Pay your fair share to get the news
Americans love newspapers when a sports team wins a national championship, an investigative team uncovers hidden chemical stockpiles or a political reporter reveals how the state mistreats kids.
Ask them to pay for that public service, though, and suddenly they have all kinds of excuses for not subscribing. It’s just one of the newspaper business’ many contradictions.
The industry itself was founded on a contradiction. Historically, publishers focused on selling paper more than news. Revenue came from selling advertisements, and the journalism was there to entice readers to look at the ads. Advertisers were our customers; the readers were our product.
That began to change in 2000 when the average American began using a personal computer and the internet. Craigslist, Google, Amazon and other online advertising companies have since captured advertising
dollars. Once upon a time, those billions paid for the journalism that cost you almost nothing.
Since 2012, ad revenues at American newspapers have dropped about 15 percent a year, according to the News Media Alliance. When older customers complain about how thin the paper is compared to yesteryear, it’s because we no longer have 48 pages of classified ads and hundreds of display ads to bulk up the newspaper.
Which brings us to the third contradiction: The newspaper, revenues and print circulation may be thinning, but our main competitor, the internet, has driven our readership to record highs.
The industry must now turn the people who were once our product into paying customers. Loyal subscribers often complain to me about higher subscription prices, but while I sympathize, my paycheck depends on readers carrying a larger portion of what it costs to publish a newspaper.
We have certainly been doing our part to lower our operating costs. But that leads to the fourth contradiction: While there are far fewer newspapers, we face far more competition. Every news organization in the world is only a click away, so we have to provide a better product to survive.
Last month, I took a break from column writing to help my bosses at the Houston Chronicle and the San Antonio Express-News improve our quality while increasing efficiency. My assignment was to unite the newspapers’ political and government reporting teams in Austin and Washington, because two Hearst-owned newspapers competing against one another no longer makes sense.
Business reorganizations are never painless, though. The new business plan made some jobs redundant, and new positions required people with different skills. Every industry lays people off during such transitions, and the news business is no different. We’ve seen the number of American newspaper journalists cut in half since 2000.
By pooling resources and focusing on deeper reporting, though, we have saved money while improving our product. Some observers worried that the Express-News would become a Chronicle outpost. But I can say from my experience that the lead editors of both papers are equals, and both remain committed to producing great newspapers for their cities. If they don’t, we will all be out of business.
Which brings me to the fifth contradiction: Our job requires us to sometimes upset our customers.
One of the first stories I edited in my temporary role was a scoop about Democratic gubernatorial candidate Lupe Valdez failing to pay her property taxes on time. Instead, she loaned her struggling campaign the money. Her staff and supporters said our story was unfair because the taxing authorities had not turned her account over to collections.
One of the last stories I edited was a scoop about the Federal Election Commission sending three warning letters to U.S. Sen. Ted Cruz for accepting donations above the legal limit. The default setting on the candidate’s website enrolls people in an automatic monthly contribution that appears to be causing problems. Cruz’s campaign and supporters called the story unfair because they resolved the overpayments before the FEC took legal action.
Partisan subscribers on both sides of the aisle groused about the stories, yet no one can deny that keeping an eye on campaign finances is a core journalistic mission. We have to report the news without wondering if someone might cancel his or her subscription.
Both newspapers are profitable, by the way, but to stay that way we must balance revenue and spending. In the long run, we believe highquality journalism will generate higher subscription revenue, so we will always strive to do better. Like any other business, we can grow and do more if our customers will pay for our services.
So the next time we raise your subscription rate, or your blood pressure, take a moment to think about how you stay informed, whether it’s about the planned overhaul of Alamo Plaza or the recovery from Hurricane Harvey.
Statistics show that 90 percent of the news you consume on social media originated at a newspaper. Advertisers are no longer paying for us to break news or to keep you informed. It’s time to pay your share.