StevenSilvers.com

Is bailing out the local newspaper no different than funding the zoo?

Longtime Denver journalist Bill Menezes takes some exception to my disagreement with the idea of having a new statewide sales tax to save the Rocky Mountain News and other failing Colorado newspapers. Writes Bill:

"I generally agree with Steve that it's a bad idea to use taxpayer money to rescue an institution whose local management pretty much has refused to take any public responsibility for its own failure. Having said that, I consider the "government oversight" argument against it to be a red herring. The government already is involved with the operation of the Rocky and the Post via the business structure it administers as the JOA and clearly it has no involvement in the newsroom product.

Further, I'd like anyone who is worried that there would be government interference in the editorial operations of a publicly subsidized newspaper to provide examples of any other local, subsidized institutions where this has occurred at such a granular level. Does the stadium taxing district attempt to tell Pat Bowlen who he can hire as coach? Does local government dictate what the Denver Zoo feeds the gorillas? Does it set the playlist for the CSO or wield veto power over plays that may be scheduled at DCPA venues? I'd be concerned about a lot of things relevant to a newspaper rescue tax, but government involvement in the editorial product isn't one of them."

Given that this is -- I hope -- a rhetorical argument, I appreciate Bill's point about subsidized zoos and stadiums. But I don't think it rationalizes using taxpayer money to "save" a single commercial media outlet under the guise that it has an exclusive relationship to the well-being of an informed citizenry. It doesn't.

Many of the people arguing this bailout idea are the same folks who point to "new media" as the channel by which millions and millions of Americans brought about the most historic political transformation in U.S. history. As much as I hope the Rocky stays in business, this still would have happened if Denver had been a one-newspaper town.

I don't think you can minimize the government oversight issue, either. Bailing out a daily newspaper isn't the same thing as building a football stadium or arts complex.

Imagine how more convoluted the separation of church-and-state would be when you've got a commercial enterprise newspaper that must inject the interests of taxpayers along with the already competing interests of advertising profits and journalism ethics.  Taxpayers and their advocates will put every word of every day's paper in context to how they believe they agreed to bankroll a newsroom full of subsidized employees who decide what news to cover and how.

To say government won't interfere denies who government works for. You can't say on one hand that taxpayers must buy out a newspaper so they're informed, and then say on the other hand that they won't exercise authority when they become so.

My two cents.
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Stop the presses. Should taxpayers bail out their local newspaper, too?

Former Denver spokesman and Frontier Airlines communications director Andrew Hudson is arguing for a statewide sales tax to save the Rocky Mountain News and other Colorado newspapers.

The 150-year-old Rocky was put up for sale in December by its owner, E. W. Scripps Company in a prelude to shutting it down, leaving the struggling Denver Post as the city's only major daily.

Writes Andrew on his Denver PR Jobs website:

"A newspaper is a critical part of our state's economic engine. The loss of the Rocky Mountain News as a source of information could be quantified as an economic loss to this community in the hundreds of millions of dollars. Not only does the newspaper help to promote our state to the world, its reach and power provides readers and businesses with critical information that drives transactional and investment decisions.

A newspaper creates an important level of transparency that helps to keep government and elected leaders accountable and honest. However, without any type of objective scrutiny of government spending, abuse of power, elected officials' positions on issues, and investigations into overall government conduct, it puts the average citizen and a community at large at a serious disadvantage. Citizens rely on this level of scrutiny.

For example, a recent Rocky Mountain News article by reporter Kevin Flynn exposed the City of Denver for failing to determine if the red-light camera enforcement was actually reducing red-light running by motorists. While red-light cameras are quite a lucrative exercise for the City, we have no idea if it is actually solving a public safety problem as promised. Will critical articles such as this be read by a community on a blog? Will bloggers attend boring zoning committee meetings or City Council meetings? Will they attend press conferences?"

My friend Andrew makes some heartfelt points. There are many cultural and civic reasons to support the survival of a major daily newspaper, especially one with the Rocky's heritage.

But they don't justify his proposal for a taxpayer bailout, or for having a government-appointed commission oversee a newspaper that is supposed hold government accountable.

The potential closing of the Rocky Mountain News represents the market-driven loss of a delivery product, not the wholesale elimination of news and journalism. It's a very long stretch to conclude that we're all one newspaper failure away from an information anarchy of lazy amateur bloggers.

Who's to say that the remaining Denver newspaper might not do a better job at serving the community? Or some other?

More importantly, why would business and government watchdog reporting be any less likely, complete or impactful just because the majority of media consumers choose to read, listen to or watch such information through an online news site as opposed to via a print edition? Or news weeklies, magazines, television, radio, social media, RSS feeds, email alerts, podcasts and every integrated combination of technologies we haven't even thought of yet?

There are plenty of reasons to believe that the unlimited space and connectedness of always-on, Internet-driven media ultimately make our institutions more transparent, not less.

A "newspaper bailout tax" is unlikely, of course. You'd have a better chance convincing taxpayers to buy the Denver Broncos than the city's newspaper. But it's interesting to read the many reactions posted to Andrew's proposal for a couple of reasons.

One, because it underscores the emotion and complexity of the transformation to a new media economy.

And two, because this entire conversation wouldn't be happening without the same Internet responsible for killing the newspaper that some people think we are obligated to save.
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• Scatterbox:  Help save the Rocky Mountain News
• The Canadian Journalism Project  |  Keep the presses rolling: Crisis spurs discussion
  

Best of Scatterbox - 2009 Edition

Based on comments, links and other highly unscientific measurements, here are the top ten Scatterbox posts from the last year:

Five things you didn't realize you learned from Obama's victory

Good intentions aren't good crisis management

Best worst excuse to avoid jury duty: Your studly hotness

Big brand doody from the toilet paper wars

What's missing from your communications plan

The low risk, high rise of phony grassroots groups

Hate mail and other comments from our readers

Blah Blah Nation: PR people promote the value of blogging by boring readers to death

John Edwards scandal shows conflicting truths about mainstream media

How the PR business is changed forever (And why you might not be in it)

... Have an idea or link to suggest? Send to scatterbox(@)stevensilvers.com.

Ten big-picture predictions for 2009

Welcome back from the holidays. Here are 10 predictions that might influence what you'll be communicating about in 2009. Or not:

1.  A dean of Russia's foreign ministry academy predicts that the United States will explode in civil war in 2010, leading to the nation's collapse and disintegration. (Colorado will be part of a new Canadian-controlled republic. But we're not playing Kanuck football. That's where we draw the line.)

2.  James Carville says the Republican Party will be confronted with a "near catastrophic ideological rift."

3.  "America's #1 Psychic" Sylvia Brown predicts that trained psychologists will start offering hypnotic past-life regression, which will be common practice by 2011. (She doesn't predict what the insurance co-pay will be, however.)

4.  Business Week thinks Chrysler will merge into General Motors. They also think Americans will start buying a lot of boxed wine.

5.  Wired.com's senior editor says we'll see hundreds of new on-line magazine start-ups as entrepreneurs take advantage of low competitive barriers and journalists willing to work cheap.

6.  Technology industry guru Mark Anderson predicts China will be rocked by huge and deadly riots, causing its GDP to plummet as the West recognizes the country as a "polluted place, rife with economic turmoil and starving people."

7.  Personal finance columnist Jeffery Strain says the credit crisis will cause many beloved small, locally owned businesses to disappear forever. (This will also include many small advertising and PR businesses.)

8.  Industry analyst Yankee Group is confident that free microblogging service Twitter is the new Facebook. (Except for the minor fact that it generates zero revenue and limits messages to 140 characters. Hype on, Internet phenom.).

9.  WSJ columnist Evan Newmark predicts Wall Street will cut jobs, people and bonuses by another 25 percent -- forcing many Masters of the Universe to seek their fortunes in consulting. Or government jobs.

10.  A former Mafia boss says top-level tennis matches will be a prime target for gambling corruption.

Send any other predictions worth noting to scatterbox(@)stevensilvers.com.

Go get 'um, my friends.
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The lack of evidence proves the conspiracy is deeper than we feared...

From an information age perspective, this unprecedented presidential election will mean one of two things.

An Obama victory means liberals can't complain that conservatives control of talk radio creates undue influence over voters. But they'll complain anyway.

A McCain victory means conservatives can't complain that liberal bias in news and entertainment media creates undue influence over voters. But they'll complain anyway.

To the political victors go the propaganda spoils. And in 2009, that power will include perceived license to further vilify and even constrain the dominant mediums of their ideological enemies.

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• New York Post: Dems get set to muzzle the right
• Media Research Center: America knows the "the liberal press is out of control in its partisanship"

They only look like automatic weapons in the hands of a paramilitary force. Jeeze.

The Rocky Mountain News Truth Patrol blog is clearing up the rush of rumours and allegations whirling around the Democratic National Convention -- like when NBC's Brian Williams described how "giant SUVs roam the streets with men in black with automatic weapons on the running boards."

Those were actually non-lethal, semi-automatic pepper ball guns. You'd think the nation's press would know its riot gear.
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PRSA: One good exaggeration deserves another.

Like many Americans I dont' usually watch CBS News Sunday Morning. So I didn't hear legal analyst Andrew Cohen's rant about PR people being liars.

And like most Americans I don't care what one talking head on a Sunday morning news show says about the PR industry.

TV commentators, reporters, bloggers, columnists, talk show hosts -- they make ridiculous generalizations all the time. Flacks are deceitful, lawyers are sharks, used car salespeople are sleaze, politicians pander, contractors don't show up, dentists are overpaid and CEOs are crooks.

It's a cheap way for paid pundits to make their point, even if they don't have a point except to take a cheap shot.

Which is why I'm always amazed when the Public Relations Society of America -- that's "PRSA" among us liars -- takes this stuff so personally.

In a letter and video response to CBS, PRSA's president argued that "The PRSA Code of Ethics, to which all members pledge, embodies a strict set of guidelines defining ethical and professional practice in public relations."

This is spin.  The truth is that there are plenty of PR people violating the code of ethics. They talk to reporters or publish editorials without revealing their clients. They design video news releases to make local TV news viewers think they're watching journalism. They create anonymous "consumer groups" or fake blogs.

And PRSA doesn't do too much about it.  In 2006, the association sent an email warning members to "avoid" misleading practices including front groups. The big PR agencies that prompted the advisory because they'd been outed in the national press weren't mentioned, much less admonished.

This was Cohen's ham-fisted but somewhat valid point in the first place.

Not all PR people are liars. But PRSA exaggerated the industry's integrity in response to an exaggeration about its deceitfulness.

You'd think PR people would know better.
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AP Analysis: McCain, Obama are polar opposites.

Associated Press writer Liz Sidotoi does a fine job in summarizing the histories, ideas and behaviors that separate our two presidential candidates.

And now let the wild rumpus start.

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Hate mail and other comments from our readers.

It's one thing for a company to deal with news stories about its controversies.

It's a whole other issue to deal with the comments that readers post in those news websites.

Almost always anonymous, comment pages are often filled with personal attacks on the company, its executives, even spouses. People claiming to be insiders recall damming meetings that may or may not have taken place. Others reveal company secrets. Some are sexist, others racist. Many go off on diatribes implicating the company in a litany of conspiracies.

Some comments are downright malicious. In a recent case, a local newspaper site allowed inflammatory comments pretending to come from a prominent employee.  She spent a week insisting that she wasn't the author.

In short, online reader comments have become home for the kind of claptrap that those same media wouldn't dare print in their op/ed sections.

That's what editor Jim Brady said in 2006 when the Washington Post blog stopped accepting readers comments. "What we're not willing to do is allow the comments area to turn into a place where it's OK to unleash vicious, name-calling attacks on anyone, whether they are Post reporters, public figures or other commenters," Brady wrote. "And that's exactly what was happening."

Most local newspaper sites haven't followed the Post's lead.

Why? Because comments are a cheap way to make money. Lots of comments generate lots of space for online ads without paying reporters.

Online comments create mixed feelings in the newsrooms. Editors field angry calls from people or their attorneys demanding comments be deleted. The newspapers often refuse, rationalizing that deleting one anonymous, hostile message would imply that they're policing all of them.

Some reporters have gotten to the point where they're no longer interested in what their most vocal readers are saying.

"I'll see that there are a hundred comments posted to a story and won't even look," one reporter told me. "I know what kind of stuff is in there. It's just disgusting."
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From USLAW Radio - A few thoughts on litigation PR

Here's an interview I did with USLAW Radio on how to approach litigation communications and media relations. The program is produced by USLAW Network, an affiliation of more than 60 law firms around the country.

You can also download a Podcast version here.
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