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Much has been written here and at other internet sites about the decline of the news media in America. The print media has come to be labeled the "lamestream media" on this site, which may be a fairly accurate description. Newspaper executives blame declining circulation and falling advertising revenue for their woes while ignoring their own failures. Dan Rather's illegal-dismissal suit against the Columbia Broadcasting System promises to show that the electronic media are no better. Examples of poor journalism would include the Public Broadcasting Service (PBS) program Washington Week in which a council of clowns spent years doing its best each week to whitewash President George W. Bush's incompetence. Bush was usually depicted in the media as a victim of circumstances rather than the architect of those failings. And during the present economic crisis we do not hear the names of Bush or Ronald Reagan associated with the disaster even though most of America knows well that they were the creators of it.Newspapers have always had lousy pay, terrible scheduling and miserable hours but often compensate for those weaknesses with misuse and abuse of their employees by bad management. Journalism is historically a transitory profession where journalists drift from one newspaper to another, usually in hopes of finding better conditions but most often finding more of the same.
While the main thrust of recent complaints on the media concentrate on its kowtowing to the just-departed Bush administration and its support of Bush's assault on our constitutional system of government, my disgust with the media began years ago and reached its conclusion when I left (escaped) The Denver Post after years of being treated like a trollop at a fraternity gang bang ~ that is screwed constantly by a collection of inept buffoons who didn't know what they were doing. That makes it difficult to muster up any sympathy for the industry as it grapples with myriad problems.
Reasons to leave newspapering are many and varied and had nothing to do with salivating approvingly over Bush or one of his equally destructive predecessors, Reagan. While that normally would be sufficient for a sane person to leave the business, it was other things that did the trick.
The Denver Post long advertised itself as a "Great Newspaper", which it has failed to be for many years while retaining many fine journalists ~ those who didn't leave for public relations, advertising, flaking for politicians or other endeavors ~ whose talents, qualifications, and goals were constantly ignored by a leadership that was turning the newspaper into a political forum for only right-wingers, in a fairly progressive city, when it once had been a capable defender of progressive ideals and fairness to both sides of the political spectrum. This is the newspaper that produced writers Damon Runyan and Gene Fowler, and political cartoonists Paul Conrad and Pat Oliphant but has been operating at a much lower level for decades. When it ignored employees's talents, qualifications, past endeavors and successes ~ as well as failures ~ editorials, columns, analysis, commentary and even reporting became suspect; and once its output becomes questionable, a newspaper becames unnecessary to many of its subscribers.
Managing editors didn't know who worked for them and didn't know because they never talked to employees about their job or career goals; which is why so many employees were in wrong jobs that most employees recognized but no executive even suspected. Managing editors never greeted new employees as they came aboard even though their decisions affected all employees' jobs, careers, families and lives. Nor did managers bother to say "goodbye" to the employees they laid off in the periodic "cost-cutting" of the news staff preferring to remain hidden away in their offices. In one instance, a managing editor went the 15 or 20 feet from his desk to the copydesk and asked if anyone "had ever heard of" a former employee "who claimed he had worked at The Denver Post" about four months after the employee had left.
After his promotion to executive editor, the same man told the newsdesk not to use Washington Post and New York Times reporting on the Watergate scandal because "it takes us down a road we don't want to go." He had led the paper into being a bootlicking supporter of Richard Nixon and didn't want Post readers to know that Nixon was the crook he claimed not to be. They found out from other sources anyway, and lost faith in the Post as its circulation began to plummet; sinking below the much-smaller but more-lively Rocky Mountain News, the other Denver daily until it ceased publication February 27. The Post was unable to regain the circulation lead until the News limited circulation to the Denver metropolitan area and curtailed it throughout the rest of the Mountain West.
The new managing editor thought leadership was standing someone up in the middle of the news room and screaming into his/her face if he saw something he didn't like. Acknowledgment for a good job never came from him or his predecessor. He was a top-notch frequent consumer of booze and sexual harasser first-class who leaned over the shoulder of "the little cute kid" on the copy desk and told her loud enough that all could hear, "I'd like to (bleep)* you."
When upper management managed to get rid of this cancer years too late, it insulted the intelligence of the employees by saying he had "resigned" because of a "difference over managerial philosophy." That's nearly as inane as the usual canard about "wanting to go in a different direction" when a lousy executive is ousted and is suit speak for "he was forced to resign with a notice 0we wrote for him to avoid firing and being unemployable throughout journalism." He went on to a Tucson, Arizona, newspaper where he engaged in the same activities and met a similar fate in quick time.
Told by Exec Editor and Managing Editor ~ filtered down through underlings ~ not to run stories in special sections about government efforts to combat drunk driving because liquor advertisers didn't like them, then told by advertising department not to run a wine column in Food Section because it wasn't attracting enough wine advertisers. Told leaders that I selected stories to attract readers, not advertisers, and readership attracted advertising. Continued to do it my way and made Food Section No. 1 in nation in total pages, news hole, advertising lineage, advertising income and profit. Didn't matter. Profit from Food Section kept lousy newspaper in business until it could be unloaded to the Los Angeles Times' parent company, which also couldn't reverse downward trend established by previous management that left it in such shape that it drained the Times. The Times was astute enough to unload the Post onto another outfit before being taken over by the Chicago Tribune's parent company which recently sought financial protection by filing for bankruptcy proceedings.
That bankruptcy also illustrated a news-business failure. The new Tribune owner, a billionaire business executive with no journalism experience or knowledge and maybe less concern, bought the company and all its assets on credit just as the economy was headed into the toilet under the direction of a president strongly supported by the business community. With both the Times and the Tribune unable to generate enough cash flow for the owner to pay off his borrowing, he began to decimate the news operations that had made both papers profitable for decades and fired any news executive who opposed his slashing away at the core of the operations. In search of needed money, he is also put up for sale the Chicago Cubs major-league baseball team, that came with the Tribune.
The bankruptcy bug also hit the Journal Register Company, owners of 20 newspapers, that was saddled with the expenses of a corporate jet, country-club memberships for its executives who also received lavish bonuses. Also suffering was the owner of the two Philadelphia newspapers, Philadelphia Media Holdings, that was heavily in debt from the purchase of the newspapers but which had raised the annual compensation of its "leader" to nearly seven figures shortly before the bankruptcy filing. If anyone is worth a high-six figure compensation, his or her operation should not be in financial trouble. The Hearst Corporation recently threatened to shut down the San Francisco Chronicle, it had purchased on credit in 2000, because it was losing money. On taking over the Chronicle, Hearst disposed of the San Francisco Examiner for $100 because of antitrust issues and endowed the new owner with a $66-million subsidy. The Examiner since has gone through severe staff reductions and two ownerships to become a free daily newspaper.
The McClatchy corporation, recently announced massive layoffs of 15% of its workforce. McClatchy, which publishes 30 daily newspapers including its original publication, The Sacramento Bee, plus The Miami Herald, Anchorage Daily News, Fresno Bee, got caught in the debt squeeze after buying much of the Knight Ridder chain in 2006 on credit. It also stopped paying a dividend and matching employees's 401(k) retirement contributions trying to reduce its debt. McClatchy, which cut about 20% of its workforce in 2008, had been paying its chief executive $1.1 million annually, with lavish salaries to other executives, to preside over the financial collapse of the chain.
These organizations aren't alone in their ineptitude. The Seattle Times, which made an editorial writer out of Michelle Malkin and unleased this bigoted wingnut onto the nation, had strongly endorsed Bush for president, and got what it wanted, but recently requested its employees ~ those of the hundreds who haven't been terminated ~ to take a 12% reduction in pay and unpaid time off because Bush screwed up the economy. The Bush-adoring Post, now a cog in a large chain of media, likewise is experiencing the perils of too much debt to handle in a major recession, but got a reprieve when its only competition shut down. And like so many operations, that debt was taken on by businessmen more interested in building an empire than disseminating the news. As in all of America, workers must pay for the incompetence of their leaders, who first take care of themselves with lavish compensation while offering as little as possible to those who create the income.
A longtime Post reporter approaching retirement age ask management if he could delete the name of a friend from the sheriff's list of drunk-driving arrests in a neighboring county because she felt her job would be in jeopardy if identified. Executive editor and managing editor threatened him with dismissal for even asking such a thing, but months later threatened the same reporter because he did not delete the name of the managing editor after his arrest for drunk driving. The Newspaper Guild saved the reporter's job.
The Post hired a reporter from a New Mexico newspaper, but only weeks after the hiring laid him off in one of the periodic purges of staff before finally selling out to the Times. The reporter had not worked in Denver long enough to be eligible for unemployment benefits in Colorado and was not eligible from his New Mexico job because he had voluntarily left that newspaper to take the Denver job. Management didn't care. The Rocky Mountain News once reported that the Post was planning many cost-cutting layoffs, which prompted Post executives to go on local television news shows denying the News report and assailing the News for its "irresponsible" reporting. The following Monday, the Post announced the layoff of 10 percent of its workforce because of financial problems.
The executive editor and managing editor killed stories repeatedly to protect the elites of Denver society, causing solid reporters to leave the newspaper. One reporter eventually came back but soon left again for the same reason saying, he "had forgotten" about all the stories of his that were killed. He opened a book store and began writing novels.
An artist, who lost both legs to a land mine in Europe during World War II, was invited to appear on a television show about WWII heroes for which he would receive a complete artist's studio in the basement of his Denver home. Management told him not to go on the show because it would make it "appear that the paper wasn't paying you enough" and he would be fired if he did appear on the show. He didn't get that studio.
Some minor incidents of little newsworthy importance help to show the attitude of Post editors. In one, the late Jimmy the Greek, a sports broadcaster and sometime columnist, stated an opinion on a national television show pertaining to a Denver professional sports star. When asked why the Post didn't mention his statement, an editor replied that he would not give Jimmy the Greek any publicity since his column ran in the Rocky Mountain News. When noted drug proponent and former Harvard University professor Timothy Leary expressed remorse shortly before his death for advocating use of drugs to America's youth, a Post editor complained that he didn't "want to give publicity to that sort of person." So much for news; to Post editors the paper was used for publicity for some, silence for others. The chief of the sports-entertainment copydesk stated that Arlo Guthrie, son of the great folksinger Woody Guthrie, who had made a movie called "Alice's Restaurant," should not be allowed to make movies. When ask why, he replied that "he isn't a Christian." A city editor expressed opposition to school integration on the argument that school students had already "established a pecking order" among themselves. In other words, he felt the constitutional guarantee of "equal protection of the laws" must be subordinated to a "pecking order" of children.
Some employees stated that personal working conditions worsened as they came within a year or two of becoming vested in the pension plan. The Post's collection of photographers always made sure that they stamped their names on the backs of photographs when submitting them for publications in order to receive personal credit but rarely identified people in the pictures, what they were doing or where and when they were doing it.
The Post always imported outsiders for the best positions and left old-timers to stagnate in dead-end less-than satisfying jobs. The Newspaper Guild did get management to post notices of all job openings, which was done. But no in-house staffer who applied for those openings was ever interviewed before management imported outsiders to fill the jobs. But when an outsider ~ a New York entertainment lawyer on Broadway who knew nothing about journalism ~ was brought in to be publisher, thereby passing over the executive editor, that editor seethed even though it was he who passed over veteran staffers to import outsiders for most, if not all, prestige jobs. The new publisher noticed the miserable morale problems and lack of cooperation in a newsroom often in turmoil with people constantly sniping at each other so he told the executive editor to interview the news staff to identify and correct the problems. The executive editor used the interviews to identify which employees ~ those who told him the truth ~ to terminate at the next round of layoffs and did nothing about the morale problems or animosity. But after firing 10 percent of the workforce to make the paper appear financially solid for its sale to the Times, the executive editor complained that he had been stripped of his "responsibilities" by the new owner ~ even though he continued to draw an exorbitant salary for very little work ~ when he could have been fired in the manner in which he fired reporters and nonmanagement editors. But executives were always treated differently from nonexecutives.
This is the same newspaper whose opinion makers told its readers that George W. Bush was a better person to be president than was Al Gore then repeated its folly four years after Bush showed his incredible incompetence to claim the same superiority over the much-more-intelligent John Kerry. It also said that Bush served his country in the military as valiantly as did war-hero Kerry. But, Bush never served the nation one second in its military; he avoided serving the nation to hide out in a state unit, the Texas Air National Guard. That was not serving the United States. But a right-wing dupe who wrote the nonsense couldn't, or wouldn't, make the distinction.
This writer spend considerable time, effort and money in graduate school developing constitutional expertise, but never worked a minute in the area in which he was one of the best in the nation's media, while know-nothing buffoons, pretending to be wise on subjects never studied, were writing editorials and columns that only showed ignorance of, or disdain for, our constitutional principles of government. While a grad student, a top professor held a get-to-know-each-other session one evening in which students discussed their varied backgrounds and interests. She asked why I'd left a job as a sportswriter in Portland, Oregon, to study constitutional law at Georgetown University Graduate School of Government in Washington, DC. I replied that I decided on graduate school at Georgetown while being recruited by the National Security Agency in nearby Maryland and the Central Intelligence Agency in Virginia and planned to go back to journalism where I didn't want to spend a life writing about grown men playing children's games and wanted to get into something more important, such as political reporting or editorial-page work and thought constitutional knowledge would be valuable because I sensed those doing such work didn't know what they were talking about. She replied: "I know they don't know what they are talking about." This from a woman who read the Washington Post and New York Times daily. If those two beacons of journalism leadership didn't know what they are talking about then, and still do not today, what chance was there that lesser newspapers would know? Experience proved to me they don't know, don't care to know, won't listen to anyone who did know, and The Denver Post was, and still is, one of the worst; but probably not far from the rest of the industry.
Shortly after reducing its staff by 10 percent by layoffs and buy-outs ~ which included the only staff member to ever have studied the United States Constitution seriously enough to qualify as a bona fide "expert" ~ the Post raided the Rocky Mountain News for a far-right columnist whose rantings constantly assailed the Constitution's democratic principles.
In an after-Christmas editorial under the headline "Corporate Leaders: Go bust, pay price" the editorial board of the Seattle Post-Intelligencer ~ itself recently deposited on the scrap heap of failed newspapers ~ stated that:
"In Detroit, if your company is going bust, you get on a private plane, ask D.C. for a bailout, and then come back in an SUV to ask again. In Japan, one year of losses may lead to the departure of Toyota's president.
"Japanese culture promotes the idea that when things go wrong for a company, somebody should take responsibility. The prestigious Asahi newspaper reported this week that Toyota's Katsuaki Watanabe will step down in the spring. The company denies any decision.
"When Sen. Chris Dodd suggested recently that General Motors' Rick Waggoner should go, some in Michigan were offended. But most Americans would join the Japanese public in thinking that a resignation can be an appropriate gesture. If Watanabe is going to wait to quit until spring, here's a chance for GM to steal a lead on Toyota."
But in an America culture where football coaches and baseball managers are shown the door ~ even if it is for breaking even or better, as a football coach at the University of Nebraska learned after posting a 9-3 record ~ publishers and top editors of newspapers that blame others or circumstances for their failures clamor for those sports leaders to lose their jobs, but hang on to their positions while trying to stop the losses by firing much of the staff. It seems the only publishers or editors ever fired are those who tried to resist the destruction of vital cogs in the news industry. Editors or publishers in America rarely step down voluntarily when things go bad for their newspapers; so it's also a journalism thing, and not just an automobile thing. And no executive in the American media has been held responsible for aiding Bush in leading us into the war in Iraq ~ the worst war-crimes escapade since Germany invaded Eastern Europe in the 1930s ~ although many people who warned us about the folly of such action were fired or demoted from their media positions for telling the truth.
News in a democratic society is much too important to be left to the care of people the likes of whom ran The Denver Post for decades. I have no compassion for such a distressed industry.
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*(bleep) is used in place of the acronym derived from police-blotter shorthand for Felony: Unlawful Carnal Knowledge.
