Newspapers will survive by doing what they do best

Alex Alben
The Seattle Times (1/24/0

“It takes a licking but keeps on ticking,” the famous commercial catchphrase that extolled the durability of Timex wristwatches, could also describe America’s newspaper industry.

The phrase itself was coined by my father, Russ Alben, who went on to become the creative director of the Ogilvy & Mather advertising agency. In four decades in the business, he witnessed the transition from single-sponsor radio and TV programs to multiple forms of media supported by many different kinds of advertisements.

We are witnessing an accelerated transition of media formats today, driven by a revolution in advertising that has taken root on the Internet and is now spilling over into traditional media.

Beginning in the 1940s, prominent corporations looked to the new medium of broadcast television to transmit their marketing messages to the masses. Over time, we witnessed the change in content from one-sponsor programs — Milton Berle’s early “Texaco Star Theater,” the “Colgate Theater” on NBC and a slew of other shows — to programs supported by 30-second TV spots. As advertising dollars flowed to the networks, they were able to invest in national programming and build the foundation for television production.

The Writers Guild of America strike and the growing popularity of Internet video now threaten the television industry — at a time when advertisers are looking for new ways to reachjaded viewers and there’s increasing scrutiny over whether TV spots are effective or even being viewed at all in the era of TiVo and DVRs.

What’s really happening beneath the surface here is a revolution in advertising along two dimensions: Ads can be targeted with precision to Web users, whereas print media are firing a shotgun over a broad audience; response to cyber ads can be measured and reported to the advertiser, while this is nearly impossible in the physical world unless a reader clips a coupon or responds to a dedicated phone line.

As a result of this twin-bladed revolution, content itself will change to better fit the new advertising formats. New Web ventures are already producing short films and media clips that are maximized for the delivery of Internet ads. For the first time, we have direct competition for video advertising dollars among new media, television and print journals that now have the ability to show video ads on their Web sites.

In 1996, at a Columbia University forum on “the future of news,” Starwave Corporation CEO Mike Slade told an audience of newspaper moguls that their business model was in danger. The fragility of their business, according to Slade, stemmed from the following factors:

• Well over half of the content in a given daily edition is commodity content, such as feeds from The Associated Press and syndicated comics and columns;

• The other half is really the product of (give or take) 50 to 100 people with journalism degrees;

• A relatively small percentage of a given metro area subscribes to a daily paper;

• Newspapers rely on classified ads, which would one day be supplanted by free online classified ads — this was five years before the appearance of Craigslist.

Newspapers were facing a new breed of competitor in those days — Web publishers who had the startup cost of reaching their first online reader, but then minimal costs of reaching millions of readers. As Yahoo!, AOL and others built huge audiences, this model prevailed.

But this isn’t another column about the death of print journalism. Smart newspapers will figure out how to extend their brands and readership into the online world. Recently, a poll showed that 80 percent of readers of a newspaper’s print edition also visit that paper’s Web site. This makes sense, given people’s desire to access news from multiple places during the day and the growing realization that news gets updated frequently during a given 24-hour news cycle.

People are still hungry for news. The strength of newspapers is that they are trusted sources of information and that they cover local events in a way that a national news organization can’t. In the next decade, we will continue to see local dailies shrink their national and international coverage, while they concentrate on what they do best — covering local beats of City Hall, crime and culture.

No one can predict the precise course of change, but we can pay careful attention to salient trends as content production shifts to meet the needs of a new generation of viewers and advertisers. And, as Mike Slade cautioned more than a decade ago, in a changing world, it makes sense to build a defensible business model.

Alex Alben, a high-tech executive based in Seattle, writes regularly on technology, media and politics for The Seattle Times. He is a former vice president and general counsel of Starwave Corporation. E-mail him at: alexalben99@yahoo.com

Tony Blair has a moral basis for policies says Wash. Post

In a December 23, 2007 article Washington Post article on the Roman Catholic conversion of former British Prime Minister Tony Blair, journalist Kevin Sullivan took pains to point out that Blair was “far more open that his predecessors about portraying his decisions, particularly in foreign policy, in moral terms.”  To suggest that the British PMs of the 20th century did not make public moral justifications for their foreign policy is ridiculous. Whether or not one thinks a particular foreign policy coheres with ones own moral universe is beside the point. Every PM has rooted his/her foreign policy in public justifications. The fact of the matter is that all policy, foreign or domestic, is publicly justified in a democracy on moral grounds. Now I disagreed with most of what Blair did. But he, like all men, acted out of a presuppositional moral framework. This article points out that the religious education of American journalists must continue unabated to diminish such foolish reporting.

A comment about the movie “The Golden Compass”

Care for some religion with that flick?

 December 23, 2007

Seattle Times

Al Smith

I found the controversial film “The Golden Compass” long and complicated. Despite good acting and wonderful special effects, the story is ultimately lifeless. Much of the movie takes place in the polar north, and the iciness of the setting is a perfect metaphor for the chilly, sterile spirit at the heart of the story. Anyone expecting a playful children’s fantasy would do well to look elsewhere.The movie takes place in a parallel world similar to Earth, but dominated by a sinister quasi-religious authority known as the Magisterium. This powerful elite seeks to “protect” people — for their own good — by shielding them from scientific knowledge. More specifically, the Magisterium abducts young children and literally kills their souls, thereby extinguishing the spirit of free thought and inquiry.The aggressively anti-religious, anti-Christian undercurrent in the movie is unmistakable and at times undisguised. When a warrior Ice Bear — one of the heroes of the story — breaks into the local Magisterium headquarters to take back the armor stolen from him, the exterior walls of the evil building are covered with Eastern Christian icons. And for Catholics in our own world, of course, “Magisterium” refers to the teaching authority of the Church — hardly a literary oincidence.Also, in contrast to the Catholic belief in heaven is author Philip Pullman’s afterlife that consists of bodies breaking into particles and being recycled into the material world.Strangest of all — and in striking contrast to the Narnia stories — is the absence of joy or any real laughter in the movie. The talented child actress in the leading role is hobbled by a character that is unpleasant, rebellious, belligerent and humorless.Obviously, parents are the primary teachers of their children. They need to use their own best judgment about whether such a film is suitable for their families.

(Case: I don’t know Al Smith but I like his style of writing and the content of his thought.) 

Russ Pulliam:A Voice from the Heartland

Next week (12/17/07) the institute will publish and distribute a collection of articles by the Indianapolis Star columnist, Russ Pulliam. I want to alert blog readers that this WJI monograph is free for the asking. Just go to our web page and click on “monograph.”  This is the first collection of articles we have published and it is fitting that it contains some of the work of long-time institute teacher and friend, Russell Pulliam.

I met Russ Pulliam about ten years ago when I pleaded with him to teach a component for a course at the World Journalism Institute. He agreed and has since become a mainstay in our instruction. But he is much more than one of our key instructors, although that would be quite sufficiently important in the enterprise of placing competent journalists who are Christian in the mainstream newsrooms of America.

Russ is one of those legacy journalists who was born with ink in his royal veins. Grandpa Pulliam was the powerful Eugene Pulliam who founded the Pulliam newspaper empire which stretched from Indiana to Arizona and who was a political kingmaker to boot. Dad Pulliam ran the Indianapolis Star like a benevolent emperor who treated his people like family. You can’t Google Butler University, Illinois State University, Franklin College, Gannett Company, Society for Professional Journalists, Indiana University, ad infinitum without running into the Pulliam name. On his own, Russ brings New York City Associated Press experience and Indianapolis Star editorial service to the table. He is also a protégé of the great New York Timesman, John McCandlish Phillips. It is worth noting that the distinguished World magazine board on which he sits as a rather new member asked him to serve as its chairman. Perhaps most importantly, he has added to the Pulliam heritage by supplying the journalism world with several children who have earned their reporting chops.

All of this is nifty stuff to note. But the real measure of Russ Pulliam is that he is one of the wise men in the movement to encourage aspiring Christian journalists to enter and earn their places in the newsrooms of America. He is constantly seeking to integrate his Christian faith with his noble calling as a journalist.

His style is self-effacing, retiring and even humble. But one ought not to be lulled into thinking that he is a pushover. He brings a fire-in-the-belly approach to journalism and a no nonsense attitude about reporting accurately, fairly and compellingly.

On hundreds of campuses and in newsrooms around the country the name of Russ Pulliam opens doors, offers encouragement and facilitates endeavors that are beneficial to journalists young and old. He is a gifted and hardworking mentor for young journalists from coast to coast. He seems to drop everything, except family, to encourage young journalists to improve their skills. Indeed, this first collection of his writings is born out of such a desire.

He is the first person I talk to when I contemplate a change in the WJI program. He is the first person I consult when I think about a major personnel change. Blessed is the journalist who comes under the personal and watchful eye of Russell Pulliam. I consider myself to be so blessed.

Christian Journalists and the Tall Grass

Last weekend (12/ Kathy and I went to a Christmas party at a friend’s apartment here in New York. The party was for Christian journalists and media types here in the Big Apple. During the evening, I was in a conversation with a friend at the party and he said something to the effect that isn’t it true that WJI is known to have Republican Party leanings? The comment was innocent and the context was evangelical engagement in cultural affairs. (We were talking about the National Association of Evangelicals and its “Call to Civic Responsibility,” which we agreed was a fine statement of core values.) My friend’s comment about WJI and the Republican Party was made with the implication that the institute’s presumed conservative views were a negative factor in Christian journalism circles and that being associated with WJI entailed baggage that many Christian journalists didn’t want to carry.

As I thought about our conversation and that particular sentiment expressed, I thought it was misled since the institute has no political litmus test for speakers, teachers or students. Yes, we do have a corporate connection to World magazine (a conservative magazine of news and opinion), and we do have a rather forthright statement of faith, and I have conservative political convictions. However, the institute is not a worldview academy in the strict sense nor is it a school of opinion or advocacy journalism. Rather, we attempt to teach basic journalism practices in the pursuit of  investigative, accurate, verifiable and fair stories that are suitable and prized in the mainstream, supposedly non-partisan press.

As I thought about our conversation more, I began to think that something needed to be said about the intellectual atmosphere that gives credence to a statement that would mark a purposefully Christian institution like the World Journalism Institute as something to be shunned or at least associated with privately in the Christian journalism community.

Let me explain: The institute has been holding courses since 1999 and we were working on it a year before that. During that time we have had numerous Christian journalists working in the major mainstream media newsrooms decline to teach or even speak to our students, or if they did participate, they wanted their presence to be private - unlisted on our website. The reason always given for this attitude is professional - the risk in being associated with either a Christian journalistic organization or the risk involved in being associated with the World Journalism Institute. I have remarked elsewhere of my early heavy-handed and sharp language concerning the intersection of Christianity and the calling of journalism so I bear some blame for the skittishness of some journalists about WJI. However, those words are years in the past and I have learned a bunch about the culture and practice of American journalism since then. But even if I had not learned anything, the hesitancy of so many journalists who are Christian and who have been placed in commanding newsrooms in the country is hard to appreciate.

I have yet to be told by a Christian journalist in a major market newsroom that they are ashamed to be associated with a particular newsroom because it is staffed by anti-Christian columnists, editors or publishers. Survey after survey shows that major metro and national newsrooms are dominated by a left-leaning, anti-religious bias. The bias may be uncoordinated, but as Aaron Wildavsky (no evangelical!) argued over 20 years ago, the egalitarian, anti-religious bias is pervasive in national media newsrooms. Indeed, at wonderful parties like I attended last weekend, those Christians who labor in such anti-Christian workplaces are extolled, congratulated and embraced - even as they hunker down in the tall grass when it comes to publicly identifying themselves as Christian journalists. I was once told by a well-known journalist that it wasn’t Jesus that ashamed her, but my interpretation of Jesus that ashamed her. That’s fair, but I haven’t seen her name associated with any other purposefully Christian journalistic organization or event for years.

To be fair, some of these Christian journalists at the elite media have been told to stay away from Christian organizations for fear of being labeled “biased.” And I have seen the nasty harassment that can happen to Christian journalists in national media organizations once they are known as believers in Jesus. So the danger is real. I understand that other minority journalists in their newsrooms have not been so shackled in participation in outside events.

I appreciate prudence and professional delicacy and give room for that. However, at a certain point, well-placed Christian journalists have an obligation to publicly proclaim their loyalty to Jesus and be prepared to mentor and encourage younger journalists on their way up the professional and slippery journalistic ladder. At some point, these journalists need to suck it up and trust the sovereignty of a God they privately proclaim to worship.

For years, I have found it ironic that free-thinking journalists who have a profound problem with my evangelical/Calvinist worldview and who call me a “theocrat,” a “Christianist,” a “dominationist,” a “loony from the boonies,” just to name a few, have come to our courses and spoken to our students in a gracious, winsome and provocative manner. If they had a problem with publicly identifying with us as a “WJI speaker,” I haven’t known about it. I have wondered what their colleagues think about their anthropological visit to the evangelical zoo known as the World Journalism Institute.

Our teachers and speakers are the best in the business and our students get a remarkable education and exposure to some of the best reporters and writers in America. Our program is not severely diminished by the refusal of certain Christian journalists to teach or speak. The shame is that both we and those journalists could be better if they came out of the tall grass.