McGuire on Media

Newspaper circulation leaders need to make their own sandwiches

May 8, 2008 – 4:31 pm

Speech to Northwest International Circulation Executives

Vancouver, WA. May 6, 2008

By Tim J. McGuire

Frank Russell Chair for the Business of Journalism

Walter Cronkite School of Journalism and Mass Communication, Arizona State University

©Tim J. McGuire. May 2008

One of the things I like to do when I take a speaking gig like this one is to ask what the people who invited me hope I will say.

All Eileen Widdison needed was an invitation. Her keyboard must have exploded when I inquired. She said she sure did have thoughts on what I should talk about! With all the colorfulness and certainty you have come to expect of Eileen she responded with these fiery words:

“I’m tired of hearing about how we’re slated for death. I’m sick to death of people telling me that video is the answer. We’ve watched the buyouts, the layoffs, the wailing, whining and complaining. I’m starting to get numb. Throw me a lifeline! Is there a future for us poor print dweebs? Is it intensely local?

Eileen continued: Do you have something in your bag of tricks which would give us some hope? You’re going to start the conference off. Could you attempt the bootstrap pep talk? Could you try to remind us that we’re worthy and venerable and credible? The circulators need to hear from someone of your experience and stature that we have meaning.”

I think I have something to say on the subject of the future, but we have to get something straight right here at the beginning. Please understand I say this with all the respect and affection I can muster for my new phone friend Eileen and for all of you.

Find your own stinkin’ lifeline!

Build your own damn hope!

Discover your own worthiness.

Stop waiting for it to be conferred on you by an aging, retired newsman or by your confused, beyond-desperate corporate owners, or by a besieged management team which has watched its own individual personal worth go up in so much digital vapor because they really don’t know up from down in this revolutionary moment.

Pardon me the First Testament of the Bible references, but they seem so obvious. Too many of us in the newspaper industry are in the midst of a futile search for a Messiah.

Others are intent on holding our breath until we return to the wonders and safety of Egypt or, in this case, yesterday.

Others think they are so certain of the future they are worshipping false idols and making fools of themselves.

I do not say any of this to be cruel. I say it because victimhood is ugly and unbecoming.

I say it because critics of newspapers are being too simplistic.

I say it because newspaper people are wallowing in self-pity and wishing for a return to a yesterday that is gone. It will never exist again.

I say it because every human being has a vital say in his or her own future and you’d never know that talking with too many newspaper folks.

I think there is a media future for newspaper folk even if it looks a lot different.

I think bright, entrepreneurial people are going to create that future.

The victims are going to get run over!

First, let’s examine the current reality because I don’t think it is necessarily the Romenesko reality or the media critic reality. I also don’t believe that it is the reality of the Pollyanna’s who believe we’re just in a bad business cycle.

Newspapers as we know them have a problem. It is a big, nasty, transformational problem. Arguments about whether it could have been avoided are the territory of second-guessers with too much time on their hands. The fact is newspapers have this problem because the world marches on.

All products have life cycles and the golden age of the newspaper product was from the 1950’s through the mid-to late 90’s. There is a lot of loose talk about newspapers being dinosaurs. If that is true, the meteor hit newspapers in the mid-90’s. It’s called the Internet.

Our entire society and scores of other industries were hit by the same meteor. Tom Friedman of the New York Times, wrote a tremendously important book a few years ago called The World is Flat. Tom argues the dynamic force in Globalization 3.0 is the newfound power for individuals to collaborate.

To cut through all of Friedman’s amazing insights what this means for media is that the consumer now has the control and we don’t. When I was editor of the Star Tribune in Minneapolis my colleagues and I decided what readers would read and when they would read it. We pushed information to readers. Now readers are in control. They decide what they want to read, how and when they will acquire it and their choices are limitless. They “pull” information.

That push-pull dichotomy has shifted control in ways so fundamental that everything from the insurance business to retail sales to newspapers have been profoundly shaken. None will ever be the same, and we’ve got to come to grips with that. Let it go!

Friedman tells us that because everything can now be outsourced more efficiently and more cheaply Americans must focus on their VALUE-ADD. We have seen how news has been commoditized by 24/7 television and by the Internet. Somehow newspaper folks have to figure out how to ADD value and CAPTURE value.

Write that down we’re going to need that later—add value and capture value.

Newspaper circulation at our biggest newspapers IS declining precipitously. Driven in large part by classified ad revenue declines, revenues are sliding off the cliff at those big newspapers.

Many newspapers are still making a fairly decent profit. But let’s be honest, the negative rumors about the financial status about newspapers in places like San Francisco, Minneapolis, and San Jose should put a lump in the throat of anybody who loves newspapers.

Honesty must exist on the other side of the ledger too. I sat across the cocktail table from the owner of five small newspapers two weeks ago. He grinned like a cat in a barn full of mice when he told us his newspapers had their best year ever last year.

And, that’s a key part of the current reality that simply does not get discussed. When we talk about the state of newspapers we might as well be talking about the state of the human body. If you look at me you would probably decide the human body is in pretty bad shape. If you look at that guy over there the prognosis is really good.

I think it is mandatory that we stop obsessing about the health of the newspaper species. Some ARE dying. The next several months will likely bring several to the brink of death and some might die. At the same time some medium size and smaller newspapers are going to rock along for a very long time and reward owners handsomely. All newspapers are not created equal and it is naïve to condemn all with the fate of the few.

That is why my second topic area is so important. We have to define what it is about newspapers we need to save and what we should not want to save.

I argue we do not want to save fictional romantic notions of the movie The Front Page and Lou Grant. If newspaper ink is in your veins, you desperately need a blood transfusion.

We do not want to save the way we did the job for thirty years. The top/down, assembly line nature of work throughout the newspaper has been on the chopping block for the last 15 years and it’s time we finally killed it without all sorts of bleating about change and tradition.

We do not want to save a 13 and one half inch by 21 inch sheet. We have to be open to things like e-papers and the Kindle and scores of other potential technological breakthroughs which will provide portability, ease of access and consumer friendly access to information and stories.

We do not want to behave as if our only goal is to save our own necks. There’s way too much concern about “my job” and “my role’ and not enough concern about reinventing them. And the worst offenders on that “save my own neck” measure are the management of big companies who seem obsessed with their own personal wealth.

My wife always had dreams of writing a book about “Stupid Parenting Tricks.” It won’t be long before someone writes a ‘Stupid newspaper management tricks” book, and greed will be at the center of it. When greed surpasses morality your industry is doomed.

I know those are strong words, but some of the things occurring in the newspaper workplace these days are nothing short of reprehensible. When certain people decide to go on the record about the way people are being treated the embarrassment is going to be acute.

We do not want to save a product that does not serve. Serving democracy, serving community and serving readers and advertisers has been at the core of what newspapers do for the last 80 years or so. We cannot focus on saving one part of that equation and sacrifice the rest. An unbalanced attempt to save advertising and an outdated business model will result in something that does not preserve community, democracy and an undying commitment to the First Amendment.

Finally we do not want to be so hell-bent on saving a product that damages the environment. My Arizona State Cronkite School students display genuine excitement about the positive environmental impacts something like an e-paper would create. They’ve helped me understand that migration of the newspaper product to something that saves trees, trash and pollution might be a very good thing.

Here’s what we do want to save.

We do want to save the ethics, values and principles which guide modern day journalism. Yes, I know that the public rates us down there with used car salesmen, lawyers and politicians. And, yes I know that many right thinking people see the press as rumor mongering, divisive and opponents of civil discourse rather than as advocates for dialogue that will pave the way for democracy.

Despite those charges, American newspapers are our best shot at being the news medium that adheres to ethical standards of fair play, respect for personhood and as protectors of freedom.

That will remain the case only IF newspapers show some backbone and resist the headlong plunge into gossip, mean-spirited “gotcha” reporting and a Charles Gibson-like obsession with minor campaign peccadilloes. Instead, newspapers must focus on what matters to the real people of this country who are devastated, rather than bemused at the high cost of gas, food and health care.

We do want to save newspaper’s role as a community builder and emcee for the community discussion. That will only come if newspapers attempt to truly reflect the diverse needs of all the people in their audience. It will only come if newspapers stop pandering to what people click on and start creating compelling content which fills needs rather than satiates curiosity.

It is crucial that newspapers serve as the emcee for the discussion, but that requires some real backbone too. It’s time for newspapers and every other adult working on the web to realize and admit that we are not fostering democracy when we encourage and enable vicious, anonymous comments.

That’s not building community. That is encouraging hate speech. Let’s all grow up and admit it. I cringe when editors tell me how much their traffic has increased since they allowed anonymous comments. I can probably draw a helluva lot of people to a pie fight too.

And now here’s where I get really radical and where I start to speak directly to you as circulators. We do need to save the newspaper’s role as an intermediary. Let me modify that just a bit. Someone’s going to have to be the intermediary and newspapers are as qualified as anyone else.

Yes, I know that all the Internet gurus tell us intermediaries are dead. I understand that newspaper’s role as a facilitator for buyers and sellers has been deeply eroded, And yes, I know that in an era when information gatherers can get anything they want, when they want it,  the patriarchal role of media providers has been radically redefined.

Mrs. McGuire raised no fools. I understand that the Wikipedia age has put consumers in charge. Consumers are now producers and all the experts tell us that intermediaries are dead. I don’t buy it.

I am not nearly as smart as those Internet gurus, or the smug seers who seem to be the masters of media doom, but I am convinced that we are on the brink of informational chaos without an intermediary function.

Let me be clear. I am not trying to be a 59-year-old fuddy- duddy here. I get progress. I like it.

I am completely comfortable with the transfer of informational power to citizens. I can easily accept that the arrogance of the media has catalyzed citizens to express their own voice and seek their own solutions. I can even celebrate that. As a true “small d” democrat I exalt the voice of the people.

Here’s the rub for me. I think people are oversimplifying the future. At least SOME conversations need to be moderated. SOME knowledge needs to be managed and mediated. Some information will be produced and managed by the masses, but I am betting there will always be a substantial need for guides, directors, synthesizers and organizers. And, yes, despite the rise of Google and the database of intentions some mediation between buyers and sellers is going to be necessary for a long time.

Okay, write that down too. There is going to be an important place for guides, directors, synthesizers and organizers and for some mediation between buyers and sellers.

Before I talk specifically about the future and YOUR future as circulators I want to say a few things about the current journalism practitioners.

Fear is gripping the industry. It was obvious in Eileen’s email to me. It is obvious in the drastic cuts in product quality. It is apparent when editors and publishers claim they have the answers and nobody else does.

I refuse to join the Jeff Jarvis’, Kill the Newspaper camp. He writes eloquently that we should pick a date in the less-distant-than-you-think future and unplug the press. And then ask: What’s a newspaper? What’s its real value? And how does that value live on and grow past paper?”

I understand Jarvis’ attempt at being a super-provocateur, but I don’t buy it. I don’t go that far because I think the newspaper has a lot of profitable days a head. I‘ve been saying for months, and now I hear Gary Pruitt CEO of McClatchy says it too: “If you killed your newspaper today someone would start a new one by next Thursday.” That is a competitive truth that tells us there’s still a place for newspapers.

But here’s what I think we should adopt as a mission statement for the industry and it is what I traveled 1,350 miles to say:

The newspaper will eventually die and so will you! The fountain pen died and we still write for heaven’s sakes! Newspaper companies will remain a crucial part of the consumer information media equation with a lively mix of electronic and printed products, distributed in an unfathomable number of ways which place the newspaper company in an intimate relationship with information consumers and advertisers.

Let’s face it, one of the biggest fears newspaper folk have is dumping a product that is troubled, but still fairly effective. Killing that newspaper just to start over doesn’t make sense to me. But holding our breath until we turn blue and hoping things won’t change anymore is not a viable strategy either.

So, let’s move into the last phase of this speech and explore the ways we can make the future work for you, circulation executives. We want to explore personal ways you can become media problem solvers rather than barriers to change.

A lot of you are going to find this discussion uncomfortable. Remember at the beginning of this speech Eileen asked me to throw you a lifeline and I told you to find your own stinkin’ lifeline!

I meant that.

Before I joined the Walter Cronkite School at Arizona State I wrote a syndicated column on values and ethics in the workplace. Here is an excerpt from one of those columns from 2005:

Three women walked into a public restroom to find the water running. They complained loudly and continuously about the horrible people who left that faucet on. They kvetched about the insensitivity of the horrid perpetrators. On and on they griped. What, indeed, was the world coming to?

A fourth woman walked into the restroom, looked at the running faucet, and turned it off.

There are complainers in this world and there are doers.

One more story from that same column:

Recently, a friend of mine told me a story about Mike who went to Seattle to visit a friend. Mike encountered an old priest who got up early every morning, made peanut butter and jelly sandwiches, and walked downtown and gave them to the homeless.

Mike was moved by the old priest’s good works. So when he got home Mike wrote the priest a check and sent it to him saying it was to help his ministry. A few weeks later Mike got the check back in the mail with a note written on the check – “make your own damn sandwiches.” 

If you are honest, I bet each of you saw yourselves in one or both of those stories.

Few of us really want to “make our own damn sandwiches.”  We want other people to get their hands dirty with the tough, hard details of life and work. We stand around and watch the water run from the faucet and it never dawns on us that we have to take the responsibility to turn it off.

That’s what I meant when I said “build your own damn hope!” If you want the newspaper business to survive, you have to be doers, you have to make your own damn sandwiches. I can’t fix this for you, and every indication is your bosses can’t either.

In this speech I have detailed the seminal, revolutionary moment we face in the newspaper business. It can be survived, but only by resolute people who are ready to shrug off victimhood.

My tough message for you today is that the newspaper business is not going to suddenly get better and return to the joys of yesterday.

There is a positive journalistic future out there for entrepreneurial souls who want to take the responsibility to turn the faucets off. Nobody is going to turn that faucet off for you. You must!

Look, a lot of people have already left the newspaper business. A lot more are going to go. Arguably, that’s a good thing. The people who remain have to be people who are not only willing to reinvent the future, but people who are enthusiastic about doing so.

I promised a toolbox. I am going to briefly suggest five ways to readjust your mind in ways that might allow you to be one of those entrepreneurial inventors of a new newspaper future.

Number one: You have to be young at mind.

The heck with that young-at-heart business. That’s fine if you want to play softball or video games. To compete viably in today’s changed world you have to THINK young.

Time to be brutally honest again. In industries facing dramatic change at the hand of the digital revolution, such as newspapers, we are facing a frightening age divide.

It is my opinion we are not facing it well. Young people are itching to lead, create and digitize and older people are too often blocking the way. I was stunned at the number of panels at ASNE/NAA which featured people over 40 talking about our future. I pray that is naïve and not mean-spirited. The future belongs to the young AND to the young thinking. I am not saying you can’t play if you are over 35. I am saying you have to reinvent yourself to be a viable player.

For example, circulation is an old game. Logistics, networking and navigation are the new realities. If you are going to survive you need to figure out how those three can make you and your organization more effective.

You need to use computers to figure out the best way to deliver. You need to reinvent your processes using the best logistics methods. Social networking is done on a computer, but does that mean there are not analog implications? I bet not. You need to know!

That leads to Number Two: Read, study, imagine, repeat.

I am too often amazed at the number of newspaper veterans who say they want to be part of a journalistic and newspaper renaissance and then make no serious effort to understand said revolution. Just saying you want to compete is not going to get it.

You need to read important contemporary books such as The World is Flat, The Long Tail, The Search, Everything is Miscellaneous, The Wisdom of Crowds, and every book you can find on innovation. There is good stuff on the NAA Re-imagining the Newspaper Future web site and the Newspaper Next stuff is good too. On that NAA site there is an article called Adopting New Rules of Consumer engagement by Jeffrey Rayport that is essential reading for any circulator who wants to rethink how we connect with consumers.

You need to study up on social computing; gaming in journalism and crowd sourcing. Once you read and study you need to start imagining and creating, but that won’t come without really appreciating the incredible changes afoot.

The other part of this study thing is the one I admit gives me trouble; you have to DO. You have to go ding around Facebook and Myspace. You need to deeply understand the capabilities of your cell phone and go to web sites like Digg and other sites that 17 year-olds tell you are important. All of these innovations have profound implications for our business and its future. If you don’t appreciate the challenges, you won’t ever conceive the solutions.

Your boss is not going to like number three, and if you are a boss you probably won’t either. Ideas, creativity and risk have to permeate the entire team without being enslaved by process.

We have been a risk adverse industry. We have been effective at producing and distributing newspapers because we knew what worked. You don’t have to be an organizational development expert to understand that processes are set up to discourage change and innovation. They are designed to repeat the same thing over and over and over. The processes in your circulation department work because they discourage independent thinking and action. That’s efficiency and by God, newspaper people know efficiency.

The rules changed. Processes help organizations succeed when they face the same challenges they’ve always faced. Experts tell us that if those challenges change, disruption can result. Everything we once knew has been tipped on its head.

A perfect example is Craigslist. That tipped the classified world on its head and the newspaper industry has not developed a response yet. The founder of Monster announced the other day he’s coming after newspaper obits. Oh boy! I can hardly wait! That demands creativity that is not bound by rules and process.

We cannot just wish these challenges away. We have to turn the damn faucet off ourselves.

Well, maybe not really by ourselves. That leads us to number four. Partner with friend and foe. This is another hard one for us newspaper veterans, but partnerships are the way to go. Where we once looked and saw enemies, we now need to see potential partners with whom we can create synergy.

This partnership thing should exist on two levels. For my money, your best partners are in this room. What advantages for your newspaper could be created by a NICE alliance? What efficiencies could be attained if you partner with one another? I still believe my close friend Tom Mohr had it right last year when he advocated that newspapers put together a powerful coalition to compete on the web.

We have played lone ranger long enough. Now, with newspapers endangered, it is time to partner for greater efficiency and leverage. I was thrilled the other day when I saw the carrier on my block deliver three different newspapers. That eliminates a lot of duplication that simply was not advantageous. There have to be more cooperative solutions out there that will become possible with partnerships.

Partnership can’t stop there. Every organization in your community has potential to be your partner. What leverage do you bring to your partner and what leverage does that partner bring you? If you are better off and your partner is better off then the partnership works.

Again the old rules cannot contain you. Be creative and risk taking when it comes to partners.

Number five refers back to Tom Friedman’s admonition: ADD value and CAPTURE value. It amazes me that as newspapers face declining revenues and increased profit challenges the industry has seemingly adapted this mantra. Subtract value wherever possible!

Let’s conduct a little test:

Is your service better than it was five years ago?

Do you cater to customers needs more now than you once did?

If the citizens of your circulation area were polled on their favorite delivery service what would they choose? A) Your newspaper? B) U.S. Mail service? C)Fed Ex, D)UPS or E) Gino’s Pizza.

Those are very serious questions if you want to be THE intermediary between your customer and delivery of every print product or consumer advertising product in your region.

Delivering the newspaper at 6:30 in the morning won’t be the only skill required of you in a multi-product future. You need to figure out ways to add value to delivery, add value to sales and to capture the value of your services.

So let’s review Eileen’s mandate to me.

She wanted to me to tell you print is not dying and that there is a future for print dweebs. I couldn’t do that. What I told you is that newspaper companies don’t have to die because they can forge an effective mix of electronic and print products that help consumers navigate this challenging new world.

Eileen wanted me to give you a pep talk and tell you are worthy, venerable and credible. I can tell you that and I am sure you are honest, trustworthy and brave too. I am sure puppies love you all. That’s not the point.

The point is you are in an industry and a time in which everything—everything– is changing in revolutionary ways. Your jobs and career will only have meaning if you give it meaning.

You have to be doers. You have to become masters of your own future. You have to make your own damn sandwiches.

By Tim McGuire | Posted in Business of journalism, Future of journalism, Journalism education, Leadership and Management, Media ethics, Newspapers, Speeches | Comments (7)

Strange phenomenon observed at ASNE/NAA

April 29, 2008 – 10:34 am

There is a tendency among some editors and business folk to believe they “get it” when it comes to the future of newspapers and a corresponding need to point disparagingly at others and deride their ability to grasp the future of this business.

There is nothing scientific about the observation I made at the ASNE/NAA Capital conference. It is mine and mine alone. To the extent feasible I will tell you how I arrived at it and you can compare this to your own observations about this moment in newspaper industry history. And, there is a great argument that this is all human nature stuff, but I still found it interesting.

The observation is based on an overall tone I sensed and two specific experiences.  I  personally observed one conversation and one conversation about the same session titled:”Making Journalism Matter,.” was reported to me. The focus of the panel was on technology and journalism.  I heard one audience member approach a panelist with a hearty congratulations for his participation and and a derisive comment about how the other panelists “just didn’t get it.” When I repeated that story to a friend I was told about two executives from one company who were overheard commenting on how much better their person on the panel had done than everyone else. That would have been highly debatable, but the interesting fact is that people seem intent on claiming wisdom and insight and putting down others for an alleged lack of that wisdom.

I can well be accused of extrapolating a few isolated instances into an alleged trend, but I think psychologists would have a big ol’ time analyzing this phenomenon. I would imagine the organizational development mavens would tell me that these behaviors are signs that industry folks are not very secure at all in their move into the future.

It is interesting enough that there is enough hubris in this beaten-down industry to claim some Divine inspiration, but the gall of putting down others strikes me as fatal arrogance.

Then again, perhaps it is that arrogance which has landed the newspaper industry in this current pickle.

Maybe it’s because I am not fighting the daily battle, but I am seeing little sign that anybody is holding a set of prescriptions and solutions that will guide the industry to the promised land. I sat through the meeting in question, and while I am definitely slow on the uptake I saw no head-slapping moment which made me say “by jove, they’ve got it.”

This quest for some Holy Grail or one eureka moment that will save the industry is silly. We are in a time of tumult and it is crucial that we move forward thoughtfully, but we are not going to turn the corner a week from Thursday.

Everybody needs to relax, offer solace instead of criticism and work together, rather than against each other, to help the industry out of this morass. 

THE REAL LESSON

Nobody should be surprised that the founder of Monster.com has set his sights on the newspaper monopoly on obits.  By now we should all know that everything we do is subject to disintermediation. The real lesson we should learn from Jeff Taylor’s latest brainstorm is every newspaper should be doing an inventory of assets and weaknesses.  If something is a strength it better be fortified because somebody  is going to see it as a business opportunity. If something is making you say “I wish we had a doflumfridgett,” you better make doflumfridgetts priority number one. Every weakness is someone else’s opportunity

HARD NEWS, WHO KNEW?

Hats off to Nancy Barnes and the Star Tribune of Minneapolis. Barnes’ column about increasing hard news on the front page deserves big applause.  It seems to me it’s a move that recognizes what newspaper readers who stick with the product want from their newspaper. They want to be informed, they want to be surprised and they want to know they are not wasting their time.  Emphasizing hard news acknowledges the fact that readers who stick with newspapers are not looking for Cosmo on newsprint. They want to “know stuff.”  This is a trend I hope catches on soon.

With MinnPost looking  better everyday and the Star Tribune emphasizing hard news of importance, the clear winners are Minnesota readers.

By Tim McGuire | Posted in Future of journalism, Leadership and Management, Media Criticism, Newspapers, Online journalism | Comments (0)

Musings from the NAA/ASNE conference in Washington D.C.

April 17, 2008 – 11:56 am

I landed from D.,C. and the NAA/ASNE convention early Wednesday afternoon. I missed the final morning sessions to teach a class late Wednesday, but my mind is bubbling with vagrant thoughts.  I hope the conference provides fodder for some longer blog entries, but here’s what’s swirling in my head today.

The consolidation of NEXPO/NAA/ASNE disguised the dramatically low attendance. Even though euphemisms abound, several chains forbade or "discouraged" editors and publishers from attending the conference. It is is one more example of how things have changed from "the good old days." My memory is there were years when well over 800 people attended ASNE.  I would be surprised if there were over 1,000 at this joint event.

I can’t tell you how unsurprised I am that the AP/newspaper squabble boiled over Wednesday morning. I missed the conflict Joe Strupp described. That was a very public manifestation of the issues between AP and editors, but there were other behind-the-scenes tiffs. It is clear the the "new enemy from within" is AP. It is just as clear that AP is going to stand and fight.  When AP Chairman Dean Singleton told publishers and editors Monday morning that newspapers are only providing 27 percent of AP’s revenues these days I winced. It was clear to me at that point AP was being quite bold about its strategy that it is not all about newspapers these days.  If AP wants to stay away from an angry backlash that could result is editors pursuing some unattractive options, AP is going to have to go to a strict pay-for-what-you-actually get pricing plan. The days of arguing "we’re all in this together," appear to be over.

The mood of the conference was fascinating.  Many people still mutter about how stunned they are that things turned so bad, so quickly. Yet, the programs and much of the off-line discussion indicated to me that people know the meteor has already hit and it is time to clean up. The programs did not argue whether newspapers have to change, but rather, how.  That’s the good news. The bad news is that the level of innovation still seems modest. Worse, all of it is being spouted by over-45-year-old executives.  When do NAA and ASNE acknowledge the future lies in the hands of Adrian Holovaty and his under-30 peers?

I spent a fantastic two hours Sunday morning sitting in Starbucks reading the Washington Post.  For many people the fact the Post won six Pulitzers says the Post is a great newspaper. While I don’t scoff at that, for me the better evidence is that I can read the Sunday Post for two hours and mutter to myself countless times "I didn’t know that!"  That is the measure of a great newspaper.

The Newseum is a fantastic museum, but I am surprised my many friends at the Freedom Forum seem so taken aback by the press criticism. That was inevitable. This was a bold move sure to ignite controversy. What matters is how the public responds. I was fascinated by a tangential observation I made at the Newseum.  Cleverly, front pages from newspapers around the country are posted in front of the  the building on Pennsylvania Avenue. As I perused those papers I was struck by how different the front pages were from newspaper to newspaper.  I have no scientific evidence, but my instinct is that 10 years ago there would have been far greater homogeneity.  My thought is this shows the high level of experimentation, localness and independence among newspapers in this age of tumult.

The highlight of the convention was the opportunity to see the three presidential candidates in person. The comparisons were fun, the showcasing of substance was impressive and watching the crowds react was fascinating.  Senator Clinton’s amazing show of substance was a showstopper for me.

By Tim McGuire | Posted in Media Criticism | Comments (0)

Newspapers may need to outgoogle Google

April 8, 2008 – 2:19 pm

The challenges of the spring have kept me away from the blog, not a lack of something to say. I have been bursting with thoughts and frustrations lately, but I am going to save them for yet another day.

I often fret I could easily turn this into a blog of my students’ work. I resist that frequently. It is time for another exception. One of my Business and Future of Journalism students had some pretty profound observations recently. I think it is important to share them.

Michelle Price is a sophomore focusing on print.  She did a report on Chris Anderson’s The Long Tail.

Her assignment was to find and discuss media implications of the book. When she discussed filters Michelle wrote this: ” If I want to look something up, say the recent rises in metal thefts in the Valley, I should be able to search on my local news web site and get the same kind of feedback I get from Google: relevant, timely, source-approved. The information I get from my news organization should offer me not only links to other articles or sites to give me more background or history, but offer categories of lists that may take me down my particular interests, such as “metal sculpture,” “overseas development,” “Drug-related crimes,” “high-profile thefts,” etc. Notice how I said, “I should be able,” not “Wouldn’t that be neat?”

With that thumping left hook, Michelle delivered a severe blow to web sites, but she didn’t stop. She followed up with another roundhouse. “Media needs to incorporate all of the post-filters (or their equivalents) into their organizations. I say equivalents because “playlists” would translate to “most-viewed articles,” “most-commented articles,” “related articles.” I can’t tell you how often I read an article on a web site, want more information or a link to a related article and can’t find it. What do I do? Google it! That’s a problem!”

Yes, kind student, that’s a problem. There is a lot of talk about redesigning newspaper web sites. Until readers can find the same utility they find on Google, newspaper web sites will languish. That probably means paid archives have to die, and it definitely means newspaper search has to become far more sophisticated.

Michelle may have unwittingly answered a mystery for me.

My students often confuse me. I find a very odd loyalty to newspapers in my classes. Many want newspapers to flourish. They despair when I quote thinkers who claim newspapers are dead. One student worried that “my grandma in Cleveland” would miss the newspaper.” One student hates the idea of newspaper content becoming vertical and exploring just a few subjects. She fears readers would have to bounce from newspaper to newspaper to find what they need.  Another student made a plaintive  plea for more coverage of the Middle East on the front pages of newspapers.

Those comments forced me from behind the desk. I carefully sat on the table at the front of the class. I feigned great thoughtfulness. Then I screamed, “But none of you buy newspapers!”  They laughed at the funny old man, but I think they truly understood the conundrum. There is a remarkable loyalty to the IDEA of newspapers despite the fact that many, if not most, of my students are not regular newspaper readers. They definitely don’t buy them and their readership seems to be hit and miss at best.  

Michelle’s thoughtful comments on the difficulty of searching a newspaper web site for knowledge as opposed to past newspaper articles is a revelation.  An idea that is well represented in the NAA Imagining the Future Blog is that newspapers cannot be mere storehouses for their own information.  They have to be networks of “stuff.”  That “stuff” has to be deeply linked and deeply researchable.  That is exactly the function Michelle says she should be able to find on a newspaper web site.

If newspapers want to compete in the new world they have to listen to the dreams of people like Michelle who love newspapers, but don’t need them in their current form.

By Tim McGuire | Posted in Business of journalism, Future of journalism, Media Criticism, Newspapers | Comments (0)

Davidson was a thrilling underdog

March 31, 2008 – 3:27 pm

On the Tuesday night before the regional finals in the NCAA basketball tournament an ESPN radio talker named Jason Smith told his audience, with every indication he was dead serious, that upsets were bad for the NCAA tournament. His theory was that ratings go down when the big teams don’t play. Horsefeathers and other strong expressions of dismay!

The most exciting thing in the NCAA tournament, all sports, and even life, is the legitimate Cinderella. The school or team which has a chance to upset everybody’s bracket and expectations delights most of us.  Davidson College served that role with brilliance over the last two weeks, and if it weren’t for a couple of bounces they would be celebrating their first Final Four appearance right now.  Their two-point loss to Kansas would have galvanized America. The country would have quickly learned that Davidson is an exciting, amazing college worthy of any accolades tossed its way.

My lack of objectivity on the matter is evidenced by the fact I did not take my Davidson cap off at any time Friday in anticipation of the game against Wisconsin, a game the Davidson team won handily. In the fall of 2003 I  was the James Batten professor at Davidson. It was a wonderful experience I will never forget.

Practically all the stories about the Davidson basketball team included a mention of the free laundry services at the school, but that does a tremendous disservice to the school and what the school really stands for in this cynical age.

I wrote this in my syndicated column in December of 2003. a few years ago:

“Rory Huntly rode his bike past me with a big smile and a friendly “Hi’ on a sunny September day on the Davidson College campus in North Carolina. I watched with amusement as Rory hopped off his bike and leaned it against the wall of the college union and walked inside for lunch. No lock, no fears, no theft.

Davidson College has an honor code, and it works. On the last night of freshman orientation all members of the class meet with the Honor council to discuss the code and its responsibilities. Then students convene in the college theater to sign the code in front of their classmates. It is a big deal and a big commitment.”

I remain enthralled by  the impact the honor code had on the campus, students and faculty. The pledge to live by the code radically changes the culture. I saw countless examples of how the honor code positively affected the campus. As I wrote in that 2003 column: “Young people were proud of doing the right thing. Students worried about whether the mildest form of consultation was approved conduct. Their conscience was honed to a fine edge. It was exciting for a stranger to see how much the honor code shaped student behavior. To my visiting eye, integrity practically oozed out of the place. “

As The Wildcats ran their disciplined offensive sets with complicated screens, and when they bottled up Wisconsin and Kansas with their well-schooled defense, I saluted Davidson’s talented coach Bob McKillop. I also knew the culture of Davidson College contributed to the team’s success in a very big way. McKillop does things the right way, and so does Davidson the school.

I am saddened that the country isn’t going to learn more about this precious school from the town of Davidson N.C. A Final Four trip by Cinderella would have convinced everyone that upsets and underdogs are the soul of sports at the same time it focused on one of the best institutions of higher learning in America.

By Tim McGuire | Posted in Journalism education, Leadership and Management, Media Criticism, Media ethics, Sports journalism | Comments (3)

Women, sports and media: A remarkable journey

March 26, 2008 – 6:49 pm

I am completing my diversity section of my Sports and Media class. Women in sports was the final topic. I wanted to show the journey of women in sports so I used the hackneyed  four-scene approach.

Scene 1, Ypsilanti Michigan 1973. I was the managing editor of the now-defunct Ypsilanti Press.  Carolyn King was an 11-year-old girl who wanted to play Little League baseball. This is a year after Title IX passed, but the Little League major domos didn’t want to believe Little League was covered.  The Carolyn King story became a national story. I’d like to believe that was largely because the local paper covered the heck out of the story. I remember declaring this was a huge story.  Little did I know.

To refresh my memory I found this “League history” on the Ypsilanti Little League Web site:

The Ypsilanti American Little League was founded in 1953 and is the oldest Little League in Michigan.   In addition, our Little League was the first in the world to include a female player.  When Little League was founded in 1936, girls were not allowed to participate, but that changed in 1973 when Carolyn King of Ypsilanti played in our league. 

A June 4, 1973 article in Time Magazine tells the story.  “When Outfielder Carolyn King, 12, tried out for the Orioles, an Ypsilanti, Mich., Little League baseball team, she beat out 15 boys and qualified for a starting position. Not long afterward, Little League headquarters in Williamsport, Pa., cited its rule barring girls from league teams and threatened to withdraw the Orioles’ charter. Ypsilanti’s city councilmen issued a counter threat:  if Carolyn did not play, they would cut off city support for the league and bar it from public ballfields. After some soul-searching, the Orioles decided to let Carolyn play. Promptly, national headquarters made good on its threat and withdrew the Orioles’ charter. Last week, just as promptly, the city council voted 10-0 to file suit in federal court charging violation of the U.S. Constitution. No verdict is likely for weeks.”

Ultimately the U.S. Division of Civil Rights ordered Little League to drop its boys-only policy, and in 1974, Little League revised its rules to allow girls to compete.  Girls worldwide now enjoy Little League thanks to Carolyn and our league! 

This account is seriously counter to my memory. It makes the league out to be heroes, and my memory is that there were a lot of local  league officials giving the young woman a real hassle. I don’t recall them being particularly kind to the local newspaper that thought this was a big deal either.  That’s the great thing about 35-year-old memories. We all get to spruce them up so we look good. 

The Carolyn King battle was typical of the early Title IX skirmishes.

Scene 2: Late 80’s, Minneapolis Star Tribune Newsroom. The women’s basketball tournament sat between the boys’ hockey tournament and the boys’ basketball tournament on the calendar. The two boys tournaments were BIG, BIG, BIG. For several years the debate raged in the newsroom about parity for the women. The same debate raged about the University of Minnesota women’s basketball team. The argument centered on attendance and interest. A fraction of the fans that attended the two boys tournaments attended the women’s tournament. Many of us concluded in all our maleness that only a small fraction of our readership was interested. That debate was never resolved with a big ta-da. The evolution to more balanced and consistent coverage was slow and gradual and is still not equal. But for an old guy who looks at coverage of women’s sports in say 1980, and now, the difference is stunning.

Scene 3; June 2007 My living room. Taryn Mowatt is one the brink of winning the College World Series for the Arizona women’s softball team as a gritty, bubbly pitcher. She is mainstream and embodies everything you want sports to embody. I watch her every pitch and can’t help but think about Carolyn King and how hard we covered that breakthrough story in Ypsilanti in 1973. I can’t help but think about all those debates we had in Minneapolis about how much we should cover women’s sports. As I watched, I said to my wife of 32 years, this is a profound social change we have been able to watch up close since the very beginning. We were among the first to cry, Go Carolyn. Now we shouted, Go Taryn!

Scene 4: Jan 12, 2008. Every web site known to man. Marian Jones, from Olympic Gold Medalist to disgrace as she was sentenced to 6 months in jail for perjury about her use of steroids during her Olympic run. As I watched those images of a crying, repentant, pleading Jones I couldn’t help but think of the trajectory of women sports that has taken. It has gone from oblivion and insignificance to the point that women cheat and lie to gain an advantage, just like men do.

Sometimes our progress in this country carries negative consequences along with the good. For every celebration of Taryn Mowatt there will be the tragedy of a Marian Jones. It is the nature of the human spirit–male and female. The triumphs and tragedies of sports now crosses genders seamlessly.

As I told my class, Marie Hardin is doing about the only legitimate work I can find on women and media and women’s sports.

Her research makes it clear we have not reached nirvana on women in sports or women in sports media.

She reports in one survey that most women sports writers have experienced sexual discrimination on the job and almost half say they have been verbally abused. Hardin says women covering sports face discrimination on a “pretty routine basis.”

Women sports writers were also interviewed on whether coverage of women sports is adequate. Most said it was not, but said they are unwilling to fight for better coverage. That’s bothersome, but it probably says more about male-dominated newsrooms than it does women.

One of my students, a fellow named Brennan Perry, made a fascinating observation when we talked about media coverage of women’s sports. He contended women’s sports are not going to become a big deal until women start watching them. The comment gave me a start, but the more I thought about it I decided there was a lot of wisdom to it.

As someone who has watched the journey from Carolyn King to Taryn Mowatt, I have to believe such a day is more than possible.

By Tim McGuire | Posted in Journalism education, Media Criticism, Media ethics, Newspapers, Sports journalism | Comments (3)

Are my rules for publishing controversial photos obsolete?

March 24, 2008 – 2:51 pm

My friend and temporary colleague here at the Cronkite School, Ellen Soeteber, got word of a set of rules I use to teach students about using tough, controversial photos in newspapers. She asked for a copy and I gave it to her, but not without some soul-searching and musing.

The list, which I call Tim’s baker’s dozen, is below. This is an original interpretation, but as any ethics enthusiast can see it borrows spiritually and literally from Poynter, perhaps Media Ethics: Issues and Cases by Patterson and Wilkins, and certainly from all the smart people I’ve worked with over the years.

The striking thing about the list is whether or not it’s at all relevant in a “You-tube’”crowd-sourced media environment. Like so many artifacts from the careers of my generation the list reflects a time when pontificating editors decided what readers should and could consume. In a “pull” world where citizens provide much of the news and decide whether and when  they want to consume it, the editor’s role in making decisions on propriety has been diminished to the point of extinction.

The troubling question for ethics professors these days is whether we should teach from lists like this or recognize that the Wild, Wild West has won and say the standards are yet to be determined by the community? Read More »

By Tim McGuire | Posted in Journalism education, Media Criticism, Media ethics, News decisions, Online journalism | Comments (0)

E-mails make reporting easy, but are they the road to perdition?

March 20, 2008 – 4:49 pm

The Ann Arbor News kicked up an important journalistic firestorm when it refused to pose e-mail questions to University of Michigan President Mary Sue Coleman for a compelling investigative story on academic standards for athletes.

Chicago Tribune columnist Eric Zorn fueled the firestorm when he labeled the Ann Arbor News’ action “churlish.” he complete quote was: (The Ann Arbor News “came off as churlish by insisting on setting the rules for how she was allowed to comment.  They punished their readers — who deserved to hear Coleman’s side of the story — in favor of standing on ceremony.”

Zorn does a reasonable job of delineating all the issues in a case like this, but the “standing on ceremony”  comment seem like serious fighting words demanding exploration.  This e-mail interview question is far more than a “ceremonial” issue. It is an important credibility and ethical issue for journalists and journalism educators to debate and resolve. It is especially crucial that we come up with a consistent, transparent practice. If we don’t, Zorn will be absolutely correct. We will look “churlish.”

Let’s start with  the obvious. E-mail interviewing is really easy. I’ve done it for this blog when I interviewed Roger Buoen of MinnPost. I’ve known Roger for 25 years, I trust him completely and the e-mail interview seemed like the natural thing to do.  There was not going to be a lot of confrontation. My readers were not going to be harmed by getting a carefully considered, even filtered account.  Read More »

By Tim McGuire | Posted in Media Criticism, Media ethics, Newspapers, Online journalism | Comments (0)

Our audience is a different problem than we thought

March 19, 2008 – 2:36 pm

At long last there is some articulation to the obvious fact that audience is not the biggest problem for newspapers. It’s all about the advertising. The latest State of the Media report and Rick Edmonds on Poynter.org discuss a decoupling of news and advertising. “The heart of the problem, especially for newspapers, is not loss of audience but ‘a broken economic model — the decoupling of advertising and news,’ the report finds.

Edmonds points out, as I’ve been saying at dinner parties recently, that declining newspaper readership is not creating this unholy road to perdition.  The changing ad model for newspapers is causing the real carnage.

Audience is certainly declining and this excellent piece from Editor and Publisher crystallizes the problem in a way the ABC reports do not. It says big newspapers have lost 10 percent of circulation in four years and some have lost as much as 20 percent. 

Those are staggering numbers. Read More »

By Tim McGuire | Posted in Business of journalism, Future of journalism, Media Criticism, Media ethics, Newspapers | Comments (1)

Call to arms: The economy demands new coverage ideas

March 12, 2008 – 8:35 am

(This entry also appears on http://www.businessjournalism.org/)

Polls are telling us the economy is more important than Iraq. Business journalists on businessjournalism.org site told us in late 2007 that economic issues were going to crucial this year.

The starting question is does your news report reflect that? All aspects of the economy should be appearing more on your front pages, your business covers and on your web sites. Then you have to examine whether your coverage is compelling, insightful and more helpful than any competitor.  This should be the kind of story at which a newspaper organization excels.

Recently I tracked down a a fun web site which poses the questions media should be asking.  As I perused that site I found a particularly interesting guide for media covering the tepid economy.  I love guides and I love to add my two cents so let’s take a stab at McGuire’s guide to covering economy 2008.

Let’s start where every news conversation in the country starts today: at the resource question. I contend the guiding premise must be the economy of 2008 is a master narrative.  It should be the overriding story–the refracted glass through which you look at all your local coverage.  If the story takes that center stage then the story encompasses your newsroom and demands resources beyond the business page. The best business editors need to lead that coverage, design it and cheerlead for it, but if you try to cover it alone with just business staff you are not going to do right by readers.

The next step is to make sure your economic coverage is twenty-first-century- based and not 1970’s oriented. The recent economic stimulus package provides a great example. Economic stimulus packages were big when America manufactured its own goods.  Government provided taxpayers with an extra six or seven hundred bucks to buy a new TV, dishwasher or stove.  That  purchase benefited the local merchant, the truckers and wholesalers who delivered the goods and the manufacturer in some Michigan or Ohio town. globalization has changed all that, but did your coverage change. I saw precious little analysis of the stimulus package that put it in a 2008 reality where those goods are manufactured in Mexico or China. We needed to tell readers if a stimulus package is going to affect the economy in the same way it used to affect it.

The mortgage crisis is another example of how this recession looks different than others and illustrates how our readers are crucial players in the economy story of 2008 and not just observers.  I think we start by calling it a mortgage crisis and not the "sub-prime" crisis.  I can almost hear the condescension in that term "sub-prime." This story is bigger than the defaults that are hitting a lot of homeowners. Most Americans have a huge part of their net worth tied up in their home. I am not seeing the story covered that way. Our readers have a huge stake in that foreclosure down the block and in the difficulty in getting home equity loans. Readers are frightened. Great journalism will address those fears head-on.

Certainly these stories are being covered. I am concerned they are not being covered with the intensity and the human drama inherent in them. These stories have compelling written all over them and human, insightful, "value-added coverage’ can make newspapers really important.

In all our coverage of the economy we have to make connections for our reader. The gasoline price story is an example.  Major family decisions are being made because of the price of gas. Readers are scrambling at the same time they are perplexed about why it’s happening.  A student in one of my classes last week said with great conviction, "There is nothing we can do about gas prices." The look on her face when i said we could walk, take the bus, or move closer to where we work was amazing. connecting our behaviorsc to the economic outcomes is not only good journalism, it is morally required.

It seems as if we have been talking about "news you can use" stories since I entered the news business in the early 70’s.  If there was ever a time for that journalistic orientation it is now. An entire column on your business cover of tips, insights and guidance for spending money, saving it and investing it would not be overdoing it.  In the same way we should try to knit together the economic developments of the day into a cohesive whole that explains what’s happening with the economy rather than bombarding readers with disconnected parts which only serve to confuse.

Recently there’s been some media talk about stagflation. Some of us old folks have been through stagflation.  Most of our audience hasn’t.  Journalism has the unique ability to teach and guide without being pedantic. The treacherous economic issues we face in the next several months offer journalists the opportunity to metaphorically take the reader by the hand and help them through this difficult time.

We all know that the declining influence of newspapers has come because fewer readers NEED newspapers. I have often been accused of dating both Polly and Anna,  but I believe if newspapers make compelling coverage of the economy the top local news priority there is a great chance to establish a new bond with our readers based on fulfilling a crucial need in millions of homes.

By Tim McGuire | Posted in Media Criticism | Comments (0)