Last Updated: December 29, 2000
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An American Editor
Working toward a ‘great’ goal
Jay Harris has his sights set on building “the next
great American newspaper” in San Jose
By Arlene Notoro Morgan
Jay Harris has been publisher of the San Jose Mercury News since
February 1994.
During his tenure, the Mercury News has been a leader in the development
of on-line newspapers, and in the coverage of high technology, technology
businesses and the impact of new technologies on the Silicon Valley community.
Harris championed the paper’s increased coverage of its increasingly diverse
community. The paper’s current and former executive editors, David Yarnold
and Jerry Ceppos, and its editor, Rob Elder, provided essential leadership
for this effort. Harris also championed the creation of the paper’s weekly
Spanish- and Vietnamese-language newspapers to serve non-English speaking
audiences in the community.
Harris began his journalism career as a reporter at the Wilmington
(Del.) News-Journal Papers in 1970. He quickly moved up the ladder in posts
including urban affairs reporter, investigative reporter and special projects
editor.
From 1975 to 1982 he was on the faculty of the Medill School of Journalism
at Northwestern University where he served as assistant dean of the school
and associate director of the Frank E. Gannett Urban Journalism Center.
While at Medill he developed and conducted the ASNE annual survey of minority
employment in daily newspapers, which remains the industry benchmark to
this day.
In 1982, he joined the Gannett Company as a Washington-based national
correspondent for the Gannett News Service.
Harris joined Knight Ridder in April 1985 as executive editor of
the Philadelphia Daily News, the number two position in that newsroom.
In late 1988, he joined the company’s corporate staff as assistant to the
president of the Newspaper Division, Tony Ridder, and later was promoted
to Vice President/Operations with oversight responsibility for business
operations of nine Knight Ridder newspapers.
In 1994, he succeeded Larry Jinks as publisher in San Jose, just
as the Internet and new media revolution began to unfold in Silicon Valley.
Harris, 51, has been a member of ASNE, the Newspaper Association
of America and the National Association of Black Journalists for most of
the last 20 years.
A 1970 graduate of Lincoln University in Pennsylvania, he is married
to the former Christine Harris, and is the father of a son, Taifa, 27,
and two daughters, Jamarah and Shala who are 16 and 14, respectively.
Q. What drove you to a career in newspapers?
A. I was ultimately and permanently captured by the realization
that through newspapers I could help improve the lives of people and the
health of our communities and nation.
Q. What have you learned about management that might lead you
to handle a problem differently today than when you first became a publisher?
A. The most important thing I’ve learned is that in the end the
key to every challenge is people — listening to them, being clear with
them, respecting them, valuing them, and giving them the support and freedom
to do their jobs well. Give your staff those things — and an inspiring
vision to fuel and direct their efforts — and they will be capable of achieving
great things.
Q. How do you make a newspaper innovative or “hot” in today’s
marketplace, given all the media competition?
A. Create a clear, focused and broadly communicated vision
for the newsroom and the newspaper. Produce on a consistent basis a newspaper
of high quality, high interest and high utility for readers. Insist that
your newspaper evolves to address the evolving needs and interests of its
readers and the evolving nature of your community.
Q. Share the obstacles you’ve faced in your career to make
the changes you thought were necessary to cover the “total” community?
A. The greatest obstacle was the inability of many in an earlier
generation of newspaper leaders to recognize and accept the inevitability
of demographic change, the impact it would have on our business and on
journalism, and the value to be derived from embracing that change early,
fully and sincerely.
Q. What concessions do you think journalism is being forced
to make today and why?
A. I don’t see concessions being forced on journalism but I do
see change as unavoidable.
Ubiquitous competition has caused one essential change. Today, innumerable
organizations compete with newspapers for the attention and loyalty of
readers who were once primarily ours. To the extent that resources and
the canons of journalism allow, we must strive to hold on to those readers,
to reclaim those we’ve lost and to gain new ones. In order to do that,
newspaper companies must develop the capacity to give readers what they
want, when they want it and deliver it in the way they want it — and do
all this better than the competition. Through all this change, adhering
to the highest standards of journalistic excellence — including fairness,
accuracy, reliability and timeliness — will be our greatest advantage.
The other unavoidable change is that today newspaper companies must
perform competitively as businesses in the marketplace of publicly traded
companies. Doing so at the same time that we fulfill our responsibilities
as journalists and compete effectively with our many competitors is the
great test and challenge facing the leaders of newspapers and newspaper
companies today.
Q. If you were mentoring someone to be a publisher today, what
advice would you offer?
A. It has been said that newspapers are both a business and a
public trust. The role and responsibility of a publisher is to balance
those at times conflicting objectives effectively.
The key things to know are these. If you focus exclusively or merely
excessively on the newspaper as a business, and succeed at that, you can
still be a failure as a publisher because fulfilling the journalistic responsibility
to the community is also a requirement of the job done well. Conversely,
if you focus exclusively or excessively on fulfilling the newspaper’s public
trust, but fail to ensure its viability as a business you will have put
the entire enterprise at risk. It is not a good job for a single-minded
person.
Q. How can journalists prepare themselves better for leadership
roles?
A. Develop a deep and thorough understanding of the bedrock values
of journalism. Be able to explain them articulately and defend them effectively
to people who may not share your beliefs or priorities. Understand as well
the requirements of the financial marketplace. Be prepared — and willing
— to work with others to respond to them effectively and to do so without
compromising the bedrock values that are the only sure foundation of the
journalistic enterprise.
Q. How do you balance your role as a leader in the community
— the head of the campaign to save the San Jose United Way from financial
collapse, for instance — with conflicts that can arise in a newsroom when
it has to cover that story?
A. I limit my external involvement in leadership roles in the
community because of the possibility of the appearance of a conflict for
the paper in matters it may have to cover. Before getting involved I check
with the executive editor and editor of the paper and have given each effective
veto power over such involvements for that reason. Nevertheless, as publisher
of the newspaper and one who cares about our community, I do not hesitate
to get involved in “crisis” situations that call out for leadership of
the sort I can provide. In such situations, I count on the executive editor,
the editor, the news staff and the editorial board to pursue their responsibilities
vigorously and objectively, and without regard to my involvement.
Q. The Newspaper Association of America, ASNE and APME all
have aggressive projects under way to develop staffs and content that are
in line with the demographic changes under way in America. The Mercury
has been a national leader in this effort. Why did you decide to
take on that role?
A. It was the right thing to do journalistically and a business imperative.
San Jose is now a majority minority community. In order to fulfill our
responsibilities as journalists we have an obligation to cover and serve
the whole community — not just the (shrinking) part of it that is white
and English speaking. In order to be effective for advertisers, to a large
extent today and absolutely in the future, we must be in a position to
help them deliver their messages to the entire community. Our choice was
simple and stark. We could either change to grow with our changing community
or we could become a niche publication serving an affluent but shrinking
audience. We chose the former.
Q. Recruiting, hiring and retaining people of color in the
newsroom and on the business side has been a long-time problem. If
you could design the ideal program to solve this, what would it look like?
A. The ideal program would touch the hearts, minds and, if necessary,
the pocketbooks, of senior- and mid-level managers in every department
of the company. That’s where the action is. Change what they think and
do and the problem will go away in the communities where it is most important
for it to do so — those with significant minority populations.
Q. Why do you think so many newspapers are still so reluctant
to embrace or lead the diversity issue?
A. Because of the priorities and perceptions of the editors and
publishers of those publications — and, at times, those of their parent
company.
Q. Describe the efforts the Merc makes to attract and keep
talent in light of the technological competition you face in the San Jose
marketplace.
A. We pay competitively, we emphasize developmental opportunities,
and we strive to make the Mercury News a place where people come and stay
because they have the opportunity to do great work.
Q. Do you have any special programs to attract women and people
of color?
A. We participate in the national Knight Ridder Scholars program
which provides scholarships and internships for young people interested
in the news and business side. The Mercury News has a similar local program.
Nuevo Mundo and Viet Mercury, our Spanish- and Vietnamese-language newspapers,
each have scholarship and internship programs. Most Mercury News interns
are minorities.
Finally, we view our commitment to diversity as a core value. We are
the only newspaper I’m aware of that publishes on page 2A every day as
part of our mission statement: “We will reflect the changing demographics
of the community in both coverage and hiring, recognizing that diversity
is a core component of accuracy.”
Q. Every newspaper is having circulation problems. Given
the reading habits and the social changes in the country, how do you think
newspapers will be able to retain their place as a dominant form of news
and information?
A. First, by providing a daily report that is thoughtful, analytic
where it needs to be, entertaining where appropriate and compelling throughout.
Second, by having news, circulation and marketing leaders work as a
team to grow circulation by providing an excellent report, excellent service
and sustained promotion.
Q. If you could change anything about newspapers today what
would you do?
A. I’d require that their leaders do at their newspaper what they
say at conventions and in speeches.
Q. What has surprised you about readers in your role as publisher?
A. Their deep affection for and attachment to the Mercury News.
In the end, they care about it and for it because they see it as their
newspaper and an essential part of their community.
Q. Describe your vision and strategic plan.
A. The vision is to make the Mercury News the next great American
newspaper and ensure that it continues to serve the whole community. Our
strategy for getting there is closely held, but suffice it to say it is
grounded in a commitment to excellence, public service and community.
Q. What do you think the publisher’s role should be in setting
editorial policy?
A. I am a member of the editorial board of the Mercury News and have
one vote. I attend some editorial board meetings but not most. Our practice
and general policy is that we seek consensus of the editorial board wherever
possible and fall back on a majority vote when consensus cannot be reached.
I understand that I have the authority as publisher to set the policy
of the paper by fiat but have never done so and expect that I never will.
Q. What do you see as your greatest challenge as a leader in
the current newspaper climate?
A. Sustaining the effort and support required to make the Mercury
News the next great American newspaper.
Q. How do you obtain feedback and how do you share that with
the staff?
A. I spend as much time as possible in all parts of our community
soliciting opinions on what we can do better and have regularly scheduled
coffees with small groups of Mercury News employees for hour-long, no-holds-barred
Q&As. I also learn a good deal from e-mails from readers and employees
and in hallway conversations with individual employees.
I share what I learn through written communications to all employees,
monthly meetings with 75—100 managers and supervisors, conversations with
division directors and my direct reports.
Q. Do you think it’s the job for a newspaper and its
Web site to set an agenda for its community?
A. I believe it is a newspaper’s responsibility to ensure that
its readers and its community have the information they need to set their
own agenda.
Q. Who was your mentor and how did that help you?
A. I’ve been enormously fortunate to have influential mentors
at various stages of my career. Key among them were Bill Cole, former dean
of the Medill School of Journalism, Jerry Sass of the Freedom Forum, John
Quinn of Gannett, and Jim Batten and Tony Ridder of Knight Ridder.
How did they help? From them I learned the right things to do and how
to get them done.
Morgan is director of workshops on journalism, race and ethnicity
at Columbia University.
