Editor's view: As we get ready to move, weeklies are still on the go By David Emanuel
Like it or not, newspapers are in trouble.
If you recall, last week I touched upon how there were fears out there that the Blade-News was moving out of the city, or even closing its doors for good.
That rumor, again, is unfounded.
We are moving to a new location this summer, just a mile up the road, in the brick building known as the Whitehall Professional Building, directly across from Bowie Plaza.
Our office is a bit smaller, but we will be saving money (believe me, the rent on the building where we are now is beyond exorbitant. And the conditions? Well, that might be a topic for another column and story soon.) and, like newspapers across the country, are cutting costs across the board.
Of course, honesty is the best policy (there's yet another cliche. My apologies. And look at that, another parenthetical comment which drives me crazy), and I must level with you all that this is a tough time for newspapers, and I want to touch upon that very topic.
But let's start with some good, positive news.
The papers that are in the best shape, the ones that will likely "survive" the continuing onslaught of the Internet and instantaneous news, are the ones that are indeed the community newspapers.
We've been on your doorstep for 35 years, and I can practically guarantee at least another two or three months.
Just kidding, readers. Relax. We're in a lot better shape than many other regional newspapers.
And I wouldn't want to be anywhere else at this point in my career than with such a respected and "true" community newspaper.
As I have told students in career days throughout the years, newspapers will always be "where it's at," especially at the local level, because you're never going to see, for example, Kenilworth Fun Day or Samuel Ogle Middle School honor rolls on CNN.
And that's just one of many simple, yet true, examples of what will make weeklies flourish for some time to come.
Here's another: Parents love to clip articles of their kids, and residents love to clip out articles of the people they know, and the people we write about love to clip out the articles we've written about them.
I ask the kids: Can you "clip out" the 11 o'clock news?
Sure, television is "live," and instantaneous, and that's the one advantage that medium will always have over the print media.
But reading. Yes, the pure pleasure of reading, is lost on TV, and certainly, the Internet, as we become a generation of eye-bleeding Google searchers and myspace participants.
There will always be a place for sitting down with your morning coffee and reading a paper. You're not going to sip your java while searching online for the day's happenings, are you?
Yet, the following tidbits might just blow the steam right off of your espresso.
Several articles in the recent edition of American Journalism Review focused on the decline in newspaper revenue.
In fact, right on the cover were these words: "Maybe It IS Time to Panic."
So I read on, hoping I'd still be working next week.
Here's what John Morton, a former newspaper reporter and president of a consulting firm that analyzes newspapers and other media properties wrote:
"Newspapers are cutting back. Newsroom layoffs are widespread. News space has shrunk as newspapers consolidate sections and eliminate customary features. Circulation, on the wane since the late 1980s, is being deliberately reduced to eliminate unprofitable delivery in areas from core markets.
"True, a lot of the stuff that no longer appears in print can now be found on newspaper Web sites for those with the ability and patience to look for it, using time that could be spent actually reading a newspaper."
Here, here, I say!
And yes, retail and national advertising revenue as well as classified are down in recent years in pretty much all print media, one of the main reasons for this being the fact that much advertising revenue is generated from automobiles, real estate and job recruitment, which, as Morton states, "are themselves in a tailspin."
And just like television was all the rage back in the 1950s when it premiered, the Internet may still be the "new thing," but there will always be a place for newspapers, and especially a weekly like the one you are holding in your hands right now and actually reading.
As Jim Kevlin, a veteran editor writes, also in the same issue of AJR, "Weekly newspapers are the only growing niche in print journalism."
And, he said, "things are going to turn out all right."
I believe him.
He goes on to say that the joy of weekly newspapering comes from the fact that "this is pure journalism."
"You can cover what you want the way you think it should be covered. You can free yourself from the corrosive union that's developed between journalism and marketing - two warring animals - in the past quarter-century. To the degree you can tolerate the consequences, you can speak truth to power."
And, as Carl Stepp writes, (yes, in that same edition of AJR), "News remains, as always, fresh information of public value."
"Journalism remains today, as it always has been, a blend of reliable information, entertainment, discussion and connection. All that is required to prosper, as always, is to supply the audience with some of the above ingredients more attractively than the competition.
And with that, I simply smile
