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A FINAL LOOK AT AN INDUSTRY IN TROUBLE
What does the newspaper industry have to do to survive?
Shaunti Feldhahn, a right-leaning columnist, writes the commentary this week, and Andrea Sarvady, a left-leaning columnist, responds.
Thomas Jefferson once wrote: "Were it left to me to decide whether we should have a government without newspapers, or newspapers without a government, I should not hesitate a moment to prefer the latter."
The Fourth Estate is critical for our democracy, yet thousands of journalists have recently been laid off, 33 newspapers have filed for Chapter 11 bankruptcy protection, and many others are now online-only.
Sadly, after 4 1/2 years, the newspaper downturn has caught up with Andrea and me. This is our farewell column, and a rumination of what newspapers must do to survive.
The economic crash only accelerated what had been apparent for some time: Conservative readers increasingly distrust news-gatherers' ability to present the news objectively or to grasp what news is important to them. Modern readers also increasingly find print-centric newspapers unnecessary. However, since the new-media issue is well-known, and this is my swan song as a conservative columnist, I want to challenge newspapers to realize that in order to survive, they must institutionalize ways to stop offending half their audience.
My hurting hometown paper, The Atlanta Journal-Constitution, is a perfect example of how offering liberally slanted news to a conservative population is both dangerous journalism and bad business. When I once told an AJC editor that he sighed, "Yeah, subscribers tell us the main reason they drop us is liberal bias, but we just don't see it."
That is the very reason newspapers must change their approach. Since newspapers are staffed by well-meaning liberal journalists (only 7 percent of the 547 journalists polled in a 2004 Pew Research Center study identified themselves as conservatives) who simply don't see that their mindset creeps into most reporting, the industry must develop mechanisms to counter it. For example, just as newspapers once developed diversity task forces to ensure reporting was fair to minorities, newspapers should consider hiring editors solely to catch ideological imbalance.
Amidst the downturn, the success of conservative alternatives like The Washington Times or The Wall Street Journal provide lessons for industry leaders who are willing to listen. But the answer is not a conservative newspaper for every liberal one. Or even, as much as I have enjoyed my collaboration with Andrea, for a conservative columnist to debate every liberal one. The answer is for an entire industry to face the urgent need to institutionalize true balance.
When Shaunti proposed that our final "Woman to Woman" column should be about the failing newspaper industry, I could only think, "How appropriate." I had just been speaking to three friends: a former reporter who now works in communications, a former reporter who is writing a book, and a recently retired editor whose last few years on the job had been marred by his seeing colleagues "downsized" on a regular basis.
The grim statistics aren't exactly news to anyone who has woken up to find their morning paper either gone or thinned out beyond recognition: More than 100 U.S. newspapers have shut down since January 2008, according to Paper Cuts, a Web site following the industry.
Anyone who reads our column regularly knows that I don't agree with Shaunti that liberal bias had a big role in the downfall of this industry. Yet we're in strong agreement that newspapers were blindsided by the Internet's information takeover -- slow to harness its power for long-term viability and slow to take early advantage of social media avenues to gain readership.
"I like to hold the paper in my hands" is a common phrase among newspaper enthusiasts -- older ones, that is. A Pew Research Center poll showed that only about a third of Americans would miss newspapers a lot if they were no longer around. Coffee shops are now filled with folks flipping open their laptops, skimming a dozen different sources, instantly sharing stories with their friends and colleagues the way kids exchange sports or fantasy cards.
That's actually the good news: We still like to receive information about important issues, and we'll continue to look for sources that offer it. Remaining newspapers that want to be a part of that will move swiftly toward a stronger Web presence, engaging readers through blogs and social networking tools. Will they survive? I think many of them will. Like all lovers of the objective, well-researched word, I sure hope so.
Today I write my final "Woman to Woman" column. When Shaunti and I have dinner together this weekend -- yes, Virginia, we do like each other! -- we'll be sure to toast our column, our readers and the value of respectful dialogue.
Andrea (ASarvad@gmail.com) is a writer and educator specializing in counseling, and a married mother of three. Shaunti (scfeldhahn@yahoo.com) is a conservative Christian author and speaker, and married mother of two children.
