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Written by Ken Auletta, published in the October 10, 2005 issue of the New Yorker. Pages 51 to 61.
If you want an introduction o all the issues surrounding the contemporary newspaper industry, read this article. It focuses on the trials and tribulations that the executive editorial staff of the Los Angeles Times has had with the “empty suits” of the Tribune Company, and given that the article appears in the New Yorker, I am sure you can imagine which side is portrayed the most sympathetically—rightfully so from my view. The issue is that the editors see the newspaper as fulfilling a social role and for them what is at stake is creating the best possible paper. For the corporate management, they want to meet (if not exceed) Wall Street’s profit expectations each quarter, and thus even when readership and revenue are faltering, rather than invest in the paper to make it one of the best in the nation (the editors admit that for various reasons—most of them pecuniary—papers such as The Washington Post, The New York Times, and The Wall Street Journal are not its true peers) to ensure long-term growth and profitability, they cut costs. For quick digression, granted the gap between the LA Times and the aforementioned papers is close, and the editors believe they could close the gap, but those who occupy the corporate offices see differently. For them, they do not want to have the best possible paper; rather, they want to have the most profitable paper with the largest margins (income as a percent of revenue). If the two coincide, great. But, insofar as quality is a long-term investment, the current management would rather cut the size of the newsroom staff and trim expenses to satisfy investors’ ravenous desires for ever growing profits.
So much for my partisan take on the article. It is not nearly that skewed in its presentation, although it does lend itself to being interpreted as such. One important fact the article touches on (albeit tangentially) is ruinous competition. The corporate officers of the Tribune Company would like all of their papers to share office space and staff in some of their bureaus outside of their main marketplaces (the Washington Bureau, for example). Many editors resist this, for they want control, uniqueness and particularity in their paper—if the lose their direct control, they might as well just use a wire service. Nevertheless, perhaps the corporate managers are on to something. Ruinous competition does not just hurt the newspapers, it also damages consumers, insofar as resources that could be used to create content desired by a particular audience are instead expended on creating duplicates of editorial pieces that already exist. For a better explanation on ruinous competition, see C. Edwin Baker’s book Media, Markets, and Democracy pages 30 to 37 and pages 177 to 178.
If you want an introduction o all the issues surrounding the contemporary newspaper industry, read this article. It focuses on the trials and tribulations that the executive editorial staff of the Los Angeles Times has had with the “empty suits” of the Tribune Company, and given that the article appears in the New Yorker, I am sure you can imagine which side is portrayed the most sympathetically—rightfully so from my view. The issue is that the editors see the newspaper as fulfilling a social role and for them what is at stake is creating the best possible paper. For the corporate management, they want to meet (if not exceed) Wall Street’s profit expectations each quarter, and thus even when readership and revenue are faltering, rather than invest in the paper to make it one of the best in the nation (the editors admit that for various reasons—most of them pecuniary—papers such as The Washington Post, The New York Times, and The Wall Street Journal are not its true peers) to ensure long-term growth and profitability, they cut costs. For quick digression, granted the gap between the LA Times and the aforementioned papers is close, and the editors believe they could close the gap, but those who occupy the corporate offices see differently. For them, they do not want to have the best possible paper; rather, they want to have the most profitable paper with the largest margins (income as a percent of revenue). If the two coincide, great. But, insofar as quality is a long-term investment, the current management would rather cut the size of the newsroom staff and trim expenses to satisfy investors’ ravenous desires for ever growing profits.
So much for my partisan take on the article. It is not nearly that skewed in its presentation, although it does lend itself to being interpreted as such. One important fact the article touches on (albeit tangentially) is ruinous competition. The corporate officers of the Tribune Company would like all of their papers to share office space and staff in some of their bureaus outside of their main marketplaces (the Washington Bureau, for example). Many editors resist this, for they want control, uniqueness and particularity in their paper—if the lose their direct control, they might as well just use a wire service. Nevertheless, perhaps the corporate managers are on to something. Ruinous competition does not just hurt the newspapers, it also damages consumers, insofar as resources that could be used to create content desired by a particular audience are instead expended on creating duplicates of editorial pieces that already exist. For a better explanation on ruinous competition, see C. Edwin Baker’s book Media, Markets, and Democracy pages 30 to 37 and pages 177 to 178.
tagged Corporate_Media_Ownership Los_Angeles_Times New_Yorker Tribune_Company
by bweiner
...on 07-DEC-05