On the Death of Newspapers

“Stop the presses!”  That used to be the call of the 1930’s vintage reporter as he’d run into headquarters with the big, breaking news story.  When portrayed in the movies, it was exciting, thrilling, suspenseful, and dramatic.

Now we’re hearing it again and again.  But this time, it emotes a different feeling.  “Stop the presses” means “We’re shutting down forever.  We’re out of business.”  It’s a sad time.  America was built on the First Amendment Right of a free press. Newspapers were the heart and soul of that freedom.

Some of the most iconic images in American history are of past newspaper headlines.  Who doesn’t remember seeing President Harry Truman triumphantly displaying a copy of The Chicago Daily Tribune with a headline of “Dewey Defeats Truman”?  How about the New York Times headline that read, “Men Walk on the Moon”.  Ever see “War! Oahu Bombed by Japanese Planes”?  More recently it was “U.S. Attacked.  Hijacked Jets Destroy Twin Towers.”

Newspapers were America.  They brought news of who won the World Series, who Mohamed Ali knocked out, and what kind of trouble Beetle Bailey was in with Sarge this week.  We went to the classifieds to find work, buy a car, sell a piano.  Our dreams were colored with the images we saw in the travel section.  The stock market was tracked in the newspaper.  It was found in the library, the barbershop, the pub, the doctor’s waiting room, at the bus stop, in the cafeteria.  It was everywhere.  Now it’s dying a painful death.

When I was a kid in Detroit, I earned money (a fairly outdated concept for most of today’s kids) by delivering the Detroit Times to roughly sixty homes every day.  It was my first true business.  Every once in a while, I’ll still take a newspaper and fold it the way old newsboys did so they could stuff it in their canvas bag and throw it on the porch with precision accuracy as they peddled their bikes down the streets of the big city.  When I was twelve, Detroit had three major daily papers, The News, The Times and The Free Press (which wasn’t free).  Today, Detroit, one of the nation’s biggest cities has no daily newspaper.

The Rocky Mountain News, a cultural and media icon in Denver for roughly 150 years, stopped print publication recently.  The Seattle Post-Intelligencer is history.  Others are in jeopardy, big names like The Philadelphia Daily News, The Miami Herald, The Boston Globe, The San Francisco Chronicle and The Chicago Sun-Times.  We’re watching as the face of American history changes before our eyes.

Why the demise of the printed newspaper?  A big part of the answer is the internet.  Readers can now take their pick of news sources without getting all that black ink on their finger tips.  A down economy also means fewer advertising dollars.  But there’s more to the story.

Newspapers have always had their own slant on the news.  But competition usually kept them pretty honest when reporting the news.  They earnestly tried to keep their bias to the editorial pages.  When The News, The Times and The Free Press presented a story, they couldn’t get away with distorting or omitting any of the facts.  They had to play it straight.

In recent years, competition has all but disappeared.  Most markets ended up with one major paper.  No checks and balances.  No competition driving them toward quality reporting.  They were always steeped in awards and honors because they colluded with other publishers in their state to divvy up the pie in the trade organization.  Investigative reporting became more and more of a lost art.  The distinction between the editorial or opinion page and the front page became one in name only.  The selection of news, the manner in which it was presented, its flavor and odor took on an onerously non-objective appearance.

No longer was it necessary to present both sides of the day’s news.  Stories that didn’t further the self interest of the publisher weren’t covered.  It became impossible to read the Arizona Republic or the San Diego Union Tribune without clearly seeing their editorial biases.  They’ve lost their way.  This isn’t like the media circus of television news where you can only watch one act at a time.  The print media has historically presented the whole picture.

Even the 54 Candles column felt the effects of the trend toward self interest.  Babs and I had been published in one newspaper for eight years.  During the last presidential campaign, we took a stand not in accordance with the “proper” views as defined by our publisher.  Many letters to the editor had complained about the paper’s one-sided presentation of news and comment, but we served as proof the paper was at least giving some small voice to its opponents.  It actually gave the paper the appearance of being fair and objective by offering differing viewpoints.  Then one day, after some mildly animated remarks concerning the qualifications of the two candidates running for President, we were unceremoniously cut from the paper.  We weren’t given a call, a letter, or an email of explanation.  The publisher simply wanted to tailor the “news” to suit his needs.  Well, it was his paper; he has every right to drive it further downhill toward the dumpster of the dying newspaper business.

This is the story of many publications.  Nikki Buchanan, an outstanding food critic with Phoenix Magazine was “disappeared” when she wouldn’t compromise her standards and cavort with the advertisers when her publisher demanded it.  I know of numerous other members of the media that have been made invisible by a combination of frantic cost cutting and editorial manipulation.  The print media is in a downward spiral that is in large part of its own making.

There was a day when newspapers drew advertising revenues by being the best at finding and reporting the news.  For all but a few of the remaining rags, that is no longer true.  When newspapers charge the families of dead people to run their obituaries, when newspapers present only the news they want you to know and then color it to suit their own needs, then they’ve ceased to serve the public interest.  There’s no reason a printed newspaper can’t have its opinion.  There’s no reason it shouldn’t be allowed and encouraged to present its opinion.  But when its starts picking and choosing only those stories and opinions that line up with its own, it ceases to be a newspaper.  It’s a vile, petty instrument of propaganda that’s destined to die.

And what a coincidence; that seems to be what’s happening to newspapers in America.  R.I.P.