"Support for the New York Times Comes From Readers Like YOU"

Fundraising for newspapers? An unthinkable idea, until the recent economic downturn. Newspapers everywhere are in a desperate financial situation...so desperate that over the past days a discussion has emerged about whether papers should turn themselves into not-for-profits, supported by endowments.

A particularly excellent blog called "Reflections of a Newsosaur" has been following the plight of print. It's written by Alan Mutter, a former newspaper reporter, columnist and executive.

Some newspapers have already gone down that road. The Anniston (Alabama) Star and The St. Petersburg (Florida) Times is run by the Poynter Institute and Foundation are two papers that are supported by private foundations. Poynter in particular has been a boon to journalism for the intellectual and financial support provided. I've attended a few conferences hosted by Poynter and their website gives some of the most substantial information about journalism and ethics. Best of all, it's free and has been for years.

The recent economic crisis has affected the St. Petersburg newspaper along with so many others. One hopes that the Institute will be able to weather this one.

The idea of funding newspaper journalism through endowments and not-for-profits is a huge step, especially for American newspapers with their long and storied traditions of free speech in the public marketplace. But times are so tough, that the idea of endowments - even supported by government funding - is not being dismissed out of hand.

There are some who would raise constitutional objections to the idea of government funding. It's that First Amendment again. It just keeps coming back. Could the Press still considered to be free in the traditional American context, if it were supported by a government grant? It would certainly have an impact on the inside culture of the American newspaper with its deep libertarian and contrarian tendencies.

US public broadcasting takes government money on the premise that it is providing an effective and needed public service that commercial journalism can't or won't provide. Public broadcasting also has to prove that people are willing to pay directly for the service. Hence the concept of fund raising and the pledge drive that are the essential basis for public radio and television's survival.

Would the New York Times or the Washington Post engage in such infra dig behavior? They probably would, if they had to survive.

And is there a limit even to the remarkable American willingness to give? Charitable donations in the US are greater than any other country, due in part to that long tradition of giving and of volunteerism.

In these tough times, there must be limits, even to that generosity. And while public broadcasting has ruled the philanthropic roost for a long time, there must be people in the development offices of NPR and PBS who are growing pale - even now - at the thought of competing with the New York Times.

Should the BBC Help Gaza?

Another flap in the UK over whether the BBC should allow broadcast appeals for aid for Gaza.

The BBC says it won't because to do so would place it squarely in the middle of a political argument and debate. In fact, the BBC is prohibited from appearing to take sides in matters of public controversy.

But advocates for the Palestinians say that it is anything but political. The people of Gaza need aid and the BBC is hiding behind a thin veneer of neutrality to avoid being tagged as anti-Israel.

Peter Preston in The Guardian writes about the need for the BBC to step up and do the right thing.

Others such as Andrew Roberts writing in The Times of London claim that the charities who want to run ads on the BBC have a clear record of being anti-Israel.

What we have here is a replication of the Israeli-Palestinian conflict continued in other places.

While I empathize with the BBC's desire to avoid unnecessary accusations of bias, there is another issue here: how can the media in general and public broadcasting in particular use its influence to benefit societies in conflict?

My instincts as an Ombudsman naturally went to support the BBC's position.

But surely there must be a better way for the media to play a constructive role.

My modest proposal is for the BBC to allow the public service announcement for Gazan relief from Oxfam and other like-minded organizations, alongside a plea from the Board of Deputies of British Jews to solicit funds for the victims of Hamas rocket attacks in southern Israel. Seems simple, no?

In the Middle East, too often western interests and biases - both pro-Arab and pro- Israel have claimed the moral high ground. By not carrying the appeals for Gazan relief, the BBC appears defensive and trying to avoiding the usual accusations of pro-Arab bias.

Perhaps the BBC needs to stop being an enabler for one side or the other and look beyond to the deeper traumatic wounds that both Arabs and Israelis carry.

The late psychoanalyst Heinz Kohut talked about how victims of trauma continue to revisit their wounds - not to eradicate them - but to relive them. Supporters of both Palestinians and Israelis continue to deepen the trauma by reliving it. Kohut, who treated Holocaust victims believed that the experience of trauma leads to what he called "shame/rage" - shame for enduring the trauma in the first place and rage as a reaction to the violence the victims endured.

The BBC is right not to be an enabler of this recurrent cycle of "shame/rage." But it is hard for those who have invested so much in the trauma to give it up.

As Freud wisely observed - people have difficulty giving up things that give them pleasure, even when those things are harmful to them.

An American Liberation

The Bloor Cinema in Toronto is a slightly down-at-the-heels rep movie house in the University of Toronto neighborhood. It shows a lot of old films that are still worth seeing and some that are first run films as well. It smells like teen spirit from the 1960s. Lax Canadian marijuana laws also help.

On Inauguration Day, the movie house which can hold 1000 people, was taken over by Democrats Abroad. The feed from CNN would be shown on the big screen. Doors were open at 10:30 am, but by 9:30 when we got there, the line went around the block. It was only around 10º F but clear and no wind.

We stood in the freezing cold line. Usually movie lines in Canada are quiet and restrained. But this was a little bit of America in wintry Toronto. We talked with a couple from Kansas and California, a Ph.D. candidate who spent 7 years at UCLA (what’s the rush to finish?), a woman from New York who moved to Ottawa in 1970 and fled both her husband and the grim Canadian capital to move to a more amenable Toronto and a South African woman who lived in Connecticut and got US citizenship while she was there. We exchanged stories about what brought us to this place, our time in the US, why we all wished we were in Washington, DC on this day especially.

Up and down the line, there was a guy with a drum yelling “O-Ba-Ma” over and over again. Another selling love beads and Obama buttons. Local coffee shops did a brisk business. Capitalism is alive and well in Toronto.

Finally we got in, along with local tv crews who for some reason only interviewed black people: “How does it feel?" Thus confirming Walter Lippmann’s axiom that journalism is indeed a refuge for the vaguely talented...

The place was filled to capacity and there were concerns that the fire department would shut it down if more people tried to get in. CNN in all its hype and splendor was on the screen. When Dick Cheney or George W. Bush appeared, loud boos and hisses from the crowd. Barack and Michelle Obama were loudly cheered. No neutrality and few Republicans here.

There was also a screen on the sidewall where you could send text messages and they would be projected there. Interesting populist cyber-dynamic. The messages were as you might expect – emotional and powerful.

The US Consul-General tried to say a few words, but his timing wasn’t great. He started speaking just as Barack Obama came out on the dais on from of the Capitol. The crowd yelled at him to stop. The diplomat sensed the mood of the crowd and quickly withdrew. CNN's audio feed was immediately restored. The crowd cheered some more.

When President Obama was finally sworn in, every one in the cinema literally went crazy! One woman just in front of us was weeping and collapsed and had to be carried out.

We cried too and felt as close as we could to the event. We thought of all the people we knew in the US, and all of us who lived through the Bush years. It's not an accurate comparison, but as a recovering historian, I couldn't avoid the thought:
is this how people in Europe might have felt at the Liberation in 1945?

The "Vast Wasteland" of Television

In 1961, President Kennedy's newly appointed head of the Federal Communication Commission, Newton Minow addressed the annual convention of the National Association of Broadcasters on May 9, 1961. It became known as the "Vast Wasteland" speech as Minow, excoriated the state of commercial tv of the day. Minow is still an advocate for good television as well as a practicing lawyer in Chicago. During the election campaign he declared himself a Barack Obama supporter.

It's worth re-reading.


Thank you for this opportunity to meet with you today. This is my first public address since I took over my new job. It may also come as a surprise to some of you, but I want you to know that you have my admiration and respect.

I admire your courage--but that doesn't mean I would make life any easier for you. Your license lets you use the public's airwaves as trustees for 180 million Americans. The public is your beneficiary. If you want to stay on as trustees, you must deliver a decent return to the public--not only to your stockholders. So, as a representative of the public, your health and your product are among my chief concerns.

I have confidence in your health. But not in your product. I am here to uphold and protect the public interest. What do we mean by "the public interest?" Some say the public interest is merely what interests the public. I disagree.

When television is good, nothing--not the theater, not the magazines or newspapers--nothing is better.

But when television is bad, nothing is worse. I invite you to sit down in front of your television set when your station goes on the air and stay there without a book, magazine, newspaper, profit and-loss sheet or rating book to distract you--and keep your eyes glued to that set until the station signs off. I can assure you that you will observe a vast wasteland.

You will see a procession of game shows, violence, audience-participation shows, formula comedies about totally unbelievable families, blood and thunder, mayhem, violence, sadism, murder, western badmen, western good men, private eyes, gangsters, more violence and cartoons. And, endlessly, commercials--many screaming, cajoling and offending. And most of all, boredom. True, you will see a few things you will enjoy. But they will be very, very few. And if you think I exaggerate, try it.
Sentenced to prime time

Is there one person in this room who claims that broadcasting can't do better? Well, a glance at next season's proposed programming can give us little heart. Of 73 1/2 hours of prime evening time, the networks have tentatively scheduled 59 hours to categories of "action-adventure," situation comedy, variety, quiz shows and movies.

Is there one network president in this room who claims he can't do better? Well, is there at least one network president who believes that the other networks can't do better? Gentlemen, your trust accounting with your beneficiaries is overdue. Never have so few owed so much to so many.

Why is so much of television so bad? I have heard many answers: demands of your advertisers; competition for ever-higher ratings; the need always to attract a mass audience; the high cost of television programs; the insatiable appetite for programming material--these are some of them. Unquestionably these are tough problems not susceptible to easy answers.

But I am not convinced that you have tried hard enough to solve them . . . and I am not convinced that the people's taste is as low as some of you assume.
What about the children?

Certainly I hope you will agree that ratings should have little influence where children are concerned. It used to be said that there were three great influences on a child: home, school and church. Today there is a fourth great influence, and you ladies and gentlemen control it.

If parents, teachers and ministers conducted their responsibilities by following the ratings, children would have a steady diet of ice cream, school holidays and no Sunday school. What about your responsibilities? There are some fine children's shows, but they are drowned out in the massive doses of cartoons, violence and more violence. Must these be your trademarks?

Let me make clear that what I am talking about is balance. You will get no argument from me if you say that, given a choice between a western and a symphony, more people will watch the western. I like westerns and private eyes too--but a steady diet for the whole country is obviously not in the public interest. We all know that people would more often prefer to be entertained than stimulated or informed. But your obligations are not satisfied if you look only to popularity as a test of what to broadcast. You are not only in show business; you are free to communicate ideas as well as relaxation. You must provide a wider range of choices, more diversity, more alternatives. It is not enough to cater to the nation's whims--you must also serve the nation's needs.

And I would add this--that if some of you persist in a relentless search for the highest rating and the lowest common denominator, you may very well lose your audience.

I want to make clear some of the fundamental principles which guide me.

First: The people own the air. They own it as much in prime evening time as they do at 6 o'clock Sunday morning. For every hour that the people give you, you owe them something. I intend to see that your debt is paid with service.

Second: I think it would be foolish and wasteful for us to continue any worn-out wrangle over the problems of payola, rigged quiz shows and other mistakes of the past. There are laws on the books, which we will enforce. But there is no chip on my shoulder.

Third: I believe in the free enterprise system. I want to see broadcasting improved and I want you to do the job. I am proud to champion your cause. It is not rare for American businessmen to serve a public trust. Yours is a special trust because it is imposed by law.

Fourth: I will do all I can to help educational television. There are still not enough educational stations, and major centers of the country still lack usable educational channels.

Fifth: I am unalterably opposed to governmental censorship. There will be no suppression of programming which does not meet with bureaucratic tastes.

Sixth: I did not come to Washington to idly observe the squandering of the public's airwaves. I believe in the gravity of my own particular sector of the New Frontier. There will be times perhaps when you will consider that I take myself or my job too seriously. Frankly, I don't care if you do.

Now, how will these principles be applied? Clearly, at the heart of the FCC's authority lies its power to license, to renew or fail to renew, or to revoke a license. As you know, When your license comes up for renewal, your performance is compared with your promises. I understand that many people feel that in the past licenses were often renewed pro forma. I say to you now: Renewal will not be pro forma in the future. There is nothing permanent or sacred about a broadcast license.

But simply matching promises and performance is not enough. I intend to do more. I intend to find out whether the people care. I intend to find out whether the community which each broadcaster serves believes he has been serving the public interest. You must re-examine some fundamentals of your industry. You must open your minds and open your hearts to the limitless horizons of tomorrow.

I can suggest some words that should serve to guide you:

Television and all who participate in it are jointly accountable to the American public for respect for the special needs of children, for community responsibility, for the advancement of education and culture, for the acceptability of the program materials chosen, for decency and decorum in production, and for propriety in advertising. This responsibility cannot be discharged by any given group of programs, but can be discharged only through the highest standards of respect for the American home, applied to every moment of every program presented by television. Program materials should enlarge the horizons of the viewer, provide him with wholesome entertainment, afford helpful stimulation, and remind him of the responsibilities which the citizen has toward his society.

These words are not mine. They are yours. They are taken literally from your own Television Code. They reflect the leadership and aspirations of your own great industry. I urge you to respect them as I do.

We need imagination in programming, not sterility; creativity, not imitation; experimentation, not conformity; excellence, not mediocrity. Television is filled with creative, imaginative people. You must strive to set them free.

The power of instantaneous sight and sound is without precedent in mankind's history. This is an awesome power. It has limitless capabilities for good--and for evil. And it carries with it awesome responsibilities--responsibilities which you and I cannot escape.

I urge you to put the people's airwaves to the service of the people and the cause of freedom.

Can Minority Journalists Be Trusted?

That's the buzz around the internet after the Obama election and inauguration.

Specifically an article in the Los Angeles Times questions whether Jeff Johnson
of BET can find the "balance between emotionality and objectivity."

"There's been so much talk about the black journalist, about is this something that a black journalist can cover with a level of integrity, or are all black journalists just drinking the Kool-Aid, celebrating Barack Obama before he won," said Johnson, according to the Times.

Aside from the implicit racism in the question (and who posed it, by the way?), there remains, after all this time, a sense that some stories are so emotionally charged, that assignments are best meted out to those reporters who are "mature enough" to handle them.

This was SOP for most news organization. One of the worst offenders in this attitude was the New York Times which until relatively recently, would not assign Jewish reporters to the Middle East. Tom Friedman broke that barrier when he was assigned first to Beirut then Jerusalem in the 1980s.

This concern about minority journalists' perceived cultural biases still infects many newsrooms. It also confirms that in many places, the news culture is still insufficiently diverse.

Yet there is an legitimate issue about managing bias. Newsroom managers need to know how to distinguish between a bias which is partisanship and a bias which can help inform the story. An African-American reporter may have a better appreciation of some cultural issues which can deepen the audience's understanding. A Jewish reporter can convey the anxieties of a community better than some others. A Muslim reporter can do likewise. But minority journalists also have legitimate concerns that they will only get the big assignments when called upon to "explain what those people are thinking."

And it's important for an editor and a manager to get a sense of when a reporter may be getting too close to a source or buying into the spin. That's when management needs to take a bold step and reassign the reporter. A hard but necessary decision.

If the ethical and professional standards of a news operation are clear and consistently applied, then a news organization can assign as it sees fit without fear of being accused of discrimination or insensitivity. Readers, listeners and viewers who have strong feelings about a story may suspect the integrity of a news organization just because of who is assigned.

Having a prominently displayed ethics guide and/or the services of an ombudsman can often help allay these fears.

Why Media Organizations Should Be More Like McDonald's

In the January 11, 2009 Sunday New York Times' Business Section, an article on McDonald's is worth reading for a number of reasons. Newspapers especially might take note.

Entitled "The Happiest Meal: Hot Profits," the article by Andrew Martin related how McDonald's went through several years of declining revenues, questionable service and a public relations nightmare due to attacks from animal rights advocates like PETA and documentaries accusing McDonald's of contributing to the epidemic of obesity in America.

McDonald's over extended itself by creating thousands of new franchises and by offering products that people didn't want.

Due to their CEO, Jim Skinner who rose through the ranks, McDonald's is now one of only two companies in the food industry that made a profit last year. Shares reached their highest level in history last August - $67. Even with the stock market collapse, it's still only a few dollars below its all time high.

How did McDonald's do it?

According to the Times, McDonald's went back to basics - offering fewer products by all of a consistent high quality that people knew and wanted.

McDonald's also changed their availability and access - stores opening earlier, staying open later and offering white meat only chicken which Americans want - in addition to the usual burgers.

The company also made the restaurants cleaner and more attractive with a staff that was trained to provide better service.

How can media organizations learn from this?

Recent staff cuts at NPR might be a clue. Over the past few years, NPR expanded its range of programs in the hope that the public would accept them. But they didn't. And a downturn in corporate underwriting meant that NPR would have to kill two programs and lay off about 7% of its staff.

NPR's reputation was built on providing high quality news and information in a format that is accessible (radio) and unique (excellent journalism). When NPR deviated from that, the audience did not follow.

The same could be true of newspapers now laying off workers while attempting to attract new readers by offering their product online. It doesn't seem to be working.

The Toronto Globe and Mail has just offered buy-outs to 80 members of its staff - about 10% of its employees. Publisher Philip Crawley has said that 80 positions may still not be enough and more layoffs are possible.

Newspapers around the world are being faced with similar stark choices: lay off the most useful and experienced employees or run the risk of not surviving at all.

But McDonald's also had to downsize - closing thousands of franchises that it opened over the past years. But it seems to have found a route to success. It has, says the Times, "reinvented itself by putting quality ahead of expansion."

Memo to the editor: you want fries with that?

Stuff Journalists Like

Stuff Journalists Like is a blatant ripoff of Stuff White People Like.

Nevertheless, it has some scarily familiar tropes. Thanks to Ryerson Journalism professor and colleague Janice Neil for pointing it out.

(It's true...I still have all my press passes).

Ad Free Public Broadcasting? Vive la France!

In English speaking countries, the debate over advertising on public broadcasting is a long debate. Many think that public broadcasting is an entitlement that should be funded by the government.

In the UK, the BBC is an advertising free zone with funding coming from a license fee paid annually by everyone who owns a radio or a television set. This is now up to £200 a year!

In the US, public broadcasting raises money from "underwriting." This is pubcasting-speak for restrained advertising. Plus of course, from viewers like you. There are important differences between public television and public radio, due to the economy of scale of the media. Public television relies more heavily on the Corporation for Public Broadcasting - the Congressional funding mechanism. Public radio much less.

In Canada, CBC TV has ads. CBC Radio does not. The annual government allocation is still around Cdn$1b.

In France, public tv has ads. Lots of them and often quite witty.

Last week, workers at French Television held a one day walk out protesting AGAINST the proposal by the Sarkozy government to eliminate all ads and to replace the revenue with an annual government allocation.

To my "anglo-saxon" sensibility, this protest seems counter-intuitive. Surely, our colleagues at French TV would prefer not to have their programming sullied by the commercial scramble for lucre.

"Au contraire," they say. The unions say that fewer ads would mean fewer jobs. The government's response is that French TV should be more like BBC TV. But the BBC must pursue the usual menu of reality entertainment and popular fare in order to justify the expensive license fee.

French TV is back on the air for now, but the issue is unresolved. And the question remains for all public broadcasters who chase ratings: is public broadcasting just commercial broadcasting that is government funded? And if so, why?