Four Thursday

1. Science writer Thomas Maugh departed the Los Angeles Times in what is expected to be an unrelenting month of layoffs and buyouts at the paper. LAO

2. Alan Mutter remains bearish on the newspaper business, despite all the cutbacks. Mutter

3. The Onion wants a paywall, but the Washington Post wants to stay free (for now). Romenesko

4. Gannett's Florida Today laid off 25 percent of its newsroom, bringing the total number of employees to 57. Gannett Blog

The objectivity canard (updated)

Alan Mutter is a smart man and I agree with much of what he writes. But in a recent blog post, which can be read here, he concedes an argument at the expense of a form of traditional journalism that needs defending (and explaining).

Here's the key line:

It’s time to retire the difficult-to-achieve and impossible-to-defend conceit that journalists are now, or ever were, objective.

The problem here is that "objective journalism" is a straw man that's almost always propped up to be attacked by those who want to do away with a much more defensible practice. (Mutter's ultimate conclusion in the blog post is that journalists should be more transparent, which I sort of agree with, but its an argument that should be made separate from the "objectivity" debate, and not offered as a concession.)

So, let me first agree with two things: Journalists are not objective and objectivity is an unattainable goal. The "objective journalist" is an oversimplified symbol championed by greedy publishers that's supposed to represent the practice of impartial journalism. So let's kill the oversimplified symbol and actually defend the practice.

News reporters who know what they're doing are not striving for the personal perfection of being "objective" - which is chasing rainbows. Instead, they are using techniques and editorial oversight to create an impartial framework that gives one as broad a view of a potential story as possible. It's a practice aimed at avoiding the advocate's framework, which offers a more limited view of what constitutes a story precisely because it wants to accomplish a specific goal.

Impartial journalism is a discipline that, when done right, enables journalists to gather information from a wide variety of perspectives and sources. By avoiding advocacy, a journalist gains access to different sides of a debate, and often to people who are affected by issues who aren't advocating anything. Sources are more likely to speak about their goals rather than waste time trying to convince the interviewer. The reporter is able to hear facts that stray outside one's experience and preconceptions, and so can find stories that don't conform to ready-made agendas. 

It's a process that tries to strip out opinions that obscure or color facts, which, in turn, rob readers of the ability to draw reasonable conclusions. It's a process designed to work against our natural impulse to develop a point of view. This is artifice, which is why it is sometimes hard to defend to people who don't practice journalism. But it's a discipline that a reporter learns through practice; the guidance of editors; the reactions of readers and sources; successes, and mistakes.

It's not a faith-based profession: believe in "objectivity" and it will come.

The impartial framework is designed to keep reporters from adopting the framework of partisans and advocates. It's why partisans and advocates are so dismissive of impartiality, and why they welcome advocacy journalism in place of "objectivity" - they have plenty of points of view ready-made for journalists to adopt or get in a debate over.

 There are limits to impartial journalism, of course. Plenty of reporters mistake it as some form of balancing doctrine - that all sides get equal representation. Plenty of reporters also use the cloak of impartiality to avoid asking tough questions or to be downright lazy. Bad journalism is bad journalism.

Also, a defense of impartial journalism should not be construed as a rejection of advocacy journalism. In fact, the advocates could be doing a better job right now - where are the Hunter Thompsons? But our need for sober, cynical, skeptical voices does not mean we should not shout down the impartial ones - we should figure out how better to use impartial reporters and defend their usefulness. We need reporters who remain open to stories outside their realm of belief, who search for facts and sources that fall outside of their agenda bubbles and emotional attachments. We need to let the narrative unfold through observation, rather than through our personal context or connection. One can still draw conclusions, call out bullshit, challenge authority and avoid manipulation while practicing impartial journalism.

Here's a little more from Mutter:

Unsettling as the punditization of the news may be to old-school journalists, there is a powerful cultural reason why Fox, Jon Stewart and other news-with-a-view productions have caught on: Consumers are so overloaded with information that they want someone to tell them what it means.

Fox, Jon Stewart and others do give consumers a point of view that helps them feel they can make sense of the world. But these outlets also depend on impartial journalism so that they can form their commentary and opinions. And impartial journalists will push back against the comforting idea that our point of view is the right one, or that complicated and frightening world events can be made digestible before bedtime. Indeed, impartial journalists are not competing with Jon Stewart or Fox (though their employers probably are), and we should all be thankful that they're willing to be unsettling.

Basically, I say defend impartial journalism, not as the only form, but as a necessary one. And stop asking what the extinction of the unicorn means.

No, it's not getting better yet

The headline on Alan Mutter's blog says it all: "Newspaper ad sales head to 25-year low"

Four in the morning

1. Republicans Meg Whitman and Steve Poizner have spent nearly $100 million between them in an increasingly bizarre primary contest. The headline for Dan Morain's latest column in the Sacramento Bee says it all: "Never before has so much been spent for so little" SacBee

2. Alan Mutter says local television stations could go the way of the newspaper (would that really be so bad?) Mutter

3. Reporters at Tribune Co.'s WGN Channel 9 are asked to shill for L.L. Bean. ChiTrib (found via Romenesko)

4. The Los Angeles Times has yet to close its printing press in Orange County. The new deadline is June 15, but the change in ownership at the Orange County Register could win the plant a reprieve. LA Pressmens' blog

The newspaper death tax

Alan Mutter tried to buy obituary space in the San Francisco Chronicle and learned that it would cost $450 "for the one-day run of a crappy-looking, 182-word death notice." This kind of gouging is a disservice to the community and to the paper, he writes:

This practice is not only exploitive, but also strategically tone deaf, because it misses a terrific opportunity to cement reader loyalty to a newspaper.

Every country editor knows that names make news. Birth announcements, wedding announcements and death notices are the only ways most people ever get their names in the newspaper, an event that remains a big deal to all but the most jaded individuals. ...

While metros can’t fill their shrinking news holes with every birth, wedding or funeral, they can offer people a free place on their websites to self-chronicle the comings and goings of their families.

The full post is here.

For what it's worth

If journalists want the public to value journalism - and pay a price for it - then journalists need to start by valuing their own work, says Alan Mutter, a UC Berkeley journalism professor who blogs at Reflections of a Newsosaur.

From Mutter:

I hear from people almost every day who want to commission an article or reprint a post in exchange for the ephemeral compensation known as “exposure.”

Amazingly – or, should I say, outrageously? – most of the requests come from people who themselves are being paid for their work at either a for-profit or non-profit organization.

Instead of simply declining, I tell them something like this:

Quality journalism takes training, time and tenacity. Although it’s easy to fill space with words, pictures and videos that are produced quickly and on the cheap, down-and-dirty “journalism” is the intellectual equivalent of empty calories. ...

The only way for journalists to fight back is to demand to be paid what they’re worth.

I've argued, perhaps less eloquently, variations on this theme myself in recent years. There are, of course, real challenges to getting journalists to fight as a team on this front: A. they're notoriously independent minded, B. some journalists are quite content to get "exposure" instead of "m-o-n-e-y," C. corporations can effectively divide and conquer through layoffs, cheap hires, cluster domination, and lowered standards, and D. a wave of anti-professional populism has swept through the country and journalism is a prime target (something else corporations have taken advantage of).

Aware of these practical problems, Mutter offers a practical solution in the form of a "freelance pay calculator." The calculator literally allows a journalist to assign value to his or her work. It can also give employed journalists an idea of how much they're worth in terms of salary.

Depressingly, the hourly pay rate Mutter uses in his example is higher than what many full-time newspaper reporters in Southern California receive.

Four in the morning

1. More eager gossip about Apple's iTablet - for journo-techs, this is the second coming. Time

2. The biggest loser in MediaNews Group's bankruptcy? Hearst Corp. Alan Mutter

3. LA Magazine profiles longtime KCRW general manager Ruth Seymour, who's stepping down in February. LAmag

4. Analyzing the collapse of the Washington Post. New Republic

Four in the morning

1. Tribune Co., owner of the Los Angeles Times, is looking to diversify its advertising dollar with Tribune Hispanic. Ed Padgett

2. The Los Angeles Times has hired Jack Dolan of the Miami Herald to beef up its database journalism in Sacramento. LAO

3. Newspapers' silver lining rides on a big gray cloud. Alan Mutter

4. Are we all becoming pawns on a vast digital chessboard? Newsweek

The bottom line

The search for silver linings has already started in response to yesterday's announcement that the Dallas Morning News would have section editors report to sales managers and sales managers oversee content.

In analyzing the "business/news integration" scheme, Berkeley journalism professor Alan Mutter writes that "maybe - just maybe - this isn't such a bad idea." He goes on:

Instead of the advertising people infecting news coverage, maybe – just maybe – the creative energy and constructive skepticism of the newsroom will rub off on the ad guys, who sorely need all the help they can get.

Even if this were true, which I don't think it is, the first flaw is having the sales staff in charge of the journalists. If the Dallas Morning News switched this dynamic around, maybe there would be less to worry about. Maybe.

But there are better ways to "integrate" the news and business sides of a news organization without inviting corrupting forces into the newsroom. Management at the Dallas Morning News wants to cast all of this as a tension between advertisements and stories, and so they say that stories will not be written for or about advertisers. But the problem isn't so much what gets covered, it's what doesn't get covered - and that's much harder to measure.

What beats don't fit the integration plan? Which reporters don't get the resources to pursue certain lines of inquiry? Which story ideas get the stink eye from ad manager? I doubt that the outside advertisers will be the ones bringing pressure to bear, it's going to be the sales managers inside the paper. They are going to test what coverage draws in readers or ad money, and they will in turn make sure that the newsroom resources - and the niche products - are targeted in that direction.

All of which makes me wonder: If business is so bad you have to compromise fundamental principles, what exactly is it that you're trying to save?

Falling, falling

If you pay attention to such things, no doubt you've seen the ugly numbers for national newspaper circulation. Editor and Publisher calculated an average drop of 10.6 percent for the six-month period ending in September.

From E&P:

The New York Times is down 7.2% to 927,851. Sunday fell 2.6% to 1,400,302.

The Los Angeles Times reported its daily circ is off 11% to 657,467 and 6.7% on Sunday to 983,702.

Daily circ at The Washington Post fell 6.4% to 582,844 while Sunday was down 5% to 822,208.

Daily circ at the Chicago Tribune decreased 9.7% to 465,892. Sunday was down 7.1% to 803,220.

The San Francisco Chronicle lost more than a quarter of its daily circ, down 25.8% to 251,782. Sunday was off more than 22% to 306,705.

Daily at The Star-Ledger in Newark, N.J., dropped 22.2% to 246,006 and 18.5% on Sunday to 371,060.

The Boston Globe's daily circ decreased 18.4% to 264,105. Sunday lost 16.9% to 418,529.

American's newspaper, USA Today, fell 17 percent, putting it below the Wall Street Journal, which saw a light uptick of .6 percent.

Alan Mutter at Reflections of a Newsosaur provides some context:

Following an average drop of 10.6% in the last six months, daily newspaper circulation has fallen to a pre-World War II low of an estimated 39.1 million, according to an analysis of industry data released today.

The first double-digit circulation decline in history means only 12.9% of the U.S. population buys a daily newspaper.

Four today

1. The New York Times wants to make it easier to search through the millions of tweets on Twitter. Mediaweek

2. J-school enrollment rises even as jobs disappear - and fuddy-duddy professor still think ethics and standards should be emphasized over gadgetry. Chronicle of Higher Education

3. Do newsroom unions have a useful role to play as newspapers decline? Alan Mutter

4. Spot.us comes to LA with a little help from USC. Nieman Lab

The end of downward trend lines?

The absence of bad news counts as good news for newspapers these days. Which is the proper context to consider this report from Borrell Associates, showing newspapers enjoying a "modest bounce" in ad sales over the next five years.

"I'm not dead yet!"

Earnings are up at the largest newspaper companies, beating back predictions - and some hopes - of utter doom in the industry. This is good news if you read a newspaper, better still if you work for one. It may also turn down the volume on some of the social media experts who think their version of change is inevitable.

As Howard Weaver at Ethaoin Shrdlu puts it:

Many of the people predicting the imminent death of printed news or counseling companies to shutter newspapers and spend all their money on the web are drinking their own bathwater. They have a vision – many times a clear and compelling vision – of what the shift to a digital, networked world will look like, but they’re in danger of leaping to conclusions that aren’t there.

I don’t believe untrained or unpaid volunteers alone can produce the kind of journalism on which democracy depends. I believe most people want and value good filters to separate signal from noise – and the best way we’ve ever found to do that is with professional journalists.

Weaver himself makes a leap, predicting that death of objectivity and an end to the role of news organizations as gatekeepers:

Transparency and fairness remain achievable goals; combined with the new plethora of views and opinions, that may be enough to support a consensus reality and common vocabulary for public affairs.

Find me the "consensus reality" on health care reform, Obama's birth certificate or racial profiling and I'll give you a pony. Also, does anyone think institutions of power, faith and money plan to surrender their roles as gatekeepers and speakers of "objective" truth? Isn't this the reason why journalists attempt to remain "objective" in trying to distill competing viewpoints into an impartial analysis?

Anyway, back to the financial picture. Alan Mutter makes the important point that these higher earnings follow steep one-time cuts and adjustments. To rebound, newspapers need advertising dollars to rebound, because there's little left to trim. There's also the fact that readers aren't going to subsidized substandard papers:

Newspaper readers, who by definition are among the most thoughtful members of society, are perceptive enough to know they are paying more today for newspapers that deliver far less news and advertising than ever before. They are doing so, to the extent they are doing so, in the hopes they can help the industry survive.

But their patience will not be infinite. If newspapers can’t find a way to do better by their readers, they are in danger of slashing themselves to oblivion.

Four today

1. Marketing-department journalism is on the upswing. CJR

2. Newspaper profits are down, but nowhere near out. RofaN

3. Dan Froomkin goes from Post to Post. Salon

4. The website gave them the name, but it's print that makes Politico profitable. Vanity Fair

Grassroots need water, too

I don't imagine it was a tough conclusion to come to, but Alan Mutter at Reflections of a Newsosaur now doubts volunteerism will come to journalism's rescue. He writes:

Although a number of do-it-yourself ventures have embraced modern technology to attempt to fill the void created by the retrenchment of the mainstream media, there is scant evidence to date that any have succeeded to the point that they will support the sustained efforts of professional journalists. ...

Even where the will to go forward remains powerful, there is no satisfactory answer to the practical question of how long talented, capable and motivated individuals can afford to commit themselves to self-assigned journalistic endeavors that so far are not known to have generated any appreciable income for the writers.

Mutter cites the soon-to-be defunct Gannett blog as evidence of this latter point.

Not getting paid is a sure way to spoil just about any job in a capitalistic society.

Compromised in Washington State

Alan Mutter scolds the publishers of Washington State newspapers for accepting $8 million in tax breaks from the government they're supposed to be holding accountable - not to mention the fact that the state faces $8 billion shortfall. Mutter writes:

In lobbying aggressively for the tax break, the publishers sacrificed their moral authority to challenge favoritism, fiscal imprudence and self-dealing on the part of the state government and the dozens of political figures who supported the measure. ...

:: Will the paper fairly cover upcoming political campaigns involving the politicians who supported the tax break?

:: Will future political endorsements be tilted in favor of the politicians who helped the newspapers?

Mutter estimates that no more than 15 reporter jobs would be saved if every dime went to paper payrolls.

Four in the morning

National Public Radio plans to layoff 13 employees and institute furloughs for rest of its workers. In addition, NPR will eliminate three paid holidays from its calendar. WaPo

The Wall Street Journal has put together a graphic documenting the biggest cuts at the biggest daily newspapers across the country. WSJ

Journalists who don't want to actually go into the streets to find a man on the street can rent one instead from journopimp HARO. ROAN

The New York Times and the Boston Globe head to a May 1 showdown. Boston Globe

More jailed journalists

The case of jailed journalist Roxana Saberi has made headlines around the world, but two other journalists, Laura Ling and Euna Lee, jailed in a different "axis of evil" country, have hardly received the same level of attention. Alan Mutter explains why. (Read the Associated Press story.)

Four in the afternoon

Gannett cancels freelance work exactly when it needs it most ... Los Angeles Times' pressmen plan a "save our trade" rally for Monday ... Paul Oberjuerge argues that much of a newspaper's strength lies in its slow, reflective construction ... Alan Mutter tracks the decline in newspaper advertising revenues

Afternoon links

The Claremont League of Women Voters is hosting a panel called "Print Journalism and the Challenge of the Internet" on Saturday, March 21. Panelists include Peter Weinberger, publisher of the Claremont Courier; Steve Lambert, general manager of the San Gabriel Valley Newspaper Group, and Larry Pryor, professor of journalism at USC.

MediaNews CEO Dean Singleton likes the thought of owning all of the major dailies in Bay Area, including the emperiled San Francisco Chronicle. "Consolidation" is the watchword.

Shuttering newspapers does have consequences for democracy: political incumbents gain an even greater edge, a study shows.

Alan Mutter and Jeff Jarvis debate whether the newspaper is a dying institution in today's "Dust Up" in the Los Angeles Times.