U.S. press: bright new dawn

With newspaper circulation and advertising revenue in free fall, newsrooms are being depopulated. Printed newspapers are steadily shrinking in both physical size and content. Some are disappearing entirely down the rabbit holes of their websites and more are likely to follow. The big corporate chains that had owned most American newspapers are breaking up. Businessmen who bought individual newspapers in distress are having great difficulty keeping them afloat.

Audiences for most network and local television news broadcasts are declining even faster than newspaper readership. In the ensuing ratings panic, the displacement of serious news coverage by crime, disasters, talk-show argument and other infotainment is accelerating. Even audiences and advertising revenue for news media websites are levelling off after hopeful years of dramatic increases as many web surfers satisfy themselves with headlines and gossip on portals and social networks where news is incidental.

Yet what may look like the darkest hour for American news media in a long time could still precede the dawn of a brighter new day. More Americans than ever before consume news produced by mainstream news organisations – on news media websites, in aggregations of news from a variety of news organisations on web portals, and through bloggers’ links to individual news stories. The news media are making more news accessible in more formats, including their own blogs, podcasts and videos, and on an increasing number of websites and hand-held devices. And news consumers are directly interacting more and more with the media on the web through chats and contributed content, increasing their interest and involvement in news coverage.

Studies have shown a high engagement of American voters with the news media during the historic 2008 presidential election candidature campaigns, which demonstrated the need for reliable news coverage to counter rumours and smears that spread rapidly elsewhere on the internet. Audiences also have increased for journalism that holds accountable those with power in American society – accountability journalism of the kind that shut down the CIA’s secret prisons around the world and that swiftly produced reforms in the way wounded American veterans of the Iraq war are treated at Walter Reed hospital in Washington.

The internet has helped increase the audience for the mainstream American news media. But its fragmentation of news and advertising also has contributed to a rapid overall decline in advertising revenue for the news media, turning upside down an economic model that had made American newspapers, broadcast networks and local television stations so profitable for decades. This, in turn, is undermining the capability of American news media to produce expensive accountability journalism. Newsrooms like those of The Washington Post or The New York Times still have ample resources for this kind of journalism, even after significant cutbacks in staff. But it is becoming increasingly difficult for most American newsrooms, where the cuts have been much deeper.

The internet offers new, cheaper ways to produce and present accountability journalism. It makes it possible for citizens to contribute to the research through so-called “crowd sourcing”. And it can give accountability journalism much greater impact, as happened in dramatic fashion with the Post’sWalter Reed stories (the paper’s Pulitzer Prizewinning exposé of mistreatment of veterans also resulted in resignations, including those of Walter Reed’s commanding general, George W Weightman, and Secretary of the Army, Francis J Harvey).

As mainstream media newsrooms shrink, universities and philanthropists are funding non-profit accountability-journalism projects. One of the newest and largest is ProPublica, operating out of New York with a substantial donated budget covering several years, a large staff of investigative reporters and editors hired mostly from newspapers, and a mandate to provide free accountability journalism to newspapers and broadcast outlets, as well as its own website.

Public television and radio are increasing their accountability journalism through targeted donations and partnerships with the new nonprofits. Some bloggers are experimenting with crowd-sourced investigative reporting on the internet. And there is debate about whether large philanthropic foundations could become, or contribute to, non-profit owners of newspapers.

The future of newspaper newsrooms is especially important to the future of accountability journalism in the United States because they still produce the most original reporting, compared with stand-alone websites, local television stations or even the big broadcast and cable networks. But they also must cope with high fixed costs of production and distribution of printed newspapers. How they restructure their economic models, take better advantage of the internet and define their public service missions in a time of enormous stress will determine the future of the accountability journalism that is so important in a representative democracy.

Leonard Downie Jr

Billboard jungle

A disclaimer: as Ken Livingstone’s director of media, I was in the front line of what seemed like a bloody battlefield (but I do not believe it was “the Standard wot won it”, just as I did not believe it was “The Sun wot won it” in the general election of 1992). I guess given the famous maxim that war is a continuation of politics under another name, it’s not surprising that election campaigns use the same language — battlegrounds, strategies, tactics and sorties into enemy territory, with the media having a flank of its own in the battle plans. However, with some reflection to allow the sound and fury to die down, I would contend that this mayoral election — with a major trophy for whomever and whichever party claimed the prize — was different enough from other political contests to give, at the very least, journalists and political analysts pause for thought.

To begin with, London votes for a directly-elected Mayor with the biggest personal mandate in European politics. It’s a straightforward choice, and having London’s only paid-for newspaper so overtly backing one candidate, as opposed to a political party, gives new meaning to the expression “power without responsibility”.

With a barrage of negative stories arising from leaked emails that appeared to confirm grant-giving was influenced by favouritism, which in turn led to allegations of cronyism, we were operating against a backdrop of hostile stories over a sustained period. Of course journalists should scrutinise the powerful, but there has to be balance, and most fair-minded people would agree that the Standard’s scrutiny was one-sided.

But I am not an apologist for anyone. An iron rule of politics is that when someone is in the eye of the media storm — on this occasion, Lee Jasper, Livingstone’s equalities adviser — resignation must be swift. Our reasoning, that resignation would look like an admission of guilt, was a mistake. There was an inevitability about the eventual resignation and for Jasper not to go quickly was wrong. The mayor should not have had to invest so much political capital at a crucial time in a doomed attempt to hang on to someone who was ultimately a figure of secondary importance.

An inability for the Livingstone campaign to get back on to the front foot was the consequence of this. Even though most of the national media did not follow up the Jasper stories, when it came to the election it became part of the narrative, with “new readers start here”.

When the campaign proper got under way, it was further weakened by a blitz of negative Standard stories, wild and wacky stories that, bizarrely, became front-page leads. One such — “Ken adviser is linked to terror group” (April 21) alleged a Transport for London (Tfl) board member belonged to a proscribed group. Deep in the dense text of Sikh political history, there was the revealing paragraph: “There is no suggestion that Dabinderjiit Singh [the Tfl board member] has been personally involved in facilitating or carrying out an act of terrorism, or in ISYF activity since the group was banned.” No matter that Mr Singh was a senior civil servant who had been awarded the OBE. The frontpage treatment meant the banner headline was replicated on the Standard billboards used by newsagents and street vendors around the city.

Or how about this? Reporting on the role of the Muslim community in the election: “Suicide bomber backer runs Ken campaign” (April 16, with the paper’s website referring to “Ken’s campaign”, which is very different indeed). No matter that the person referred to, Dr Azzam Tamimi, neither founded nor was leading Muslims 4 Ken. No matter that Dr Tamimi is the same person who pleaded for the return of the hostage Norman Kember. No matter that his role in fighting extremism in the UK was commended by highranking figures among the security forces, and that even The Sun has praised his stand in the immediate aftermath of the London bombings in 2005.

And for the hat trick: “Ken talks to ‘front’ for banned Tamil Tigers” (April 22, 2008). The meeting referred to was actually organised by MEP Robert Evans, an expert on Sri Lanka, who had simply called for Tamil-controlled territories to be included in the presidential vote in Sri Lanka and disagreed with those urging a boycott.

And here is what I believe made this campaign unique. For months Londoners had been regaled with first-edition, front-page banner headlines such as “Ken’s aide and lost millions”. These were then plastered on publicity billboards that appeared at the entrances of most tube stations and all the major ones, and outside newsagents throughout the city. And there they stayed for the entire day, or, if such a story led the paper on a Friday, for the whole weekend. As the majority of Londoners don’t buy the Standard, and many of those who do so then skip-read the stories, these billboard broadsides caused, I would argue, incalculable damage. A paper with a monopolistic advantage can run a political campaign, no matter how irresponsible, without fear of contradiction on the streets.

Can something be done to prevent it happening again? Should anything be done? Perhaps it was the billboards wot won it, but if so surely it is an issue for public concern? Maybe Ken will bounce back in some role or other, maybe not. But perhaps the Evening Standard, with sales adrift and profits reputedly non-existent, should cut its losses and go into political marketing, forgetting journalism and turning out billboards instead.

Joy Johnson