A way to save newspapers?

My own newspaper, the Commercial Appeal, keeps announcing cuts. First they cut staff.  Now they are cutting content and relying more on local non-journalist residents to contribute fluff.  A local media blog, Mediaverse, wonders when the CA will stop printing on Mondays and Tuesdays altogether. This approach seems crazy to me. You lose readers so you cut content, which means you lose more readers, which means you’ve got to cut more content. And soon you don’t have a printed newspaper anymore.

Columnist Leonard Pitts warned in a story in March that the demise of the local paper will mean the undoing, in many ways, of the fourth estate.

…only the local paper performs the critical function of holding accountable the mayor, the governor, the local magnates and potentates, for how they spend your money, run your institutions, validate or violate your trust. If newspapers go, no other entity will have the wherewithal to do that. Which means the next Rod Blagojevich gets away with it. The next Kilpatrick is never caught. The next Diaz and Rivero laugh all of the way to the bank. And the next Freddie Pitts and Wilbert Lee, two innocent men saved from death row by the indefatigable reporting of the Miami Herald’s Gene Miller, are executed.

You can read the whole story here. Of course, one could argue that if these papers go online, perhaps even thrive there, they can still do their job without ink. Maybe. But as I have said before, I don’t want to read the news online. I mean really read, page by page, article by article, the way I do now with the Commercial Appeal. I don’t want turn on my computer at 5:30 am, nor my TV.  My choice, in such a case, would be a Kindle, I suppose. That would be the least invasive, most print-like alternative.

Fortunately, just as I had about given up hope, a story emerged (in my paper) about how some newspapers could switch to a new business model and operate as non-profits, as public broadcasting stations do. I find that intriguing.

Nonprofit status floated as newspapers’ lifeline

By Andrew Miga, Associated Press
Thursday, May 7, 2009

WASHINGTON — One way to save some of the nation’s struggling newspapers would be to let them become nonprofits similar to public broadcasting stations, a senator said Wednesday as editors and other journalists painted a grim future for daily print journalism.

“We need to save our community newspapers and the investigative journalism they provide,” Sen. Ben Cardin, D-Md., told a subcommittee of the Senate’s Commerce Committee.

Under a bill proposed by Cardin, newspapers turning to nonprofit status would no longer be able to make political endorsements but could report on all issues, including political campaigns. Advertising and subscription revenue would be tax-exempt, and contributions to support coverage could be tax deductible.

The proposal would allow newspapers to operate under the same Internal Revenue Service status that is used by churches, hospitals, educational institutions, public broadcasting and other nonprofit institutions, said Cardin.

Cardin has said that his aim is to preserve local newspapers, not large newspaper conglomerates. He said his bill does not constitute a government bailout for newspapers.

Former Washington Post managing editor Steve Coll said he supports the proposal, but he does not think many newspapers would be able to change to nonprofit status.

“This approach is certainly no panacea,” Coll said in written testimony submitted to the panel. “Even in the best case, very few of them can be expected to make this transition to nonprofit strategies.”

Former Baltimore Sun reporter and TV series producer David Simon told the panel that media outlets such as newspapers need to discover a new economic model to survive and thrive.

“High-end journalism is dying in America, and unless a new economic model is achieved, it will not be reborn on the Web or anywhere else,” Simon said.

I guess I have always found it a little odd that something as important as journalism could owe its life to car dealer ads. Yet, it is a model that has worked for centuries. Still, elevating journalism to the status of education, churches, and hospitals might be good, if expensive. One thing’s for sure, a newspaper with nothing in it isn’t worth paying for or advertising in. Content has got to be the first priority.