Whither Print


Source: AP

It’s far too easy these days to get depressed about the state of journalism. Legacy outlets – especially those that depend on and once thrived in print – are continuing to shrivel. Just this week, word came that National Geographic lost the last of its staff writers and will end newsstand sales next year. Meanwhile, it was also reported that the circulations of the 25 largest U.S. newspapers slipped 14% to just 2.6 million in the year ending in March, accelerating the decline in print that has afflicted most of the nation’s top papers (as well as killed off many of its smaller ones).

And yet, it’s not as if all the news is dire. For one, digital readership continues to grow among the bigger newspapers. As the PressGazette reported, the New York Times Company announced that its digital-only subscriptions rose to 9 million as of the end of the first quarter of 2023, an increase of 8% from a year earlier, even as circulation of its print product slipped 10% to a bit over 296,000. Meanwhile, The Wall Street Journal recorded 3.3 million digital subscribers in March, up from 2.9 million in the final quarter of last year, even as its print circulation slipped 13% to about 609,650.

More to the point, the growth of alternative all-online media outlets seems to be continuing. To take one example, the nonprofit States Newsroom network has spread to operations in 34 states and it is planning an ambitious agenda of coverage of the presidential race. One of my favorite members of the network is the Nebraska Examiner, an operation staffed by prize-winning refugees of the Omaha World-Herald (which, sadly, has shrunk under the ownership of Lee Enterprises).

The Examiner continues to hold the feet of Nebraska politicians to the fire as it covers state government well, just as other members of the States Newsroom network do. Indeed, the outlets arose because local papers were cutting back on their coverage of state government.

Another example of intriguing online efforts is the Flatwater Free Press, which seeks to cover a broader array of subjects of statewide interest. It’s akin to a for-profit operation, The Colorado Sun, a venture staffed mostly by former Denver Post journalists. These outlets don’t cover local news as closely as dying local papers once did (city councils, zoning boards, school boards, etc.), but they do a sterling job on topics of broader interest. Consider this Flatwater piece about the prospects for restricting gender-affirming care and this interesting piece from the Sun about psychedelic drugs.

Zach Wendling, source: Nebraska Examiner


Will these alternative operations ever match the breadth and depth of coverage that metros and local dailies once offered? That seems hardly possible, as their staffs are a fraction of the size of once-robust legions of journalists at the larger papers. And yet, they are providing opportunities for young people who would find few at shriveled print outfits. One of the more productive folks at the Nebraska Examiner, for instance, is still a student at the University of Nebraska-Lincoln, Zach Wendling, whom I was privileged to have in a class. He’s interning among the handful of seasoned veterans at the outlet. (The place employs four staffers and Zach).

Inexorably, the shift away from print will continue, of course. Young people have little or no interest in news on paper and those of us who still like to hold a print product (in my case, magazines including The Atlantic, Harper’s and The New Yorker) are aging out. And nothing compares to the immediacy of the online realm.

Whether that shift will ultimately do in even the biggest names in print remains a huge question mark. Outlets such as the Times and the WSJ are smartly creating lots of alternative products – newsletters and podcasts and such – to keep their edge. But smaller papers are hard-pressed to keep up, especially those owned by vulture-capital-backed chains more focused on milking the papers on the way down rather than growing them or their online efforts. (See the Chicago Tribune, whose average print circulation in the six months up to March slipped 23% to just over 82,000, according to the PressGazette, putting it at ninth place among the top 25 papers. The Tribune is a property of the notorious Alden Global Capital.)

We have long been in a painful period of transition in news, of course. That’s not new to anyone familiar with the business’s decline over the last decade or longer. It may be that the biggest names will endure and innovate their way through. Prospects for the rest seem bleak, even as the outlook for the little online-only innovators seems fairly bright (so long as the public continues to donate to them).

Jeff Jarvis, source: Twitter


Perhaps a new book by Jeff Jarvis will guide us. As its promotional material tells us, “The Gutenberg Parenthesis” traces print from its beginnings to the digital present. Print, we’re told, “was as disruptive as the digital migration of today.” Now, we are immersed in the changes that may make the print era little more a very long parenthesis between pre-print darkness (though still an era filled with creativity) and what has yet to fully reveal itself. He’s mostly optimistic, it seems, though not about the prospects for conventional media, whose virtues and faults he recounts.

“For half a millennium, the mediators of media-editors, publishers, producers- controlled the public conversation,” Jeff writes. “Now we may break free of their gatekeeping, agendas, and scarcities-while at the same time risking the loss of the value these institutions have brought in recommending quality, certifying fact, and supporting creativity. What must we create to replace these functions? The internet finally allows individuals to speak and communities of their own definitions to assemble and act, killing the mass at last. I celebrate the closing of the Mass Parenthesis. As for Gutenberg’s Parenthesis, I do not cheer its end. Instead, I believe this is the moment to honor its existence and all it has brought us, and to learn from it as we enter a next age.”

Fittingly or not, Jeff’s book is on offer in hardback, though I suspect the slightly less costly ebook sales will trump that format ($27 in hardback on Amazon; $14.34 on Kindle).

Let the Sun Shine In

Source: ASU News

Professors at Arizona State University’s honors college were deeply troubled by plans for right-wingers Dennis Prager and Charlie Kirk to speak at a confab last February exploring “Health, Wealth and Happiness.” But their impassioned reaction raises important issues about just what free discourse on a campus means.

“Thirty-nine of [the college’s] 47 faculty signed a letter to the dean condemning the event on grounds that the speakers are ‘purveyors of hate who have publicly attacked women, people of color, the LGBTQ community, [and] institutions of our democracy,’ event organizer Ann Atkinson writes in The Wall Street Journal. “The signers decried ASU ‘platforming and legitimating’ their views, describing Messrs. Prager and Kirk as ‘white nationalist provocateurs’ whose comments would undermine the value of democratic exchange by marginalizing the school’s most vulnerable students.”

Despite that faculty outcry, the event, sponsored by the college’s T.W. Lewis Center for Personal Development, attracted 1,500 people in person and 24,000 online, according to Atkinson. She described the talks as part of a speaker series connecting students with professionals for career and life advice.

Now, in the wake of the flap, however, the university is shutting down the center, effective June 30. Atkinson, an alum of the college who made her name and fortune in healthcare real estate investing, will lose her job. And, in the WSJ piece, headlined “I paid for free speech at Arizona State,” she slams the university for its “deep hostility toward divergent views.” She concludes that “ASU claims to value freedom of expression. But in the end the faculty mob always wins against institutional protections for free speech.”

Among universities nationwide, ASU is hardly alone in battles over whether some speakers are simply beyond the pale. Debates over visitors of all stripes have roiled campuses from Princeton in the east to Stanford in the west. For a bit of detail, see “What Are the Limits of Free Speech?” While conservative speakers have been at the center of most of the hubbub, the occasional left-winger has slipped in, as happened at the CUNY law school with a pro-Palestinian’s vitriolic talk condemning Israel, capitalism and a host of other bogeymen. See “A Commencement Rant Suggests Poor Schooling.”

The brouhahas raise plenty of questions for anyone interested in open exchange on colleges. They go to the heart of what freedom of speech is and isn’t.

Here are a few such questions: At what point are faculty members being too protective of students in wanting to shut out speakers whose views — no doubt — will offend many? Are students so vulnerable that they should be shielded from obnoxious views? Would they be exposed to noxious notions through the Internet and other venues anyway? And is there anything preventing faculty from criticizing the speakers, essentially turning their appearances into teachable moments, occasions for poking holes in the most outrageous arguments?

Many provocative speakers – on both the left and right – are hardly unique or original in their views. Their opinions percolate about in the zeitgeist, almost always for ill, and are rarely avoided. Indeed, the ideas espoused by some of them have become mainstream in some partisan talking points in the already boiling presidential race.

Is it better to ban such folks or to have faculty members whom students respect intellectually disembowel them? Will reprehensible views go away when a campus here or a campus there simply bars the advocates? And does welcoming such folks reflect badly on a given campus, especially if the purpose of the invitation is for smarter folks to defenestrate their arguments?

Dennis Prager, source: The Daily Beast

Let’s stipulate that radio host Prager has outraged many folks. He condemned Covid lockdowns, lambasted same-sex marriage, and even criticized a Muslim congressman for using the Quran instead of the Bible in a swearing-in ceremony. Raised in an Orthodox Jewish household, Prager extols Judeo-Christian traditions above all others, a view that resonates with some but would hardly play well in much of the world outside of the West (indeed in most of the world, in sheer population numbers).

Charlie Kirk, source: The Chronicle of Higher Education

Similarly, let’s acknowledge that Kirk, the founder of Turning Point USA, seems like a throwback to an idealized 1950s. His attacks on feminism and “the transgender agenda” – whatever that is — likely appear wacky to many folks, though not to the future “trad wives” who attended sessions such as the recent Young Women’s Leadership Summit, held fittingly in Texas. Attendees heard about buying tampons and beauty products and other items from companies that market themselves as pro-Christian or anti-woke, as a Washington Post writer noted.

But are campuses, in fact, doing a disservice to their students and larger communities when they prevent them from airing their odd views? There’s no doubt that some views and some speakers are intolerable – one thinks of leaders of the KKK and Nazis on the right and some pro-Palestinian speakers on the left, of course. And attacking folks for their race, religion or sexual orientation in general should keep some speakers off limits.

But even in some of those areas, is it not risky to shut off discussion? For instance, the arguments for and against Critical Race Theory would seem to deserve a full airing. And, when it comes to religion, should there not be room for talking about, say, whether images deemed inappropriate by some Muslims should be shut out of art classes? And would discussions of cults benefit from the airing of such documentaries as Shiny Happy People, a critical exploration of a form of Christianity that some defend but others find odd and dangerous?

As to sexual orientation, many on the right are making hay of attacking homosexuality and transgenderism these days. Some folks, succumbing to the demagoguery of the day, apparently don’t or won’t grasp that respecting gays and transgender folks seems like basic decency. Should there not be room for education about such matters, even if it comes in a debate or counter-programming involving a Kirk or a Prager?

Plenty of odd and disturbing views are coursing through a troubled America nowadays, but it seems that campuses could harm students by not letting them get a full –- and critical — airing. Put them under the microscope, expose them to the hot lights of bright academics. Instead of banning the advocates, would we not be better off pitting them against intelligent opponents in settings where the vacuousness of their ideas could be exposed?

Yes, that is admittedly “platforming” them, as the ASU faculty noted. But have the Internet and social media not already platformed them far more effectively, giving people only one side of the story? Are campuses immune to noxious ideas just because they aren’t delivered in person?

Free speech is often not pretty. But does one defeat ugly ideas by simply shutting off some of the outlets in which exponents could espouse them? Would it not be better to expose racism, hypocrisy, venality, ignorance and such for what they are, holding them up to scrutiny on an enlightened campus?

Letting Kirk and Prager and their ilk speak while showing up the bankruptcy of their ideas would not win over all students. For evidence of their appeal, just look at their popularity in off-campus venues. Still, an intellectual free-for-all would offer a chance to win over the sharper students. There is such a thing as a battle of ideas, and these days the best ideas must be allowed to win.

Journalism in Many Forms

Richard Harding Davis, Source: Wikipedia

As I walked my dog down 21st Street in Center City Philadelphia the other night, a plaque on an otherwise undistinguished townhouse grabbed my eye. The place, it said, was the boyhood home of Richard Harding Davis, an exceptional fin de siecle author and journalist whose work would humble most modern reporters.

Davis covered six wars, including the Spanish-American War, the Boer War and World War I. Strains from his war correspondence may have contributed to a heart attack that killed him just shy of age 52, , according to the report of his death in 1916 in The New York Times, His adventures got him arrested a few times as he ventured to the British and French fronts, even though he backed the Allies.

By today’s standards, Davis would hardly be called an objective observer. His forte was Yellow Journalism, the sort that provoked anti-Spanish sentiments in the U.S., particularly with reporting about Cuba. Apparently happy with his sympathetic coverage, Col. Teddy Roosevelt regarded Davis as a close friend and had made him an honorary member of the Rough Riders, the regiment Roosevelt led in the Cuban campaign. Before his adventures covering various wars, in one of his earliest reporting jobs, Davis put on what the Times called “rough clothing” to gain the confidence of burglars in a saloon, proving to be instrumental in the arrests of several of them.

Much of the journalism of his day was opinionated and its practices would never fly today. And Davis also ventured into areas where opinion and points of view were the explicit stock-in-trade. He served as managing editor of Harper’s Weekly in the mid-1890s, for instance. Moving beyond fact-based work, he also wrote a bevy of books and plays, including a long list of pieces that were turned into movies.

Over the decades since, plenty of reporters have turned their hands to books, of course, including both fiction and nonfiction. Ernest Hemingway’s early days in newspapering shaped his later writing (coincidentally Hemingway developed an affection for Cuba, much as Davis did decades before). More recently, so-called New Journalism practitioners such as Joan Didion blended fiction and nonfiction to write revealingly about American culture. The New York Times recently shed light on some of Didion’s experiences and views in the polarized 1960s.

Joan Didion

And former journalists, such as David Simon of The Wire fame, have used the skills they developed in newspapers to enormous advantage. TV has benefitted richly from him and his likes.

Journalists who hew more closely to observable facts (and accounts by insiders involved in events) include such names as Bob Woodwardwhose non-newspaper work may not equal Davis’ output in volume but certainly does in impact. Others of this sort are Jane MayerJohn Carreyrou and Janet Malcolm. Many such folks have worked for outlets of varying sorts. New York Times senior writer David Leonhardt, for instance, won awards at BusinessWeek before going on to win a Pulitzer Prize at the Times. So far, he has authored two books, including a fresh take on the American economy.

Despite the prominence today of such star journalists and former journalists, one wonders about the future. Will it include more of the distinguished work of the sort they’ve done or less; more such star writers or fewer? They forged their skills in news outlets now under siege by economics, the rise of social media, cable TV and distractions of all sorts. Where will tomorrow’s writers hone their skills?

It’s hard to be optimistic at a time of such ferment in media. Certainly, the output of today’s stars is impressive. And, no doubt, some of the stars of tomorrow are toiling away now in news operations that hang on all across the country. But how long we will get to enjoy them, and how brightly they will shine in coming years, is anyone’s guess.

Decades hence, plaques may be placed on the childhood homes of some of today’s stars. Will folks walking by such places have journalists then working, using similar talents, to think about?

A Commencement Rant Suggests Poor Schooling

A sweet-smiling, freshly minted CUNY Law School grad triggered an international outcry with an impassioned commencement address that attacked Israel, capitalism, the New York Police Department and a host of other bogeymen. While celebrating the achievements of what a New York Times writer called “a small, modestly ranked law school in Queens,” Fatima Mousa Mohammed, 24, provoked the ire first of the New York Post (which drew global attention to her talk with a cover piece headlined “Stark Raving Grad” two weeks after the May 12 event).

Mohammed’s talk lasted less than 13 minutes and can be seen in its entirety here. As any viewer can see, she liked tossing verbal bombs, even as she condemned real ones – at least those fired by one side.

“Israel continues to indiscriminately rain bullets and bombs on worshippers, murdering the old, the young, attacking even funerals and graveyards, as it encourages lynch mobs to target Palestinian homes and businesses, as it imprisons its children, as it continues its project of settler colonialism, expelling Palestinians from their homes, carrying the ongoing nakba, that our silence is no longer acceptable,” she said in her most fiery phrases.

Riding the storm she generated, the Post has run a long strand of pieces covering reaction to Mohammed’s invective. Politicians ranging from Mayor Eric Adams (also a target of Mohammed’s talk) to Ted Cruz have decried her remarks, as other media outlets piled on (see the Daily MailThe Times of IsraelFox NewsNational ReviewThe Chronicle of Higher Education). For a more sympathetic account, check out Aljazeera.

Some of the critics probed Mohammed’s social history to find such gems as her wishing in May 2021 that “every Zionist burn in the hottest pit of hell.” In her commencement talk, she praised BDS and the support given it at CUNY Law, the sort of hook that almost made her comments relevant to the event (though that was a stretch).

For their part, the chancellor and trustees of CUNY, in a brief statement, slammed Mohammed for “hate speech.” They lambasted her “public expression of hate toward people and communities based on their religion, race or political affiliation.” And they added: “This speech is particularly unacceptable at a ceremony celebrating the achievements of a wide diversity of graduates, and hurtful to the entire CUNY community, which was founded on the principle of equal access and opportunity.”

Calls went out to defund the law school. Indeed, some politicians called for New York’s governor to withhold public funds from any CUNY campus allowing incendiary rhetoric at university events. In turn, this has provoked the ire of free-speech advocates such as the Foundation for Individual Rights and Expression (FIRE).

Was Mohammed’s talk repugnant, inaccurate, unfair, mostly baseless, etc.? No doubt. While she attacked Israelis, could she not spare a phrase condemning Palestinians for killing a British-Israeli mother and daughter in April? That attack prompted Israel to retaliate by killing the assailants. Indeed, any honest account of the Israel-Palestinian conflict would have to address both sides in a very ugly and long conflict.

Mistaken as she was in so many ways, it is nonetheless understandable for someone to want to defend her community. But, as a lawyer supposedly trained to see all sides of an argument, she left glaring gaps in a one-sided tirade that had all the nuance of a freshman diatribe. It fell far short of what one might expect from a law school graduate. If they watched the spectacle dispassionately, CUNY Law faculty members would find little to be proud of in Mohammed or in the training they gave her.

Still, the contretemps offers an important lesson for media and the academy. Free speech is messy and may include ignorance, bias and many other ugly things. But, as FIRE argued in its letter, “At CUNY, if the university punished speech that is anti-Israel, it would open the door to punish speech that is anti-Palestinian, anti-conservative, anti-liberal, and more.”

The extensive coverage, particularly by some of the more level-headed outlets on the right, suggests that the best response to the ignorance Mohammed demonstrated is intelligent speech. With her vile remarks, Mohammed has given her school quite a black eye and shown how poorly CUNY and other schools she attended have served her. It may be that a hard look at CUNY Law is warranted and one would hope the press – on all sides – would provide that. If her talk serves any useful purpose, it would be in triggering such examinations.