See this article in the current issue of the Columbia Journalism Review about what happened to the Providence Journal in Rhode Island, a once proud daily newspaper, which, according to this account, now has a lot of problems. A few items. First, the author makes much of the importance of "the leader in the newsroom" and a newspaper's "organizational culture." More on this later. Second, the author makes much of the problems created when the ProJo was bought out by a chain, the Belo corporation. People "applauded" and were "optimistic" about the buy-out because the Belo corporation "was not a chain in the Gannett mold." The Argus Leader, FYI, was bought by Gannett in the early 1980s. Third, the author, in the final reckoning, much prefered the days when the ProJo was owned by a local Rhode Island family. The Argus Leader, FYI, used to be owned locally until the 1970s I believe (more on that later). Finally, note how dramatically the newspaper's reporting staff declined in recent years, especially after the acquisition:
In 1995, however, another series of ominous changes began. Over the next two years, the Evening Bulletin was killed, along with the Sunday magazine, the showcase for the personal essays and developed stories and photographs of our most talented staff. The science beat was eliminated and religion was cut to half a beat. A buyout sent some of the paper’s best writers out the door. The editors required several city-staff veterans to write for the local editions, and the paper instituted a reporter-intern program, hiring inexperienced reporters to man the state staff.The staff became younger and cheaper. Though the paper denied it for a time, for anyone inclined to read the tea leaves, it was obvious we were being readied for sale.
In 1997 the Providence Journal Company was sold for $1.5 billion to the Belo corporation, the Dallas-based media company. Thirteen Journal executives, through stock options and special retirement plans that were cashed out after the sale, reaped more than $24 million.
When Robert Decherd, the ceo of Belo, visited the newsroom, he told us that Belo had great respect for the journalistic tradition in Providence and planned to build on the ProJo’s greatness, not deplete it. We applauded. And we had some cause to be optimistic. Belo was not a chain in the Gannett mold — the company owned just a handful of substantive television stations and newspapers, including the highly regarded Dallas Morning News.
But over the next few years, many reporters who left the city staff for other papers were not replaced. The Washington bureau staff was reduced from three reporters to two. The statehouse bureau, which once had as many as five reporters, was cut to three. Since 1996, the paper has never had more than a single daily courts reporter; in previous years two or three reporters were on the beat. With a depleted staff, the long-term projects that had so distinguished the newspaper became far less frequent. In the halcyon days, reporters had traveled across New England, the country, the globe. In the new order, getting approval to travel thirty miles could prove a chore.
In 1999 the paper’s labor contract with 500 employees, including the diminished reporting staff, expired, and the screws began to turn: hiring freezes, closure of the Newport bureau, and rapidly deteriorating management-union relations drove out many reporters and editors, some through buyouts, others just to escape.
I'm going to have more to say about the declining number of reporters in South Dakota in recent decades in coming weeks. But here's the key problem. When the number of reporters declines dramatically--which is a widely-discussed problem in the literature on the economics of newspapers, especially with regard to Gannett (more on that soon)--that means that the few survivors have enormous political power, especially in a state like South Dakota, where the Argus Leader dominates political coverage. The other problem with thinning staffs is that it is hard for reporters to scrutinize what Senator Daschle is really doing in Washington DC and the relentless stream of agitprop from his $15 million campaign, much of which is dedicated to manipulating the press. Then there's the fact that the leadership of the Argus Leader has little interest in scrutinizing Daschle. This entire mix of factors makes for an impoverished and slanted universe of political reporting.
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