Newspaper woes seen locally

guest commentary by Jack Moseley

Is the sickness and death of newspapers across the country having an impact in Fort Smith?

The answer is an undeniable yes.

News pages have shrunk. News staffs have been reduced. Readers are getting less local reporting than in happier days for the product that once boasted it was the only manufactured item that is totally redesigned every day and delivered to your home for less than it cost to make. Advertising revenues, of course, made that possible. Now, ad content also has declined. Daily readership has dropped.

No, Fort Smith is not threatened with the loss of its daily printed voice like major cities from San Francisco to Miami. However, the troubling aftershocks rippling out from the earthquake of technology, recession and changing lifestyles produced by the Internet have not bypassed western Arkansas.

“We’re still profitable, and we’re going to be here for another hundred-plus years,” Southwest Times Record publisher Gene Kincy told me recently. “Compared to other newspapers, we have had a small drop in revenue, but not nearly as much as others. Our circulation has stabilized. Some of our losses there have been deliberate, because we eliminated some highly expensive delivery routes.”

The 150-year-old Rocky Mountain News shut down the other day in Denver. Big-city papers from Chicago to Seattle are suffering the consequences of bankruptcy filings and reorganizations that will leave them either smaller and weaker or as extinct as dinosaurs.

Owners of huge media groups have put some of their once most prized publications up for sale, but nobody has stepped up to purchase them and continue their one-proud traditions. To say buyers are spooked would be an understatement.

Technology certainly deserves a large share of the responsibility for what has been happening to newspapers in general, but not the full blame.

Like the railroads of the 1950s that felt they were an institution unto themselves instead of part of the larger transportation industry, newspapers waited until it was almost too late to accept the reality they are only a part of the broader and rapidly changing communications industry. When was the last time you rode a passenger train? Those vehicles simply do not exist anymore for most Americans.

I sincerely hope that will not be the fate of all newspapers.
For too long, newspapers in general refused to accept — much less acknowledge — what was going on all around them in communications. That was bad enough, but something else was happening.

In their arrogance and independence, papers somehow got separated from the common man, who was their bread and butter. In cities as small as Shreveport, a little guy with a gripe about city hall or some politician had to go through a guard to even be allowed in to talk to a reporter. New rules, policies and procedures further separated the average reader from his or her hometown newspaper. In short, newspapers got more and more like the government people distrusted and questioned. Bureaucracy had entrenched itself.

In writing letters to local editors, people were no longer allowed to withhold their names from publication, even if their words contained no malice or attack on a fellow citizen.
Newspapers more and more covered only the routine events – the police blotter, the city council, the sensational and titillating courtroom dramas. True investigative reporting that brought real, positive and lasting changes to the lives of readers grew more timid and less effective at best, non-existent at worst.

The institution that once challenged and questioned became more acquiescent to the status quo and the establishment. Some publications even dropped the idea of each story having two sides, even if one side was the wrong side. What’s wrong with telling both and letting the reader decide who to believe? But no, objectivity became blurred and distorted. Besides, some powerful owners of newspaper did not want to anger or offend their friends in high places.

As newspaper voices grow fainter, the power of the blogger and the petition circulator and paperless publications to enlist public support for issues, individuals and causes grows louder.

Just as many people — especially young adults — no longer feel any need to have a land line telephone, growing numbers have grown up without reading a newspaper and feel they can get all the news and advertising information they want elsewhere.

The same problems that confront newspapers also face television. Cable networks have fragmented audiences. News must compete with entertainment 24 hours a day. Major networks and their local affiliates are losing audience; that means less revenue. Radio is really fragmented by musical tastes, political agendas and philosophies, sports interests, religious persuasions, you name it.

In short, there simply is no longer a dominant medium. Communications continues to explode in a thousand different directions, fragmenting audiences while constantly expanding the total information audience.

This is both positive and negative. When those fragmented audiences unite, they pose a fearful threat to the status quo and the more established institutions of society. Just ask the guy living in the White House today. At the same time, excessive, leaderless fragmentation poses a grand temptation for governments to ignore the will of the masses, and that is both sad and dangerous to people, cities, counties, states and nations.

With every good comes the opportunity for evil to creep in. Change is always like that.

Life, luck and -30-