This homemade medal submitted to the Express-News’ annual Fiesta Medal contest is indicative of the buzz over the myriad changes to our city’s one and only daily. I often get asked about the changes at the Express-News. But nothing – not the layoffs, sections cuts, or loss of veteran journalists and columnists – seems to have sparked as much outrage as the recent reformatting. Cutting one column inch off the paper may have saved printing costs, but it irked a lot of people who have suddenly realized that the paper has been shrinking in all kinds of critical ways for many months.
Print dailies are dying not because readership is down, but because their revenue model, which is based on advertising sales covering the costs of editorial content generation, is no longer working. In recent weeks, major metropolitan areas such as Seattle, Denver and Detroit have either lost a daily completely or seen massive reductions in content and coverage.
Hearst Newspapers, which owns the Express-News, has made drastic cuts to editorial, production and advertising staff in San Antonio, at the Houston Chronicle and other papers around the country.
Many Americans may just now be realizing that their morning paper is sickly, but the move from print to online content is not a new phenomenon. However the medium may be on the cusp of enjoying a new legitimacy and dominancy. One reason is the migration of excellent, influential journalists from print publications to online formats. Whether they were laid off, bought out or simply tired of the endless rounds of newsroom cuts, the gravitas they bring to their new jobs online will only help improve the reputation and accuracy of online journalism.
Another sign of this new-found respect was the recent inclusion of online-only news sites as eligible to submit entries for the 2009 Pulitzer Prize. Though traditional print giants like The New York Times once again dominated the journalism prizes and no online news outlet won a Pulitzer, the inclusion of online pubs is significant.
David Plotz, editor of Slate.com agreed, saying, “It’s an overdue acknowledgement that some of the best journalism in the world and in America is being created not for print publication but for places that live entirely on the Web.”
There are still many who debate however, whether online reporting will ever be able to truly uphold the twin golden rules of traditional print and broadcast journalism – accuracy and fairness. And I think it’s also safe to say that the tactile enjoyment of reading the daily paper accompanied by your morning beverage of choice will continue to hold sway over the public for many more years to come. But until print publications adopt a new revenue model and solve their overhead challenges, we’re all going to have to get used to the incredible shrinking newspaper.
(Photo from the Express-News)
