Editors, current and retired, talk about how to publish good newspapers in a time of stress

The American Society of News Editors is holding a pilot program called "Leadership Live for Executive Editors" at the University of Kentucky today. ASNE is primarily an organization of editors at metropolitan daily papers, but such papers are becoming more like community newspapers in some ways and some of the discussion topics are likely to be relevant to editors and other journalists at papers of any size, including rural ones, so we are live-blogging it.

L-R: Davis, Stewart, Carroll, Manassah
(Jean Pitcock photo)

The separation between the news and business sides has always been less at smaller papers, and is becoming less as larger papers become smaller and more stressed. During a discussion of tension between news and advertising departments, Mizell Stewart III, editor of the Evansville Courier & Press and chair of the ASNE Leadership Development Committee, said, "One of the most important elements of local news is recognition," and the ad department is "a conduit for business news."

Stewart's paper is owned by E.W. Scripps Co., which has perhaps the strongest degree of separation between news and business operations of any major newspaper company, so much that he does not even report to his publisher, who is considered the paper's chief revenue officer.

The first question from moderator Linda Grist Cunningham (vice chair of the ASNE Leadership Development Committee and retired editor of the Rockford Register Star) was "How do you explain to bosses and peers why the First Amendment is important, and understand the cost in time and resources involved in producing strong news reports?"

"One of the keys is investing time and building the relationship," earning credibility, said Ed Manassah, retired publisher of The Courier-Journal and executive director of the Institute for Media, Culture and Ethics at Bellarmine University in Louisville. He said he was lucky as an editor and publisher to have had primarily former editors as his bosses.

However, "The background of people who are making decisions have changed," said John Carroll, former editor of the Los Angeles Times, the Baltimore Sun and the Lexington Herald-Leader. "You don't have people like that running companies any more." Instead, he said, you have business-school graduates types who say they can only serve one master, the shareholder, as opposed to the reader. He said a "very useful precondition" is a presumption of good faith between the editor and publisher.

Asked how editors should convey the value of First Amendment principles to other departments, Carroll said, "You can't do it in a preachy way. You make friends with these people .. it always helps to show you understand their problem." He said an editor can be a minority of one in a meeting room "where people see newsroom as a cost center," so it is "important to have a relationship with the publisher and an understanding that newsrooms are diferemt, that it's not like any other department."

Herald-Leader Editor Peter Baniak said editors should "talk about news all the time" among their fellow executives. He said he goes to publisher or another executive team member at least once a day to talk about a story the newsroom is working on "so that all the conversations just aren't about revenue and finances." That can be the best part of a publisher's day, he said.

Retired Herald-Leader editor and publisher Tim Kelly said it's helpful for editors to bring ideas to other departments, something he said Baniak has done successfully. Baniak said, "There's nothing wrong with proposing an idea that will make money. . ..  You've got to fight against that compartmentalization."

There will be times when an editor has to take a n stand and be willing to  fall on his or her sword. Stewart said he has left positions where resources became inadequate. "If  I can't serve the community with the resources I think are needed for the community to be served, then let someone else come in and do it," he said. Earlier, he acknowledged that papers are "under a great deal of stress" because "we are not pulling in the kind of revenue" that will give readers "the level of journalism they've come to expect."

Kakie Urch, professor of new media at the university's School of Journalism and Telecommunications and a former Gannett and Scripps editor, said it's important for editors to keep up with new technological developments that can create new ways to connect with readers: "Watch the tech news and really figure out what it means for you."

The panelists agreed that newspapers are competing for readers' time. "The publisher is not our enemy; time is our enemy," said Michael Davis, executive editor of the Lafayette Journal & Courier, a Gannett Co. Inc. paper in Indiana. In the newsroom, he said, it's important that employees feel "safe and appreciated."

And what about the future? Will newspapers survive? Carroll said, "What concerns me is the shattered economics of journalism, which has left to widespread layoffs and "fewer people turning over the rocks," but "I'm encouraged by the fact newspapers have held on and are still publishing . . . extremely valuable stuff. We're edging toward an equilibrium."

Manassah was even more optimistic, saying readers will continue to invest in the brains that are at newspapers, and the papers will give readers what they want. "We won't see 30-part series anymore," he said. "I don't think that's what held readers."

For ASNE's report on the session, with reactions of viewers, click here.