Industry involvement in hard times

By Tim J. McGuire

Several weeks ago I was at a dinner party with some industry friends from around the country. M M M M M Inevitably, the conversation turned to the tough times we’re all facing on the profit lines of our newspapers. The hand wringing was energetic but typical: lower advertising revenues, unreasonable profit expectations, no respect for the newsroom or its responsibility to readers, blah, blah, blah, blah.

Suddenly one of the top editors, a man I’ve known for 15 years and one of the most likeable people in our business, launched a salvo against industry involvement.

“The problem,” he said, “Is everybody’s too involved in industry activities and we’re shortchanging training and other newsroom needs.”

He continued, “That’s why you won’t see me at ASNE in April. We have to spend our money in our newsrooms.”

I thought about debating my friend on the spot, but dessert and the company were particularly delightful and arguing seemed inappropriate.

I’ve been thinking about his comments a lot since that dinner. Training is a serious need in our newsrooms. We all need to invest more dollars to inculcate craft, leadership and critical thinking skills in our newsrooms.

And certainly, there are a lot of newsroom priorities battling for dollars, which deserve and need our attention.

My friend, though, has locked on the wrong solution. This is no time to turn away from the industry. In fact, this must be the time we all come together to seek solutions to our incredible challenges.

The newspaper industry is so special, in part, and we’ve always understood that working together across the industry makes us smarter, stronger, and more successful.

Over the years we’ve weathered tough times because we’ve been resourceful and because we’ve learned from each other.

Every indication is that it’s going to be a white-knuckle year. Profit pressures are going to test our creativity, our resilience and our dedication.

This is absolutely not the time to go it alone.

It’s crucial that we all include industry involvement on our 2001 list of priorities.

Obviously, as incoming president of ASNE, I believe the best way to get involved in supporting the industry is through involvement in ASNE and its committees.

This year, for example, Rick Rodriquez, executive editor of the Sacramento Bee and chair of the Readership Committee, will focus his committee’s work on making the Readership Institute’s study actionable and bring it to life in newsrooms. Many editors will argue with some specifics of that massive study jointly sponsored by NAA and ASNE, but it is the industry’s best hope to get readers more engaged with our newspapers more often.

Barney Calame, deputy managing editor of the Wall Street Journal, will chair the new committee I’ve established called Craft Development. He will lead our effort to help us improve craft training in our newsrooms. We must rededicate ourselves to improving our skills and we must help each other figure out successful ways to do that.

Credibility is one of the great examples of the impact ASNE can have on this industry. The credibility handbook produced by this year’s Ethics and Values Committee is a tremendous capstone to the outstanding credibility project ASNE president Sandy Rowe began in 1997. Next year the Ethics and Values chair, Joann Byrd plans to extend the credibility work by exploring ways we can all behave with integrity.

The Interactive Newspaper Committee under the leadership of Gil Thelen, executive editor of the Tampa Tribune, will be exploring how online efforts are affecting newspaper operations.

Deb Flemming of the Mankato Free Press will chair the Small Newspapers Committee, which will explore ways to help editors focus on content rather than all the flyspeck administration which distracts many small newspaper editors.

All those efforts and all the other committee work we will undertake next year will help our industry improve. That’s what ASNE committee work is all about.

There are many great thinkers in American Newspapers and ASNE committee work taps into that thinking and makes their great ideas work for all of us.

There are a lot of pathways to newspaper success. My industry friend is correct that we need to train better, and he is correct that we must not allow newsroom resources to be nibbled to death. He is wrong though, that industry involvement is the culprit.

ASNE involvement, through committee work, can and must be part of the solution.

And, I’m still hoping my friend changes his mind and attends the convention. He’ll be better for it as we all will.

(Editor’s note: ASNE president Rich Oppel loaned this space to Tim McGuire, who will become ASNE’s president at the convention in April, so McGuire could outline his plans for the coming year.)

McGuire, ASNE vice-president, is editor of the Star Tribune, Minneapolis.