Larry L. Rose

Sunday, May 28, 2000

Can you define a newspaper?

The letter was addressed to the editor of a high school newspaper and copied to a few people, including me.
   It congratulated and encouraged the student, and it warned of the perils of journalism.
   Parts of the thoughtful letter were foreign to my experience in five newsrooms. But if a priest holds those perceptions, it's likely others do too.

Libby Averyt: Hateful flier stirs memories of 'love' stories

   "Newspapers are Big Business," the letter writer told the student. "Truth dispensing has moved aside for profit making."
   Are profits bad? Do profits equal falsehood?
   In which businesses and occupations do you believe it's honorable and right not to make a profit?
   Restaurants? Refineries? Hotels? Plumbing? Teaching? Construction? Banking? Insurance? Journalism?
   The presence of the collection plate certainly doesn't mean that truth cannot be dispensed by the organization.
   I asked the Westside Business Association recently for a show of hands in answer to the question, "What is a newspaper?"
   This was a national survey question asked of line-level editors, those who run departments within newsrooms.
   The two answers went something like this: a. The newspaper is a business; b. The newspaper is a watchdog of government and a force for positive social change.
   The Westside Business audience split 50-50 on a and b.
   Interestingly, only 3 percent of editors knew or thought they were working for a business.
   Newspaper journalism is a profession people enter for the reasons in b.
   Good newspapers run a sound business operation. What good to their communities are the hundreds of newspapers that didn't make a profit and went out of business?
   Journalists don't think about profits, as evidenced by the nationwide survey and a 32-year career working alongside journalists and teaching journalists, both students and professionals. Last summer, I introduced a new concept to an editing program that helps minority journalists become editors. The session was called the Business of News. It forces journalists to think about something they don't think about, usually don't want to think about and don't talk about - the importance of having a financially sound company behind them. It makes them aware of the whole company, especially the departments outside the newsroom that do work to make a profit.
   The letter also states: "Today newspapering attracts a new, hungry breed of young reporters. They seek instant celebrity status, and put their own agendas ahead of the true output of truth."
   I've worked with hundreds of reporters and I know of none seeking celebrity status. When one of my former employers, Time Inc., folded the Washington Star, some reporters went to television, so maybe they have a shot at celebrity status. But they're reporters first, and good ones. I did have a broadcast student in college who should have been as serious about journalism as she was about how she looked. But reporters with an agenda! Only one that I know came close. She quickly was fired.
   Imagination sometimes overtakes reality and people fail to think about the newspaper as their associate and neighbor and don't understand all the ways people in the newspaper work for the community.
   Metro Editor Libby Averyt's column a week ago, "Hateful flier stirs memories of 'love' stories/ Articles capturing human spirit help define what journalists are," offers personal insight into why people enter journalism. It's available on-line at caller.com/links. This is what a high school journalist should read. It's reality. And in this space, I can't print the notes and calls from people who are touched by reporters' stories and just want to say, thank you.
   After Libby's column was published, a caller said the complaining flier was about the newspaper's management, not her. She, of course, is one of those newspaper managers.
  

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