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Archive for the month “September, 2016”

14 Sep 2016

The funding gamble at the Arizona Republic

Here’s another newspaper story to follow the last one that I posted. We’re dealing with the same issue – newspapers aren’t getting the revenue that they got in the past, and therefore have to change the way they do things. But while the New York Times chose to decrease its coverage of a particular area, the Arizona Republic chose to increase its coverage. How? By doing things differently:

I’m thrilled to announce the Arizona Community Foundation has given The Arizona Republic and azcentral.com a three-year grant to support in-depth investigative reporting about child welfare in Arizona….

Foundation funding for journalism feels new, but it’s not without precedent, and we believe it holds great promise. The Arizona Community Foundation grant will enable a deeper look than we’ve ever been able to take before, by supporting extra reporting time and resources and multimedia storytelling to explore the problems in new ways.

Our journalism remains independent, as you’ve always expected from The Republic.

But is this truly different?

Think about it. Most newspapers are NOT funded 100% via reader subscriptions. Since day one, newspapers have sold advertisements. I’m sure that the Arizona Republic sold its share of ads to Goldwater’s Department Store. And I’m sure that the politically active members of that family took out political ads that espoused a particular point of view.

However, the revenue from a Barry Goldwater political ad did not mean that the Republic would use that money for Goldwater-related purposes. In this case, the Foundation funds are apparently being allocated to cover child welfare. And although it appears that the Foundation will not be able to name staff to cover the issue, the fact that the Republic has to name somebody to cover the issue does demonstrate a particular allocation of resources.

One could claim that the Republic would cover child welfare anyway, since it’s been doing so for years. And three years isn’t a long time, so presumably they’ll be covering child welfare three years from now.

It will be interesting to see what happens at the end of the three year term. For a variety of reasons, the Foundation could choose to offer or not offer another grant, and the Republic could choose to accept or not accept a grant if offered. But if there is no grant, will activists conclude that the Arizona Republic hates children?

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06 Sep 2016
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The cutback gamble at the New York Times

It’s no secret that these are tough times for firms that process wood, throw ink on it, and send the processed wood to readers. Even the big boys, such as the New York Times, are not immune to economic pressures. So even as papers move their operations online, they also make decisions about where to focus their activities.

If you are a Times subscriber who lives outside of the five boroughs, this will affect you.

The New York Times this week quietly ended its coverage of restaurants, art galleries, theaters and other commercial and nonprofit businesses in the tri-state region, laying off dozens of longtime contributors and prompting protests from many of the institutions that will be affected. They foresee an impact not only on patronage but, in the case of the nonprofits, on their ability to raise funds to survive.

In short, the restaurateurs who have just opened a tony new restaurant on Long Island – one that would be attractive to the average Times reader – can’t count on the Times to enhance their marketing any more.

When I originally saw this article shared by my friends on Facebook, they felt that the Times was shooting themselves in the foot. If the suburbanities can’t get local information from the paper…they’d just go find another paper.

On the other hand, if the Times is concentrating on being a world paper of record, it knows that its readers in Moscow or Beijing aren’t going to care about yet another restaurant in Long Island.

And there are opportunities for others. The article quotes a reviewer from Eater New York, who praised the Times’ local restaurant critic Joanne Starkey. But what wasn’t said – now a lot more people will be visiting Eater New York.

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