Chapter 11: The Business of Producing Journalism

The Los Angeles Times in Transition

Lori Robertson and Rachel Smolkin, “John Carroll bows out in L.A.,” American Journalism Review, August/September 2005. http://www.ajr.org/Article.asp?id=3911

James Rainey, “A media match plagued by a clash of cultures,” Los Angeles Times, Nov. 10, 2006. Discusses problems at LA Times after its purchase by Tribune Co. http://www.latimes.com/entertainment/news/la-fi-clash10nov10,1,7807220,full.story

Sridhar Pappu, “Reckless disregard: Dean Baquet on the gutting of the Los Angeles Times,” MotherJones.com, March 1, 2007. http://www.motherjones.com/news/feature/2007/03/reckless_disregard.html?welcome=true

Thomas S. Mulligan and Dawn Chmielewski, “Times editor to leave paper,” Jan. 21, 2008. http://www.latimes.com/business/la-fi-oshea21jan21,0,1815384.story?coll=la-home-center

Emily Steele, “Why Los Angeles Times can’t keep an editor,” The Wall Street Journal, Jan. 22, 2008. http://online.wsj.com/article/SB120086036844103713.html

Michael Hiltzik, “Publisher of Times resigns amid cuts,” Los Angeles Times, July 15, 2008. Hiller’s 21-month tenure was marked by plans for the sharpest staff and production cuts in The Times’ history. http://articles.latimes.com/2008/jul/15/business/fi-hiller15

News Media Economics

Philip Meyer, The Vanishing Newspaper (Columbia: University of Missouri Press, 2004), 10. Meyer attributes the theory of “harvesting marketing position” to Michael E. Porter, Competitive Strategy: Creating and Sustaining Superior Performance (New York: Free Press, 1998), 311.

Av Westin, Best Practices for Television Journalists (New York: The Freedom Forum’s Free Press/Fair Press Project, 2000). You can download the book here: http://www.freedomforum.org/templates/document.asp?documentID=17279

Rick Edmonds, “State of the Media 2008: Decoupling blues,” March 19, 2008. Discusses “the broken economic model – the decoupling of advertising and news,” cited in the State of the News Media 2008. http://www.poynter.org/column.asp?id=123&aid=139610

Jennifer Saba, “NAA reveals biggest ad revenue plunge in more than 50 years,” Editor & Publisher, March 28, 2008. The figures were announced by the Newspaper Association of America. (Academic databases)

Deborah Potter, “Later news,” American Journalism Review, February/March 2008. Bowing to changing lifestyles, stations are launching 7 p.m. newscasts. http://www.ajr.org/Article.asp?id=4472

Project for Excellence in Journalism, “Financial woes now overshadow all other concerns for journalists,” March 17, 2008. http://pewresearch.org/pubs/766/journalists-financial-woes

Richard Pérez-Peña, “Few TV reports on audience flight,” The New York Times, May 11, 2009. Reports on a University of Pennsylvania study showing that while the news media report extensively on the economic problems of newspapers, there is relatively little coverage of television’s similar problems. http://www.nytimes.com/2009/05/11/business/media/11paper.html

Sam Schechner, “Cuts at TV-News Divisions signal leaner approach,” The Wall Street Journal, Feb. 26, 2010. Reports on staff cuts at ABC, CBS, and NBC. http://online.wsj.com/article/SB10001424052748703795004575087860950247660.html

Paul Farhi, “Speak no evil,” American Journalism Review, October/November 2011. “While news organizations demand full disclosure from everyone else, they often resort to euphemisms and sugarcoating when they report on their own downsizing.” Farhi writes that staff reductions often go unreported at all, and when they do, the reductions may be characterized as part of a strategy that will result in better news coverage. http://ajr.org/Article.asp?id=5190

Questionable Practices

John Morton, “Too steep a price: Newspapers must protect their integrity as they struggle to find new revenue streams,” American Journalism Review, August/September 2009. http://www.ajr.org/Article.asp?id=4820

In-text advertising:

David Kesmodel and Julia Angwin,“Is it news…or is it an ad?”, The Wall Street Journal, Nov. 27, 2006. http://online.wsj.com/public/article/SB116412309878729621- 1mr_uV3L7Bc8GGLks5qCcsusmyw_20071127.html

Tim McGuire, “Let’s count to 100 and then decide we hate ads in news copy,” McGuire on Media, Nov. 7, 2007. http://cronkite.asu.edu/mcguireblog/?p=35

Erik Sass, “Los Angeles Times dabbles in e-commerce,” MediaDailyNews, April 28, 2010. Links will be placed in the text of articles with lifestyle-related content, including Health, Image, Food, Travel, Books, Entertainment and Sports. http://www.mediapost.com/publications/article/127131/los-angeles-times-dabbles-in-e- commerce.html

Advertising in nontraditional formats:

Society of Professional Journalists, “SPJ calls on news media to maintain clear separation of news and advertising,” Nov. 10, 2003. http://www.spj.org/news.asp?ref=351

Andrew Clevenger, “DNR pays for control of outdoor TV segment,” The Charleston (W.Va.) Gazette, March 28, 2008. http://www.wvbroadcasting.net/viewtopic.php?f=1&t=15095&p=137708

Lucia Moses, “USA Today puts itself under wraps with ad,” Mediaweek, July 12, 2010. The national newspaper wrapped its news section with an ad. http://www.adweek.com/news/advertising-branding/usa-today-puts-itself-under-wraps- jeep-ad-107556 Susan Currie Sivek, “The ethics of digital magazine advertising,” “Mediashift” on PBS, April 28, 2010. Will editorial content and advertising continue to be separated? http://www.pbs.org/mediashift/2010/04/the-ethics-of-digital-magazine-advertising- 118.html

Natalie Pompilio, “A porous wall,” American Journalism Review, June/July 2009. Discusses questionable practices in newspaper advertising. http://ajr.org/Article.asp? id=4775

James Rainey, “On the Media: KCBS ads masquerade as news,” Los Angeles Times, April 21, 2010. On-air interviews appear to be news, but they are “added value” ads. http://articles.latimes.com/2010/apr/21/entertainment/la-et-onthemedia-20100421

Content provided by outside sources:

Neil Henry, American Carnival: Journalism Under Siege in an Age of New Media (Berkeley: University of California Press, 2007), 149-165. Discusses the controversy over VNRs.

Robert Pear, “U.S. videos, for TV news, come under scrutiny,” The New York Times, March 15, 2004. http://www.nytimes.com/2004/03/15/politics/15VIDE.html?pagewanted=all&position.

Deborah Potter, “Virtual news reports,” American Journalism Review, June/July 2004. CNN and local TV stations were guilty accomplices in allowing a government-produced VNR on the air. http://www.ajr.org/article_printable.asp?id=3698

Radio Television Digital News Association, Guidelines for Video News Releases, http://www.rtdna.org/pages/media_items/rtnda-guidelines-for-use-of-non-editorial-video-and- audio250.php

Video available online: Examples of VNRs, provided by a watchdog group: http://www.prwatch.org/fakenews/execsummary

Trudy Lieberman, “The epidemic,” Columbia Journalism Review, March/April 2007. http://www.cjr.org/feature/the_epidemic.php

John Sullivan, “PR industry fills vacuum left by shrinking newsrooms,” ProPublica (co- published with Columbia Journalism Review, May 2, 2011. Sullivan writes that, as the number of journalists has declined, the number of public-relations professionals has grown. “The dangers are clear. As PR becomes ascendant, private and government interests become more able to generate, filter, distort, and dominate the debate, and do so without the public knowing it.” http://www.propublica.org/article/pr-industry-fills- vacuum-left-by-shrinking-newsrooms/single

Targeted demographics:

Bill Kovach and Tom Rosenstiel, The Elements of Journalism: What Newspeople Should Know and the Public Should Expect (New York: Crown Publishers, 2001), 57.

Product placement: Abigail Goodman, “Eye-opener with a pitch: TV news program tries product placement as a revenue source,” Las Vegas Sun, July 21, 2008. TV news program tries product placement as revenue source. http://www.lasvegassun.com/news/2008/jul/21/eye-opener-pitch/

Sponsored newsrooms:

Deborah Potter, “For sale,” American Journalism Review, April/May 2006. A Wisconsin radio station sells the naming rights to its newsroom. http://www.ajr.org/Article.asp?id=4096

Outside funding for news organizations:

Sam Wardle, “Carrboro Citizen receives $50K loan from town,” Independent Weekly, May 21, 2009. http://www.indyweek.com/indyweek/carrboro-citizen-receives-50k-loan-from- town/Content?oid=1215734

The Seattle Times, “Gov. Gregoire approves tax cut for Washington state newspapers,” May 13, 2009. http://seattletimes.nwsource.com/html/localnews/2009212482_apwanewspaperta xcuts.html Commentary: Alan D. Mutter, “Washington papers paid dearly for tax cut,” Reflections of a Newsosaur blog, May 13, 2009. http://newsosaur.blogspot.com/2009/05/washington-papers-paid-dearly-for- tax.html

Television Station WBBH, “News-Press lays off 14 employees,” June 21, 2011; updated June 22, 2011. Includes video. The government Lee County, Fla., gave Gannett $105,000 in incentives to locate 35 jobs in the county. The following year, Gannett’s Fort Meyers News-Press laid off 14 employees. County officials said they still thought the investment was a good one, because the new jobs are in a different Gannett division. http://www.nbc-2.com/story/14952274/2011/06/21/news-press-lays-off-14-employees

Christopher Weaver, “Is it OK for Pfizer to pay for reporters to learn about cancer?”, health blog for National Public Radio, Aug. 24, 2010. The drug company paid all expenses for 15 reporters to attend a four-day cancer seminar in Washington, D.C. http://www.npr.org/blogs/health/2010/08/24/129406379/pfizer-cancer-journalists- reporters-conflict

Relationship with a news source:

Online video available: Sports agent Drew Rosenhaus does a television commercial for ESPN, which frequently covers him. http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=K2gM3RgiGZA

Internal reporting relationships: Richard Pérez-Peña, “Some Dallas editors will report to Ad Sales,” The New York Times, Dec. 4, 2009. Senior news editors in various sports and entertainment sections at The Dallas Morning News began reporting directly to general managers responsible for advertising sales in their sections, “while retaining a strong reporting relationship to the editor and managing editor,” an internal memo said. http://www.nytimes.com/2009/12/04/business/media/04paper.html Robert Wilonsky, “At The Dallas News, a new ‘bold strategy’: Section editors reporting to sales managers,” Dallas Observer. This blog contains the Morning News memo. http://blogs.dallasobserver.com/unfairpark/2009/12/at_the_dallas_news_the_latest.php

Outsourcing news coverage:

Edmund Lee, “More publishers trying outsourced information,” Advertising Age, April 28, 2010. “Established news shops [are] running articles from pool of freelancers for as little as $5 a story.” http://www.businessinsider.com/more-publishers-trying-outsourced- journalism-2010-4  Nicholas Spangler, “In demand: A week inside the future of journalism,” Columbia Journalism Review, November/December 2010. Spangler (joined by other journalists, in the appended comments) tells about his experience producing “commercial content.” http://www.cjr.org/feature/in_demand.php

News companies’ investments in businesses that make news:

“Fair Game,” American Journalism Review, October 1999. Things can get quite tricky when a company that owns a news organization invests in a sports franchise in the same town – as The Dallas Morning News quickly learned. h ttp://www.ajr.org/Article.asp?id=3188

Roy Hartmann, “Notes from St. Louis; Loving the Cardinals as they are,” The New York Times, March 26, 2002. http://www.nytimes.com/2002/03/26/opinion/notes-from-st-louis-loving-the- cardinals-as-they-are.html

Linda Loyd, “Tower sparks controversy in Lancaster,” The Philadelphia Inquirer, Sept. 2, 2008. http://articles.philly.com/2008-09-02/business/25247041_1_hotel-tax-19-story-hotel-lancaster- newspapers

Dan McGrath, “Perception of bias toward the Chicago Cubs will not be missed,” chicagotribune.com, Aug. 23, 2009. McGrath, who had supervised baseball coverage, notes that when The Chicago Tribune owned the Cubs, fans’ misconceptions were a always a concern. http://articles.chicagotribune.com/2009-08- 23/sports/0908230241_1_bias-cubs-problem-tribune-co/2  The Chicago Tribune, “Our cousins, the Cubs,” an editorial published Aug. 23, 2009. http://articles.chicagotribune.com/2009-08-23/news/0908220244_1_cubs-and- wrigley-field-bill-wrigley-tribune-tower

Tim McGuire, “Arizona Republic gets an A+ for reporting, B for its editorial and an F for publisher’s conflict,” McGuire on the Media blog, March 30, 2011. The Arizona State professor assesses the newspaper’s handling of the Fiesta Bowl scandal, including the publisher’s explanation of why he is on the bowl’s executive committee. http://cronkite.asu.edu/mcguireblog/?p=230

Matthew Futterman, “How to cover the team that owns your T.V. network,” The Wall Street Journal, Aug. 19, 2009. An interview with the president of SportsNet New York, a regional network owned by the New York Mets. http://online.wsj.com/article/SB10001424052970203550604574358821619207330.html

The Contrasting Cultures of News and Business

The contrasting cultures are described, from different viewpoints, in:

Philip Meyer, The Vanishing Newspaper, 206-207.

Jack Fuller, News Values (Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 1996), 197.

Case Study No. 9: Sharing Ad Profits, Creating a Crisis

David Shaw, “Crossing the line: A Los Angeles Times profit-sharing arrangement with Staples Center fuels a firestorm of protest in the newsroom – and a debate about journalistic ethics,” Los Angeles Times, Dec. 20, 1999. (News databases)

James Risser, “Lessons from L.A.,” Columbia Journalism Review, January/February 2000. (Academic databases)

Terence Smith, “Trouble at the L.A. Times,” PBS’s Online NewsHour, Dec. 16, 1999. http://www.pbs.org/newshour/bb/media/july-dec99/la_times_12-16.html

Additional Case Studies

“The Decision” by LeBron James. The former Cleveland Cavaliers star made a deal with ESPN for an exclusive special program in which James would announce which National Basketball Association team he would sign with as a free agent. ESPN got the story (and the announcement event) exclusively in exchange for allowing James to choose one of his interviewers (former ESPN staff member Jim Gray) and for donating the program’s commercial revenue to a charity. The July 8, 2010, special gave ESPN 13 million viewers, its second-highest rating of the year. In the ensuing controversy, ESPN was criticized for yielding journalistic control to the newsmaker.  Brian Steinberg, “To get LeBron, ESPN cedes control over ads, news,” Advertising Age, July 7, 2010. http://adage.com/mediaworks/article?article_id=144826  Don Ohlmeyer, “The ‘decision’ dilemma,” ESPN.com, July 21, 2010. The ESPN ombudsman analyzes the case at length and writes, “ESPN can brush off concerns raised about ‘The Decision,’ but it does so at its own peril. A major component of ESPN’s appeal … is that the audience trusts what it’s watching.” http://sports.espn.go.com/espn/columns/story?columnist=ohlmeyer_don&id=5397113

Off-the-record salons. David Carr, “A publisher stumbles publicly at the Post,” The New York Times, July 4, 2009. Carr summarizes: “As first reported in Politico, The Washington Post had sent out a brochure offering sponsorships – a fee of $25,000 for one, or $250,000 for an entire series – for an exclusive ‘Washington Post salon’ at [publisher Katharine Weymouth’s] home in which officials from Congress and the administration, lobbyists and, yes, the paper’s own reporters could have a quiet, off-the- record dinner, discussions to be led by Marcus Brauchli, the newspaper’s editor.” Carr comments: “Theoretically, you can’t buy Washington Post reporters, but you can rent them.” http://www.nytimes.com/2009/07/04/business/media/04post.html? pagewanted=all  Howard Kurtz, “Post publisher cancels plans for off-the-record ‘salons,’ ” The Washington Post, July 2, 2009. At the end of this article, Kurtz succinctly explains the journalism ethics issues involved. http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp- dyn/content/article/2009/07/02/AR2009070201563.html  Mike Allen and Michael Calderone, “WaPo cancels lobbyist event amid uproar,” Politico, July 2, 2009. http://www.politico.com/news/stories/0709/24441.html  Michael Calderone, “WaPo launches internal review,” Politico, July 6, 2009. http://www.politico.com/blogs/michaelcalderone/0709/Weymouth_WaPo_launches_i nternal_review.html?showall  Andrew Alexander, “A sponsorship scandal at The Post,” The Washington Post, July 12, 2009. An assessment by the newspaper’s ombudsman. http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp- dyn/content/article/2009/07/11/AR2009071100290.html

“Ideologues” provide the reporting: Mark Bowden, “The story behind the story,” The Atlantic, October 2009. Minutes after President Obama nominated Sonia Sotomayor to the Supreme Court, television news broadcasts showed video clips of two of her speeches. The clips, offered without context, showed Sotomayor asserting that as a “Latina woman” she had better judgment than a “white male,” and that judges “make law” rather than simply interpreting law. Bowden’s investigation showed that a conservative organization called the Judicial Confirmation Network had prepared a dossier on each of the prospective Supreme Court nominees and had given them to the networks in advance. In its introduction to Bowden’s article, The Atlantic wrote: “With journalists being laid off in droves, ideologues have stepped forward to provide the ‘reporting’ that feeds the 24-hour news cycle. The collapse of journalism means that the quest for information has been superseded by the quest for ammunition. A case-study of our post-journalistic age.” http://www.theatlantic.com/magazine/archive/2009/10/the-story-behind-the-story/7667/

Advertising as fake news stories: Bob Steele, “LA Times pitched NBC on ‘Southland’ front page ad concept,” poynteronline, April 10, 2009. The newspaper ran a fake news story on its front page as an advertisement for a television copy drama. The publisher overruled the editor, saying he “was trying to ensure that the Times could continue to operate.” Steele writes: “Even though this ad is labeled as an ‘Advertisement,’ and even though the ad has a different typeface than the Times’ front-page news content, it’s a bad idea with serious ethical implications.” http://www.poynter.org/column.asp? id=67&aid=161630 View the disclaimer, headline and part of the body type of the advertisement [see the separate file in this folder showing the ad]. A year later, the Times wrapped its LATExtra section with a four-page advertising section in news format, reporting in its lead headline, “Universal Studios Hollywood Partially Destroyed.” The fake news treatment promoted Universal Studios’ new King Kong attraction. Readers and city officials objected.  Deirdre Edgar, “Readers weigh in on King Kong advertising section,” readers’ representative column in the Los Angeles Times, July 2, 2010. http://latimesblogs.latimes.com/readers/2010/07/readers-weigh-in-on-king-kong- advertising-section-.html  Los Angeles Times metro staff, “L.A. County supervisors protest Times ad sections.” http://articles.latimes.com/2010/jul/02/local/la-me-0702-newspaper-ad-20100702

A preview of planned news coverage: Phil Rosenthal, “Chicago Tribune admits ‘breach’: Chicago Tribune halts project that let readers view unpublished story outlines,” Chicago Tribune, May 1, 2009. A research project was stopped after reporters raised journalistic concerns. http://newsblogs.chicagotribune.com/towerticker/2009/05/chicago-tribune-admits- breach-halts-project-that-let-readers-view-unpublished-story-outlines.html

“Editorial independence and car dealers”: The dealers withdrew advertising to protest a story that purported to advise consumers on how to negotiate for a purchase. Jay Black, Robert Steele and Ralph Barney, Doing Ethics in Journalism: A Handbook With Case Studies (Needham Heights, Mass.: Allyn & Bacon, 1999), 137-138.