Times are tough, but don’t worry about newspapers
It’s been a tough few days for those of us who slave away down here at The Province buggy whip, typewriter and floppydisk factory, although we’re all pretty used to them. There have been many financially gloomy days during my time — now in its fourth decade — within the steadily atrophying Southam-Hollinger-Canwest-Postmedia leviathan.
As many readers know, the honchos who run our company announced Tuesday that newsrooms in the four cities where they own two daily newspapers — Vancouver, Calgary, Edmonton and Ottawa — would be merged.
In other words, a single newsroom of journalists formerly employed, say, in Calgary by the Calgary Herald and the Calgary Sun, would now generate content for both papers, in some cases rewritten to the style of each paper or different emphasis.
The move was made to reduce costs in the face of declining revenue that’s afflicted our industry as a result of changing news-consumption habits due to the Internet.
Sadly, 90 people were laid off, which always sucks. The company is offering buyouts to encourage more people to leave in Vancouver and Ottawa and, I suspect, more layoffs are coming.
While all that is dismal enough, including worried thoughts about the future, what’s worse is hearing some people, often other journalists or activists, cheering on our demise, filled with sneering contempt for what they call corporate “mainstream media.” As my Hamburger Hockey League buddy Baron would say, “Bunch of commie, pinko bastards.”
What kind of a person gloats while people are losing their jobs, or cheers on the difficulties of a company that has served Canada and our democracy well for over a century because they don’t believe in private enterprise or the conservative views of our current CEO?
And then there are those — often very comfortable tenured media professors awash in public funds — who endlessly fret about “media monopoly” (unless it’s the CBC) and the alleged negative impact of combined newsrooms — folks like ex-CBC journalist Jeffrey Dvorkin of the University of Toronto Scarborough’s journalism program, who told Canadian Press that merged newsrooms produced “less independent journalism, more stenographic journalism.”
While in an ideal world more journalists are better than less in terms of digging up stories, one large newsroom is far better than two small ones. With united teams, Postmedia newsrooms will be able to tackle a greater number and range of stories each day. The merger is a no-brainer, given our financial problems.
Despite the chin-stroking warnings you hear in certain circles, merging media operations to save costs isn’t new. The Vancouver Sun and The Province combined their financial and printing operation in 1958 and other departments have consolidated in the years since, including our library, circulation, computer support and, more recently, our photo department. We’ve even been sharing editorial content for several years, first with projects and election coverage and more recently on routine stories. And, of course, newspapers and other media have been sharing copy through wire services for decades. No one would suggest that those past initiatives have reduced the quality of journalism.
Our company has unique financial issues linked to servicing our debt, but our larger economic woes are shared by other newspapers and media companies due to the impact of new media. Go look up how many viewers the U.S. network news shows have lost in the past decade if you doubt me.
To end on a cheerier note, don’t pay any attention to people who say that daily newspapers are dying and deserve it because we are allegedly no longer relevant or beholden to corporate or political interests.
Our long-standing focus on and concern for citizens of all walks of life is unassailable, which critics seem to forget, along with the fact that virtually everything people know about corruption, lousy policies or misconduct by government of corporate officials was dug up by a journalist, more often than not some scruffy newspaper reporter with a couple of little kids and a mortgage. If you’re hating on the MSM, you are really hating on those hard-working reporters.
That explains why our total readership (online and in print) in recent years has been higher than ever. We’re more relevant than ever.
Print media isn’t dead. But we need to adjust to our changing times. Critics of those changes have two choices: either buy a subscription or, as Baron would say, “shut the f--- up.”