissed by Nixon supporters, but when the White House tapes were released over Nixon’s objections, Dean’s recollections proved amazingly accurate and complete.

In 2019, there is not likely to be a “smoking gun” like the White House tapes, but there will be additional witnesses, most of whom are expected to support Wednesday’s witnesses’ testimony and previous reporting.

Thus far, no celebrities have been created by the 2019 impeachment hearings in the like of Sen. Sam Ervin or Sen. Howard Baker, the majority and minority leaders of the Watergate committee. The 2019 committee chair, Adam Schiff, was unemotional and fair Wednesday, despite scurrilous personal attacks by Trump and others. But he lacks Sam Ervin’s colorful stories and personality. The seven-member Watergate committee ultimately found Richard Nixon had used the powers of the presidency to cover up his approval of the Watergate break-in.

The biggest difference between 1973-74 and today is the existence of highly partisan organizations that are willing to distort facts, deny obvious truths and make up whole scenarios contradicting plainly seen incidents. The result has been a nation more divided than it ever was during the Watergate inquiry, even though the two sides in the Watergate scandal were ferocious in their criticisms. Nixon and his minions did all they could to excuse Nixon’s actions but they did not have the lobbying groups, highly partisan news sources and “alternative facts” of today.

While most news sources and individuals saw impeachment inquiry witnesses forthrightly reporting potentially impeachable actions of the president, Fox News, the largest and most successful Trump defender, proclaimed the hearings boring and a disaster for Democrats. Recent polling shows the electorate divided between those who get all their news on the Fox News channel and those who don’t.

Impeachment by a vote of the full House will not settle the matter. To remove a president from office, impeachment charges must be tried in the Senate, where Republicans hold a majority.

If the impeachment hearings convince the public that Trump abused his office, but loyal Republicans prevent his conviction, the party could lose national support. If an impeachment resolution fails to pass in the Democrat-led House, the party could face long-term damage.

Two presidents have been impeached (Nixon would have been had he not resigned to save face), but none has ever been convicted in a Senate trial. If impeached, Trump is determined to continue that streak.

Concussion concerns threaten football's dominance

This post was published in the Wilson Times Nov. 10, 2019.

Last weekend provided a cup overflowing with televised football games — Thursday and Friday night games between high school and college teams, more college games on Saturday with ever-expanding networks to broadcast or stream games between even obscure schools with minuscule followings; and National Football League games nearly all day Sunday, plus a smattering of weeknight games.

Through ticket sales, merchandising and generous television revenue, the NFL is bringing in about $16 billion this year. In little over half a century, the NFL has become by far the dominant professional sports league, and college football retains its hold on collegiate sports culture, challenged only by men’s basketball.

You’d think American football was a sure bet, but America’s love for football and its college and professional leagues face existential challenges resulting from the recognition that CTE (Chronic Traumatic Encephalopathy) threatens the mental functioning and even the lives of football players. Concerns about CTE have led to rules changes that limit the dangerous collisions inherent in a sport that involves very large boys and men hurtling at each other at top speeds. Medical research has found playing football can result in brain injuries (CTE) that might not show up until decades later.

Fewer children are participating in high school football, long the “major sport” in U.S. high schools. You can hardly blame the parents who don’t want to sacrifice their sons’ brains for ephemeral glory and a long-shot opportunity to earn big contracts in professional football. It is a sport where young men can be maimed or killed, and old men lose their memories and reasoning powers.

I played high school football in another era, 50 years ago, and I played for a losing team in a lower competitive level. My first year on the team, I was listed as a 110 pound center. It was a time when no player was held out after “getting your bell rung,” as head injuries were known then. Those injuries were treated with smelling salts and a return to action. There was no concussion protocol, not even the acknowledgement that a concussion occurred. I recall the tackle to my right in the offensive line asking me, “who do I block” after being briefly knocked out on the previous play. He never missed a snap.

A Boston University study found that the risk of developing CTE increases 30 percent for each year of playing football. I played three years, and that is frightening to me now. My son did not play football in high school, but he enjoyed throwing the football around and playing backyard games. None of my five grandsons has shown much interest in playing football in high school, and that’s fine with me.

Last Sunday’s Raleigh News & Observer spotlighted the dilemma with a front page cover story headlined “Can Football Be Saved?” Participation in high school football is down 25 percent since 2010, the N&O reported. Without players, there can be no football. The very long article highlighted a high school coach in Apex who has minimized brain injury risks by eliminating full-speed contact in practices and teaching blocking and tackling techniques to avoid concussions in games. Saving football, it appears, might require drastic changes in how the game is played and practiced. The amazing shows of strength, speed, balance and athleticism may have to be curtailed for football to survive.

But I haven’t stopped watching football on television and, occasionally, in person. The athletic competition, the excitement of the game, the teamwork, the combat-like strategies all appeal to me. It is with a sense of guilty pleasure that I watch football, knowing that the men and young boys playing are risking their health for my (and millions of others’) enjoyment.

It seems inevitable that football will lose its perch atop the popularity of spectator sports. The hidden dangers of CTE will turn off parents, players, fans, and politicians to the point that football recedes into an archaic past in much the same way boxing did.

If football fades away, gone with it will be a testing and maturing opportunity for teenage boys, as well as a cohesive pride that brings communities together. Just look at what Fike High School’s state championships did for Wilson or look at the “Friday Night Lights” TV series. But young people’s health is worth more than community pride.

Woodrow Wilson gave his life for his principles

This post was published in the Wilson Times Nov. 2, 2019

Woodrow Wilson, who was completing his second term 100 years ago, was one of the most popular of all presidents, despite his having only minimal experience in government before ascending to the White House. Scott Berg’s 818-page biography, “Wilson,” (2013) reveals an extraordinary man: scholar, theologian, peacemaker, lawyer, university president and reformer. Born in Staunton, Va., the son of a Presbyterian minister, Wilson was a man in a hurry from an early age. He was a champion debater at a time when skill at debate, rhetoric, public speaking and logic were highly prized. He studied at Davidson, Princeton, the University of Virginia and Johns Hopkins, earning a Ph.D.

Wilson was also a man divided between two centuries. Born in 1856 in a state that would secede from the United States before he was six, Wilson’s perspective was influenced by Confederate veterans. His morals were both Victorian and segregationist, but he enthusiastically looked toward the future in a world about to experience its greatest changes in centuries.

Leaving a position he loved as president of Princeton, Wilson ran for governor of New Jersey and won. Two years later, in 1912, he won a landslide victory to become president of the United States in one of he oddest elections in history. The electorate was divided into four camps, with former president Teddy Roosevelt running a third-party campaign against Republican incumbent William Howard Taft. Socialist Eugene Debs was also on the ballot. Wilson, the Democratic nominee selected by party bosses, had Democratic voters to himself.

Two years later in 1914, war sparked by miscalculations, poor communications and lingering ethnic hatred, broke out in Europe. Industrialized war had created unimaginable slaughter. Despite the loss of American lives in German U-Boat attacks, Wilson refused to join the war on the side of the western democracies.

In 1916, Wilson ran for re-election on the slogan “He kept us out of war,” but two years into his second term, he asked Congress to declare war on Germany and its allies. Wilson’s ability to sway an audience made it possible for him to persuade an isolationist nation to join the “War to End All Wars.”

Wilson was a great believer in the power of language. He wrote history books, and he wrote his own speeches through most of his varied careers. He was also a believer in the power of ideas, and he put great thought into the ideas that motivated his speeches.

He saw opportunity in the armistice ending the Great War (as it was known) and the formal peace treaty that would finalize the war’s end. He developed his Fourteen Points that he considered essential to any peace treaty. He then broke precedent by going to the peace conference in Paris himself to wrangle Britain, France and Italy into a peace treaty that would reshape the maps of Europe, Asia and Africa. Two key points were the right of people to self-determination and establishment of a League of Nations that would arbitrate international disagreements and avoid future wars.

Wilson put all of his energy into this treaty, but his absence from Washington gave isolationists under Henry Cabot Lodge a chance to build opposition to ratification of the treaty.

Berg begins his biography with a description of President Wilson waiting to board a steamship to France to negotiate the peace. Wilson was, Berg writes, by far the most popular person in the world, the man who would end war and give freedom of self-determination to all peoples. Wilson set out on a grueling transcontinental trip, giving several speeches a day, in order to win ratification of the treaty. Before his trip ended, he was a broken man, having suffered a stroke that left him paralyzed on one side and a shadow of the man he had been.

Wilson’s second wife (his first wife, to whom he was deeply devoted, had died in 1914), Edith Gault, and a few others guarded the secret about how seriously incapacitated the president was. He remained popular even after his presidency; admiring crowds would stand outside his Washington townhouse hoping for a glimpse of the great man.

It’s not an exaggeration to say that Wilson gave his life (or at least his health) for his vision of a world without armed conflict. His presidency based on scholarship and principles offers a contrast and possibly an alternative to today’s winning-is-everything politics.

The Red Eye, another failedd effort to save printe newspapers

This post was published in the Wilson Times Oct. 26, 2019

At our daughter’s urging, my wife and I took a recent trip to Chicago, which neither of us had ever seen. We planned to see the sights and major attractions, the Lake Michigan waterfront, the “Magnificent Mile” of tall buildings, the parks, the Art Institute, Picasso’s massive untitled steel sculpture and more.

We had anticipated all those things; they were in our plans. What we didn’t expect was an artifact from the desperate attempts of a once-powerful and wealthy newspaper corporation in a great, even legendary, newspaper town to keep people reading their news in print.

I didn’t recognize at first the odd-looking metal box about three feet high with a big round red metal ball on top. Then I remembered reading about the RedEye, a tabloid publication that the Chicago Tribune launched in 2002 in the hope of luring 18- to 34-year-olds back to print media. RedEye was free at first and published daily. Initially, distribution agents just handed out the papers as commuters boarded or exited trains. The smaller tabloid format was thought to be “commuter friendly,” meaning it could be read by holding the RedEye with one hand while holding onto a pole or strap in the train with the other hand.

Readership of print newspapers was plummeting, and advertising was migrating to the Internet in the 1990s. From the late 1980s through the Great Recession, newspaper publishers scrambled to find a way to stop the bleeding. Many thousands of newspaper jobs were eliminated. Advertising-starved papers shrank in size, and all kinds of creative ideas, such as RedEye, were proposed by news executives and consultants. None of those ideas saved the industry. Aggregators such as Google and Facebook pile up billions in cash revenues while once-strong newspapers, which created the news aggregators sell, are forced to close.

Despite great promotional campaigns from a company with more than 150 years in the newspaper business (The Tribune started publication in 1847 and survived the Great Chicago Fire of 1871, then helped lead the city’s recovery and reconstruction), RedEye ultimately failed to bring younger readers and commuters back to ink-on-paper news. After giving away copies of RedEye for six months, the Tribune began charging 25 cents per copy. The decrepit newspaper boxes with the big red ball on top that I saw show that RedEye just couldn’t make it. In 2017, RedEye switched to a weekly production schedule.

Tribune Media, once a dominant news and content provider in newspapers, radio and television, went through a series of mergers, spinoffs, and other attempts to stay solvent before succumbing to bankruptcy in 2008.

The old RedEye boxes were not the only artifacts of a once-thriving industry. The grandiose Tribune Tower on Michigan Avenue is another artifact of a bygone era, from the same company that attempted a turnaround with red news boxes, splashy promotions and big red orbs atop their news boxes. The 1925 Gothic Revival Tribune Tower was the result of an international competition to design the greatest skyscraper ever. The elegantly chiseled stone building that once housed the Tribune empire was a cathedral to news. Now, the 36-story building is being converted to apartments and retail space. It still looks impressive, and I’m sure the apartments are very pricey. It, too, is a reminder of how far the newspaper industry has fallen in half a century.

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