Newspapers Are Too Essential to Fail

During last week's Senate hearing on the "Future of Journalism," Sen. John Kerry, D-Mass., observed that the newspaper industry appears to be an "endangered species."

A chorus of senators rightfully expressed concern that newspapers' role as watchdogs and cornerstones of an informed democracy is jeopardized by the wrenching recession that has toppled many economic pillars.

But the news industry doesn't face a crisis of journalism. It is a crisis of advertising that affects all commercial media — including local television, magazines, radio and cable news. Like newspapers, other media companies have been enforcing layoffs, unpaid furloughs and pay cuts to reduce expenses as revenue shrinks as advertisers pull back.

The closings of the Seattle Post-Intelligencer and Denver's Rocky Mountain News stunned those within the media field and created national headlines forecasting the demise of daily newspapers. But those closings prolong a long, regretful decline of a second newspapers in big markets. The Seattle Times and Denver Post survive.

Last week, in another two-newspaper city, The New York Times Co. threatened to shut down the venerable but money-losing Boston Globe if its unions did not agree to major concessions. They did, and the presses of the newspaper founded in 1872 will keep humming.

The news media are essential. But cracking the petrified credit markets and aiding the many jobless Americans should be a higher priority for Congress.

Newspapers will begin to heal when the nation's economy rises from its knees and people spend money again. Business conditions are bleak now, but eventually Americans will buy more cars, houses, vacation packages and restaurant meals.

Still, the news business is deeply challenged with no shortcuts in sight.

The Internet has changed every dynamic and diminished the dominance of daily newspapers, although they still command the largest audience and largest news-gathering teams.

The rubric "newspaper" masks the breadth of online content that refreshes around the clock and provides in-depth local/regional news unlike any other medium. Online readership is growing in most newspaper markets.

But newspaper companies must find ways to pay for that news coverage in a digital world where information is free and a click away. News monopolies have vanished.

The changes wrought by technology have magnified by the flagging economy. Newspapers already were hobbled by huge drops in key classified advertising categories of employment, real estate and automobiles, some of which moved to online competitors or disappeared as companies used their websites to recruit talent or transact business directly.

The Christian Science Monitor became an online-only "newspaper." Tribune Co., owner of the Chicago Tribune and Los Angeles Times, operates in bankruptcy court. The San Francisco Chronicle is losing millions of dollars and threatened to close during labor negotiations. The struggles are painfully real.

Media companies are looking for solutions. Among those suggested or being tried are charging small fees to read news online, delivering content to mobile devices and reducing the number of days of publication. New large-format readers will make electronic versions of newspapers, books and magazines easier to read. Companies are looking into sharing content and transforming newspapers into non-profit foundations.

If the federal government wants to help, it can loosen outdated, pre-Internet (1975) regulations that limit content sharing and cross ownership of a daily newspaper and broadcast station in the same market. But that won't solve the fundamental revenue problem.

We appreciate and share the Senate's belief that news journalism is too important to fail. But newspapers — or should we say news organizations — should shun the idea of federal bailout dollars. Handouts aren't good for watchdogs.

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