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Paper Money: The New News Model
by Lauren Passalacqua, posted October 31, 2007
Does the market compel newspapers to focus more on business interests rather than on investigative reporting?
Herbert and Marion Sandler, the California billionaires and former chief executives of Golden West Financial Corporation, believe so. The Sandlers attribute the decline of “great investigative journalism” to “profit-margin expectations and short-term stock market concerns.” To combat the loss of a robust press, they have created the nonprofit news organization, ProPublica. The Sandler Foundation will provide ProPublica with $10 million a year, supporting a “newsroom devoted entirely to the creation of journalism in the public interest.” The enterprise will launch in January 2008 under the stewardship of the Wall Street Journal’s (WSJ) former managing editor, Paul Steiger. Richard Tofel, another WSJ alumnus, will serve as ProPublica’s general manager.
ProPublica emerges amidst a “business crisis in publishing.” To minimize operating costs, many for-profit news agencies layoff staff and lower operating budgets. In an interview, Tofel said that “the resources to do the work is always the principle constraint.” Tofel pointed out financing constraints reduce a newspaper’s ability to allocate the time and money that investigative reporting requires.
This divestment reflects what media analysts Edward Herman and Noam Chomsky introduced in Manufacturing Consent: The Political Economy of the Mass Media. Herman and Chomsky’s “propaganda model” identifies five factors, called filters, that “narrow the range of news that passes through the gates” to the public (31). The first filter, “size, ownership, and profit orientation of the mass media” posits that media operations require a “large size of investment” and thus restrict ownership to the very wealthy (3). More importantly, the first filter contends that as investors capitalized off of “increased audience size and advertising revenues” the “pressure and temptation to focus more intensively on profitability” increased (7).
ProPublica’s nonprofit status will prevent earnings expectations from encroaching upon the newsroom. ProPublica will hire and maintain a staff of 24 journalists and provide them with the resources to pursue “stories with a moral force.” It will resume the work that many media watchers think the standard press has abandoned. Mark Jurkowitz, associate director of the Project for Excellence in Journalism said, “the biggest fear of those who watch journalism is how to subsidize what’s been the finest aspects of print journalism, like investigative reporting.” He explained that such aspects “take time and cost money and are most in danger when we talk about cutbacks” (Jurkowitz). News professionals echo Jurkowitz’s concern. William Powers, a National Journal columnist, wrote that “hard-core investigative journalism is time-consuming and costly, and often the first budget item to be cut.” Michael Miner, a senior editor for the Chicago Reader, also noted that “in these new hard times, [investigative reporting] is a tempting place to cut costs.”
The cost cutting trend results from an emphasis on the “bottom line,” a focus that Herman and Chomsky highlight in their first filter (7). The “greater integration of the media into the market system” has affected news operations, like the size of the staff and newspapers’ quality (7). The current struggles that newspapers faces corroborate the theory. The Project for Excellence in Journalism’s “The State of the News Media 2007” calculates that newspapers’ 2006 pre-tax earnings fell 8.4 percent from the proceeding year and ad revenues also declined by one or two percent. To compensate for the lost income, newspapers made “drastic [staff] reductions during 2006,” notably the Dallas Morning News (111 staff members), The Washington Post (70 senior staff), and The Philadelphia Inquirer (68 staff members).
ProPublica’s financial freedom distinguishes it from other news organizations that struggle under the corporate model. Jurkowitz called it an “interesting experiment” that poses questions on how the industry will develop.” Media critic Eric Alterman applauded the Sandlers for “[ensuring] that the democratic function of journalism continues to be fulfilled, regardless of whether it improves the bottom line.” Brant Houston, acting executive director of Investigative Reporters and Editors, agreed: “anytime anyone supports independent, investigative reporting is good news.”
Yet, removing profit interests do not eliminate all the threats that Herman and Chomsky’s first filter outlines. Just as the for-profit “investors can make themselves heard,” so too might nonprofit funders (Herman and Chomsky 11). ProPublica relies on the donations of the Sandler Foundation and other philanthropic agents; some wonder how they might influence ProPublica’s work. In a phone interview, Houston remarked that “newspapers have advertisers and nonprofits have funders,” joking about ubiquitous potential pressures.
Jack Shafer, the editor of Slate Magazine and ProPublica skeptic asked “What do Herbert and Marion Sandler want?” writing that funders “tend to not distribute their money with a blind eye.” Shafer cites the Sandlers’ contributions to the Democratic Party and asks how they’d respond if “ProPublica gores their sacred Democratic cows?” Tofel dismissed the skepticism, contending that there are “people in the world interested in supporting independent journalism regardless of their politics.”
In addition to the media’s profit-orientation and biases, the first filter expresses one more concern: size. Herman and Chomsky insist that the “media are tiered, with the top tier … [defining] the news agenda and [supplying] much of the national and international news to lower tiers of media and thus for general public” (5). The dominant news firms shape what the smaller press reports, a system that can both support and undermine ProPublica’s intentions. ProPublica plans to distribute its reports through “traditional news organizations,” ones that Tofel said will help to maximize an investigation’s impact. If ProPublica becomes available through top tier sources, its reports will certainly circulate. However, instead of supplementing investigative reporting, ProPublica might offer financially strapped news managers with its replacement.
“The best investigative journalism is local journalism,” said Jurkowitz, “tradiional, terrific investigative journalism is locally oriented.” He hopes that “newspapers and print organizations won’t abandon their investigative reporting” in light of enterprises like ProPublica. Miner contends that ProPublica could not provide a nation with a comprehensive investigative task force, both because of its small staff and also its disconnection from the local scope. Houston, however, does not worry: “ProPublica may not concentrate on local stories, but it may offer material for local investigators to draw from.”
The speculations about how ProPublica will change the news continue, but the reason for its development are clear.
ProPublica demonstrates the frustration with the profit-oriented mass media that Herman and Chomsky’s first filter catalogs.
"Perhaps," Houston told me, “ProPublica will challenge the traditional press to refocus not on profits but on their investigative reporting role so important to democracy.”
Sources:
Herman, Edward and Noam Chomsky. Manufacturing Consent: The Political Economy of the Mass Media. New York: Pantheon Books, 1988.
Houston, Brant. Telephone Interview. 30, October 2007.
Jurkowitz, Mark. Telephone Interview. 30, October.
Tofel, Richard. Telephone Interview. 30, October 2007.
Does the market compel newspapers to focus more on business interests rather than on investigative reporting?
Herbert and Marion Sandler, the California billionaires and former chief executives of Golden West Financial Corporation, believe so. The Sandlers attribute the decline of “great investigative journalism” to “profit-margin expectations and short-term stock market concerns.” To combat the loss of a robust press, they have created the nonprofit news organization, ProPublica. The Sandler Foundation will provide ProPublica with $10 million a year, supporting a “newsroom devoted entirely to the creation of journalism in the public interest.” The enterprise will launch in January 2008 under the stewardship of the Wall Street Journal’s (WSJ) former managing editor, Paul Steiger. Richard Tofel, another WSJ alumnus, will serve as ProPublica’s general manager. ProPublica emerges amidst a “business crisis in publishing.” To minimize operating costs, many for-profit news agencies layoff staff and lower operating budgets. In an interview, Tofel said that “the resources to do the work is always the principle constraint.” Tofel pointed out financing constraints reduce a newspaper’s ability to allocate the time and money that investigative reporting requires.
This divestment reflects what media analysts Edward Herman and Noam Chomsky introduced in Manufacturing Consent: The Political Economy of the Mass Media. Herman and Chomsky’s “propaganda model” identifies five factors, called filters, that “narrow the range of news that passes through the gates” to the public (31). The first filter, “size, ownership, and profit orientation of the mass media” posits that media operations require a “large size of investment” and thus restrict ownership to the very wealthy (3). More importantly, the first filter contends that as investors capitalized off of “increased audience size and advertising revenues” the “pressure and temptation to focus more intensively on profitability” increased (7).
ProPublica’s nonprofit status will prevent earnings expectations from encroaching upon the newsroom. ProPublica will hire and maintain a staff of 24 journalists and provide them with the resources to pursue “stories with a moral force.” It will resume the work that many media watchers think the standard press has abandoned. Mark Jurkowitz, associate director of the Project for Excellence in Journalism said, “the biggest fear of those who watch journalism is how to subsidize what’s been the finest aspects of print journalism, like investigative reporting.” He explained that such aspects “take time and cost money and are most in danger when we talk about cutbacks” (Jurkowitz). News professionals echo Jurkowitz’s concern. William Powers, a National Journal columnist, wrote that “hard-core investigative journalism is time-consuming and costly, and often the first budget item to be cut.” Michael Miner, a senior editor for the Chicago Reader, also noted that “in these new hard times, [investigative reporting] is a tempting place to cut costs.”
The cost cutting trend results from an emphasis on the “bottom line,” a focus that Herman and Chomsky highlight in their first filter (7). The “greater integration of the media into the market system” has affected news operations, like the size of the staff and newspapers’ quality (7). The current struggles that newspapers faces corroborate the theory. The Project for Excellence in Journalism’s “The State of the News Media 2007” calculates that newspapers’ 2006 pre-tax earnings fell 8.4 percent from the proceeding year and ad revenues also declined by one or two percent. To compensate for the lost income, newspapers made “drastic [staff] reductions during 2006,” notably the Dallas Morning News (111 staff members), The Washington Post (70 senior staff), and The Philadelphia Inquirer (68 staff members).
ProPublica’s financial freedom distinguishes it from other news organizations that struggle under the corporate model. Jurkowitz called it an “interesting experiment” that poses questions on how the industry will develop.” Media critic Eric Alterman applauded the Sandlers for “[ensuring] that the democratic function of journalism continues to be fulfilled, regardless of whether it improves the bottom line.” Brant Houston, acting executive director of Investigative Reporters and Editors, agreed: “anytime anyone supports independent, investigative reporting is good news.”
Yet, removing profit interests do not eliminate all the threats that Herman and Chomsky’s first filter outlines. Just as the for-profit “investors can make themselves heard,” so too might nonprofit funders (Herman and Chomsky 11). ProPublica relies on the donations of the Sandler Foundation and other philanthropic agents; some wonder how they might influence ProPublica’s work. In a phone interview, Houston remarked that “newspapers have advertisers and nonprofits have funders,” joking about ubiquitous potential pressures.
Jack Shafer, the editor of Slate Magazine and ProPublica skeptic asked “What do Herbert and Marion Sandler want?” writing that funders “tend to not distribute their money with a blind eye.” Shafer cites the Sandlers’ contributions to the Democratic Party and asks how they’d respond if “ProPublica gores their sacred Democratic cows?” Tofel dismissed the skepticism, contending that there are “people in the world interested in supporting independent journalism regardless of their politics.”
In addition to the media’s profit-orientation and biases, the first filter expresses one more concern: size. Herman and Chomsky insist that the “media are tiered, with the top tier … [defining] the news agenda and [supplying] much of the national and international news to lower tiers of media and thus for general public” (5). The dominant news firms shape what the smaller press reports, a system that can both support and undermine ProPublica’s intentions. ProPublica plans to distribute its reports through “traditional news organizations,” ones that Tofel said will help to maximize an investigation’s impact. If ProPublica becomes available through top tier sources, its reports will certainly circulate. However, instead of supplementing investigative reporting, ProPublica might offer financially strapped news managers with its replacement.
“The best investigative journalism is local journalism,” said Jurkowitz, “tradiional, terrific investigative journalism is locally oriented.” He hopes that “newspapers and print organizations won’t abandon their investigative reporting” in light of enterprises like ProPublica. Miner contends that ProPublica could not provide a nation with a comprehensive investigative task force, both because of its small staff and also its disconnection from the local scope. Houston, however, does not worry: “ProPublica may not concentrate on local stories, but it may offer material for local investigators to draw from.”
The speculations about how ProPublica will change the news continue, but the reason for its development are clear.
ProPublica demonstrates the frustration with the profit-oriented mass media that Herman and Chomsky’s first filter catalogs.
"Perhaps," Houston told me, “ProPublica will challenge the traditional press to refocus not on profits but on their investigative reporting role so important to democracy.”
Sources:
Herman, Edward and Noam Chomsky. Manufacturing Consent: The Political Economy of the Mass Media. New York: Pantheon Books, 1988.
Houston, Brant. Telephone Interview. 30, October 2007.
Jurkowitz, Mark. Telephone Interview. 30, October.
Tofel, Richard. Telephone Interview. 30, October 2007.
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