A Commentary by Doug Draper
I get sick and tired of reading these stories about newspapers being gutted by corporate vultures across this continent.
One more once-proud newspaper going to the corporate barons' slaughter house.
I also get sick and tired of those in our communities who pretend to lament the passage of the newspaper as it was, yet continue to purchase a shelled-out piece of crap of that paper, served upby the corporatists anyway.
They bitch and complain, but come up with all kinds of excuses for continuing to purchase what has become a piece of crap – because it still has the obits in it, it is the only game in town, a while back they ran my letter to the editor, etc., etc.
All they are doing is perpetuating the death of good newspapers and allowing for the death of our democracy to the extent that it depends on a free press. Did you ever stop to think about why the worst kinds of dictators in countries like Iran, North Korea or the former Nazi Germany wanted to shut down independent newspapers? Did you?!!!!!
So when are you going to start fighting back against the corporate owners of the media to get resources to properly cover news in our community back?
I am posting the following story about the fight journalists at The Indianapolis Star in the United States are engaged in to save news resources there. It is but the latest sad account and one that I can relate to going back to our fight for news resources at The St. Catharines Standard in the late 1990s and one that we lost. Ever since then, I have heard enough people to make up the population of a municipality in Niagara complain about how bad the newspaper has become. Then I ask them if they still get the newspaper. When they say ‘yes’, I reply; ‘Then don’t complain. Did you have members of your family fight in a war?’ If they answer ‘yes’ to that one, I say; ‘What were they fighting for, freedom and democracy” If so, and if you still purchasing newspapers owned by corporations that have eaten their news resources to the bones, you might just as well be pissing on veterans graves.
Here is a story about one the latest holocausts occurring at a newspaper in North America, at once-proud Indianapolis Star. How disgusting!
“Imagine sitting in a room the size of a football field crammed with a battalion of reporters when word begins to circulate: “The grim reaper is on the move.”
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Every few minutes a phone rings to inform someone that management has cut his or her job at The Indianapolis Star. Stunned disbelief, tears and even piercing wails follow as colleagues process the losses.
When the Star laid off 62 people across all its departments last June — the fourth round of Star layoffs since 2008 — the event felt like “two hours of hell,” said Bobby King, a reporter who witnessed the event.
King still reports for the Star and now serves as president of the Indianapolis Newspaper Guild, the union that represents newsroom employees and the janitorial staff. Last week, he helped organize a rally outside the Star’s downtown headquarters.
“We’ve never done anything remotely similar to what you see here,” King said. “The energy reflects the frustration in the newsroom and among the staff about the direction of the paper.”
The local newspaper guild represented 219 employees in January 2008. Layoffs and a hiring freeze have since eliminated 44 percent of those people. Today, Guild-represented employees number 125. The paper now has only a dozen photographers, down from 23. The number of copy editors has dropped from 26 to 15 and editorial writers have been halved from eight to four.
On top of the layoffs, Star employees endured unpaid furloughs totaling 4 percent of guild workers’ 2009 pay, a 10 percent salary cut in their most recent two-year contract and a proposal to outsource page design and copy editing jobs to a regional Gannett hub in Louisville, Ky.
Then, last week, the staff received a memo from Gannett corporate management in McLean, Va., announcing another round of furloughs. The unpaid time off would not affect guild members, but the sting was strong enough to provoke reaction.
Last week dozens of the paper’s employees spent their lunch hour picketing in front of the Star’s downtown headquarters. The chants included calls of “Shame on You!” “More news, less greed!” and “Save the Star.”
After picketing, the crowd rallied around a handful of speakers.
“I’m proud to be a journalist,” said reporter John Russell, who was recognized as Indiana Journalist of the Year by the Society of Professional Journalists for breaking the story of unethical dealings between Duke Energy and the Indiana Utility Regulatory Commission.
“I’m proud to be an officer in your guild. But every week that goes by, I’m a little more ashamed of Gannett and what they’re doing to journalism.”
Gannett’s Chief Executive Craig Dubow’s salary totaled $9.4 million last year — twice as much as the combined salaries of the 125 people the guild represents, according to King. When Dubow left the company this fall due to disability, his retirement package was estimated at $37 million.
“Is it fair for the CEO to leave with $37 million while we take less and less and less?” Russell asked. “We’re here to say that’s wrong.”
The guild, which has a dues-paying membership of about 80 percent of all the employees it represents — including reporters, photographers, copy editors, researchers, page designers and custodial staff — met with Star management following the rally.
“We’re concerned about our families’ economic situation and we’re concerned about the future of the newspaper,” King said. “We’re not asking for the moon — just the 10 percent back from two years ago and cost-of-living raises of 3 percent a year.”
When asked for comment, Star Publisher Karen Crotchfelt offered a brief response via email.
“We are currently engaged in the process of collective bargaining and fully intend to respect and honor that process,” Crotchfelt wrote.
“We also are looking forward to reaching a new contract with the Union as soon as possible. However, because we are currently engaged in negotiations it would not be appropriate or proper to discuss in detail our negotiations with the Union.”
Guild members worry that the company’s consolidation plans may portend additional cuts to the Indianapolis newsroom — a fear Gannett’s furlough memo did not allay.
Materials accompanying the memo, reviewed by NUVO, note “as we continue to consolidate some operations to achieve greater efficiencies there will be some position eliminations as our normal course of business.”
A recent research report from J.P. Morgan analysts helps to summarize the pressure on Gannett executives to cut newsroom costs, though it does not mention the disparities between executive and newsroom pay.
“Management reiterated during the (third quarter 2011 earnings) call that it will remain vigilant on costs to help protect profitability, but despite a good track record of cost containment … margins of 16 % fell short of our 16.9 % estimate,” the analysts wrote, noting margins were down about 2 percent from the prior year.
“In our view, the newspaper margin miss may indicate that (Gannett) is finding it increasingly challenging to keep cutting expenses in line with revenue declines, and heightens concern over the company’s ability to protect profitability in 2012 as there has not yet been any meaningful improvement in the print outlook.”
Companies often use reductions in print advertising to justify newsroom cutbacks, though some quantitative research now questions the efficacy of such approaches.
A study authored by professors in the business and journalism schools at the University of Missouri looked at 10 years of financial data for papers of small- to medium-sized newspapers with circulations of 85,000 or less and found that cuts to newsrooms affected news quality.
“If you lower the amount of money spent in the newsroom, then pretty soon the news product becomes so bad that you begin to lose money,” said study co-author Esther Thorson, dean of the Missouri School of Journalism, in an announcement of the study’s release.
On the flipside, said Murali Mantrala, a professor in the business school, “Better news quality drives circulation, and circulation drives advertising revenues.”
In reaction to the cuts sustained at the Star, a group of 15 local religious leaders, including nine reverends, three rabbis, an imam and a bishop wrote a letter of concern to Star executives.
“As leaders in the Indianapolis faith community and readers of your newspaper, we have watched with great concern the declining role of The IndianapolisStar as this city’s most vital and primary source of local news,” they wrote.
“We are also aware of the challenges facing the newspaper industry, yet we are deeply troubled by the pattern of local layoffs and staff pay reductions while executives at Gannett … received large pay raises. … As faith leaders we feel called upon to shine the light of public inquiry on justice issues such as these in our community.”
(Please feel free to post your views on this commentary below. Remember to share you full name here. Without a full name, we won’t post a comment.)
Niagara At Large 
–“terrorists” running neswpapers.
–newspaper buyers are “pissing on veterans graves”.
–News people losing their jobs ia a “holocaust”
Doug try to understand what the terms really mean or stop drinking until you can.
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As a retired journalist and government “flak” I understand what Doug is writing about.
I spent 23 years as a broadcast journalist (radio) and I know that print journalists usually look down on radio people. But when push comes to shove, it is still journalism – and what we see today, for the most part, is NOT good journalism!
The broadcast industry is as bad, or even worse than the print industry! Back in the mid-1970’s, I was news director at a radio station in BC’s Okanagan Valley. We were the only radio station in town. But I had a staff of seven to cover the news. We did a five-minute newscast every hour with a full 10-minute newscast at 8 am, Noon and 6 pm. During the early morning period, we also had five-minute newscasts on the half hour.
Today, many radio stations have only one or two people devoted to news and newscasts run only two to three minutes in length (including the commercials!). Very few actually send reporters to cover their local city council meetings or other key events in the community.
There are few independent radio stations – most belong to one of the four or five major chains. Some have licences for three or four stations in the same market – and will have a news staff of two or three to cover all those stations!
Many young people entering journalism today are focused on becoming television “personalities” rather that good reporters.
Why would a potential reporter bother to learn the craft properly when the bean-counters and executives are eliminating their potential jobs?
The reasons for the decline in journalism, both print and broadcast, are many – but the largest is corporate greed.
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Dear Doug,
I agree with your article on big business gutting the staff and resources of newspapers. Also, the view that such wrecks balanced and inclusive news coverage. Certainly, this downward trend compromises the watchdog aspect of the papers and hence will inevitably lead to a much diminished democracy. Obviously, this sad denuding of newspapers has induced in you a longstanding and admirable passion – as you are an honest, dedicated and independent reporter. And it should be a most serious concern of all thinking citizens. It must be frustrating to see ones own professional medium going downhill. (Such is happening to my profession and its places of work.) I do, however, consider the use of common, vulgar language – pissing, crap, bitch, etc. – so beneath your intellectual dignity and usually high class writing. It could detract from your important message. Some readers well might find it offensive and could thus dismiss or miss your message. That is why I considered writing this to you personally and privately instead of posting it publicly in NAL. But here it is anyway. (Incidentally, I, for one, no longer buy or read any paper. Haven’t for some years. I consider your style and the important topics you address in NAL superior even to the Globe & Mail which I see so many people around me reading and gobbling up.)
The best to you,
Bill Hogg
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I don’t think people read the paper as much as they once did, I know Fox News has a huge following , they are a television version of the communist Soviet inspired ” Pravda,” those people look normal until they open their mouths , I think some insane asylum lost a couple dozen inmates. The Sun here in Canada has Sunshine girls as the hook but they too are nuts, my conclusion is as Jack Nicholson famously said “they can’t stand the truth” he was acting as the Commander of Guantonamo Base in Cuba. he was doing the dirty work for the political masters back in Washington D.C a lot of people like a dose of hypocracy with their coffee and donuts in the morning. and a handy fall guy when the manure hits the fan.
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right on! we are lambs being lead — and while NAL helps by periodically providing insight, it’s Doug Daper’s writing that drive the points – and yes, buying Newspapers is like pissing on vet’s graves. In this capitalist controlled world, maybe the only voice we have is NOT TO BUY THERE B.S.
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Control the media, control the mind. A basic tenet of fascism. The only real sources of news any more seem to be Stewart, Colbert and Mercer. I have friends in the US who I thought were quite intelligent but they watch FOX News and swallow it hook, line and sinker.
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Response to a Niagara at Large https://niagaraatlarge.com/ news headline that screams out: ‘The Death of Democracy in Canada and the United States’! Writer, Doug Draper, expresses his deep concern about the consolidation of newspapers and media being brought under the control of an oligopoly of corporate giants. Draper is correct! The biases of most of the media has become self evident. Thankfully, articles provided through the internet have become a valuable source to counterbalance the mainstream media.
On a blog site called Mayor Gate http://www.mayorgate.blogspot.com/ Alex Davidoff rails against political abuse, corruption and cover-up involving some of the highest officials of government alleging little or no consequence to the perpetrators. This courageous writer has prepared an extensive documentation chronicling specific illegal activities and the subsequent refusal of our leading authorities to do what they were elected or hired to do.
The site http://wwwniagaracorruption.blogspot.com/ posted on November 30, 2008, tells a tale of corruption and gangsterism that one would assume to be found only in third world countries and not in a beautiful little Canadian City like Niagara falls, Ontario. After reading ‘Niagara Corruption’ you might ask yourself; if this article is in fact untrue, where is the lawsuit? Or, where is the outrage? Or, more importantly, what is being done about it?
Readers of the NWC http://www.niagarawinnerscircle.com are already aware of our involvement in addressing public concern with bureaucratic and political machinations. Since 2004 the NWC has been exposing wasteful spending, secrecy, corruption, suppression, undemocratic rules and behaviour, political intrigue and conspiracy etc.
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As a community activist I need to read our local daily newspaper, like it or not. What astounds me the most is the blatant lack of reporting and even more so as of late, a drastic decline in the publication of letters to the editor.
I know from my own close municipal involvement over the last 12 years, news items that never saw the light of day. Even those few news articles that did stuck me as under reported to the point of leaving readers ill-informed.
As for letters to the editor, many times submissions emailed within 24 hours of a news item I wanted to address wasn’t published until a week or more later. The main reason for that was the paper’s refusal to give adequate space to the letters received. More recently, the decline of the number of days a week letters actually do get published strike me more to be due to a poor placement of priorities by either the St. Catharines Standard or their corporate owners, Sun Media. To be fair though, it just might be due to an actual decline in submissions from frustrated, slighted residents like myself. I’ve thrown in the towel.
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As someone currently employed by a newspaper I can say, unequivocally, Doug has hit the nail on the head !!!
While the likes of Warren Buffet are heralded for their business savvy and philanthropy they enforce their economic will upon employees and customers alike by simple omission of important and relevant facts and figures.
When other peoples lives are no longer considered as important as a Company Executives “Golden Parachute”… yeah I think the term “Terrorist” fits the bill just fine!
When freedom of the press is sacrificed there is NO question my WWII decorated father would feel insulted, and YES he himself would use the term “pissing on my (and my comrades) grave”.
As for a “holocaust”…
Here two definitions
1. a great or complete devastation or destruction, especially by fire.
2. a sacrifice completely consumed by fire; burnt offering.
I’ll leave this to any readers’ discretion.
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Slepkov has got a lot of this right. In the past 6 months, I have seen unsigned editorials in the daily (which Doug knows I buy, for much the same reasons as does Bernie), and mangled letters to the editor. I have received personal apologies from the managing editor for one I dared send that was so edited it made no sense. Oops, she said, I’ll have to let my night editor know about this. Don’t bother wtih the blogs as I know they are not being monitored, and there are few at the daily that have any local knowledge anymore.
I use a lot of sources to try to keep myself informed of current world and local events — print, (newspapers and books) ,online, and yes, good old radio. I love this site, especially as it allows individuals with wildly different viewpoints to state their case, as long as they use their real name, and remain polite, something the blogs don’t even come close to doing.
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Use any definition that suits your purpose but we all know what people really mean when they use the word “holocaust”.
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We lose freedoms by increments, step by step. Once people wake up, if they do, they’ll see that an accumulation of all these “little” losses, adds up to a heap of lost freedoms. Getting them back is not easy.
Currently, the U.S, in particular, are losing a tremendous amount of freedoms, And Canada appears content to follow suit, especially if the perception is that we’re pleasing our new “colonial masters’, the U.S.A.
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One almost has to read different publications to take in different points of view. I read the daily here too, but only to extrapolate what local news can come from it. I wish the letters page would continue to publish letters as often as they used to. I also note they have done away with the Community Editorial Board they used to have where many of us writing in this post have served. My advertising in the Standard is no longer payable to The Standard, but now Sun Media Group. It is almost to a point we have to turn to citizen journalism, such as blogs (including this one), various Youtube reporters and other forms of social media to get the true gist of a story.
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Very good statements by both Mark and Angela. We are slowly losing our freedom of the press and usually have to turn to “citizen journalism” and sift through the garbage to find the truth.
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Another point — to Angela Browne’s comments. Yes, there was an Editorial Board at one point where Niagara Voices columnists were invited to find out how the newspaper worked. We were not only were advised about liabaility, editorial/writing pointers, but met many staff to better understand how a newspaper was put together.
All gone now. I am told by phone calls, yes, real calls (which I do appreciate) from the current Managing Editor that the Niagara Voices remains ‘under review’ and they get as many letters to the editor as ever. I find this amazing since few are printed, the 150 word or so limit is often completely ignored, and there are massive column inches taken up by some letter writers, while others are edited to pieces. Or never see the light of day, apparently. Of course, Sun Media columnists reign supreme and are all over the commentary page. On at least one occassion an Editorial column was unsigned. And of course there is no recourse to the Ontario Press Council, as Sun Media has pulled out of it.
No local voices anymore, noticeably fewer letters (what are they doing with all the ones they get and don’t print, one asks?)
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There is something each and everyone of us can do and it is about the last thing that will get the editors attention and you can do what I have been doing and that is to not support any of the businesses that advertise in these rags.
But to make this effective we must all approach these businesses and tell them why we are not buying our supplies from them.
If we can get ten customers telling these places this to them it will have the desired effect, and will eventually mushroom to the point of having these people come around.
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I call the St. Catharines Standard the St. Catharines Sun, as most of the stuff in it is reprint from the Toronto Sun. I don’t mind having the occasional reprint of a top Sun columnist, perhaps once a week or so, because there are some good ones (e.g. Worthington and Blizzard, as examples). I don’t always agree with them, but they both write well. However, I would like to see more local columnists and a return to the Niagara Voices program.
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