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From Northeast Public Radio, this is the Media Project, a weekly discussion about issues
confronting the media.
So the Media Projects underway with, uh, well, it's not a supplemental cast,
I shouldn't say that. We're all, we're fine, we're just missing one significant voice.
We have at this point we call it the publisher of the professor and the editor.
Irofus felt us here from the Daily Freeman and King's. Hello, good to be back.
Rosemary Armeo, a noted investigative journalist, now professor at the University of Albany.
How do how do? Very good. Also happy to be here. Well, we all are, I'm Rex Smith,
editor of the Times Union. We are missing Dr. Shartak. Hard to imagine how we'll get by with that,
don't you think? We'll struggle along. Rosemary's been here for weeks in a row. It's a palace
cool. I can. Oh, no, don't say that. He'll believe it. Did you vacate? I vacated a week in California
to see my new grandson for the second time in two months. So that was fun. Excellent. So you missed
the debut of the new press in the Times Union. So you get to the very important stuff, you know,
right now. I missed it from the sense that we didn't get our first day's paper delivery.
And as someone who has installed a new press in my shop, welcome to the club and get ready to
for a few weeks of sleeplessness. Yeah. Days one and two were beautifully precision. Everything
went well. Day three, not so much. There's this interesting with the term that we use is web
breaks, you know, and then in the press. That is when the paper, they're what they call the ribbon,
actually breaks. And we had five of them last night. Now, this just never ever happens. So
they're helping to. Oh, yeah, oh, yeah. They don't want me around.
I don't believe the unions would appreciate it. Do you hear from readers? I mean, I can tell you
what my mother said, but do you hear? Yes. Yes. I mean, if people are very irate when the
newspaper doesn't come, I didn't get mine at home this morning. So the initial response to the
papers that are delivered has been good. Oh, people have been really supportive of the new look
of the Times Union and the new features. And I mean, we tried not to be dramatic. We didn't want to
tremendously redesign the newspaper. The notion was we want to be cool and calm and collected.
And basically people like their hometown newspaper. I mean, wherever they're paper is they make
complain about it, but mostly they like it. So you don't want to do something dramatic and bold
because you don't want to alienate folks. So we just try to do a smart and simple update that
folks is on good visuals and storytelling. And so people have been really supportive until now.
Again, it's web breaks. You will experience a lot of them at the beginning and then when they
get it all right and they get the tension control and the liquid and the whole nine yards,
you'll have almost none. We mean, we used to get them a lot with our old presses and we got them a
lot at the beginning of the new press. And then I can't remember for literally years where we would
have a web breaks. So it's there's a light at the end of the tunnel. One of my colleagues said,
well, you know, it's like when you build these sophisticated new battleships, they do have what
they call the shake down crews and not everything works just right. And we had expected everything
to work just right. You know, and I guess you've got to expect that there's a learning curve. Part
of this is human error. I'm under led to believe. And in the meantime, where X there's maylocks
and there are no web breaks in the digital. There's no web, but this is actually true. You know,
so speaking of digital, you know, the key thing, of course, as we always say on this show is whatever
the medium, the key thing is the journalism itself. And here and now comes the annual state of the
news media report from the Pew Foundation, which finds that years of newsroom cutbacks have had a
demonstrable impact. It says here on the quality of digital newspaper and television news. And
now consumers view that work. Well, no surprise, right? The question is what what happens now? Because
the economics are such that the kinds of pressures that have created the fewer reporters at newspapers.
And I think the report also cites this similar kind of impact and broadcast. You know, where is the
break that's going to stop this and turn it around? I've been waiting for this report wondering
when it was going to come out. And it seems to me remarkably bland at the end of the report. They
say we're at a point where we have to get back to quality. We are so far beyond that point.
And there's no recommendations in here as to how that's going to happen. You've lost thousands
of reporters. You're not attracting good new people into the field. What was supposed to happen
except exactly this? Yeah, it is to say that we're at the point of quality. I think you're exactly
right. We've all felt what we've lost in our particular case. We've lost our capacity to cover
some of the localness of our community. There just aren't enough reporters to cover everything.
So we miss some good stories naturally. Newsroom employment and newspapers is down 30 percent
since 2000. So a 30 percent cut of news are employment. That sounds about right to me. That's
sort of the number that we have in ours. Newsweek shut its print edition time is cutting staff
television. My understanding I saw a report the other day suggesting the television news is where
newspapers were about five years ago that's the cuts are really just coming. You know, you see it
and professionally and in the academy that there are these wonderful new forms for presenting stories.
A new one out now that's sort of like a video, an animated video, a wonderful way to tell a
serious story and their story, fire and tweeter and Pinterest and they're all very fun and interesting.
The problem is there's no content. That's what we keep losing. The idea of finding a story,
figuring out what's important in your community and telling it. And I would argue slightly about
the notion that the quality is down and I'll speak only for print. I think that the quality of what
we do is at the standard or near the standard of what it used to be. It's just we don't do enough
of it because we don't have enough people to do it. And where it has suffered and I would acknowledge
there is some suffering. It's because those people and editors, reporters and editors who remain
are being asked to do so much more that by that very nature they can't quite do as well. The
core material that they used to do. But I mean I think there's still quality stuff in news paper.
Well I mean it's crazy to say there's no quality journalism of course there is but there is
demonstrably less. Less without question. Yeah investigative reporters and editors which is an
international journalism group that has a contest and they attract all of the best print and
broadcast journalism. And for years they kept track of the number of entries and you're seeing
a drop now. For years we said, I'll see it's still great. Look how many we have. Well they're not
saying that. I was going to ask Rex, a newspaper that has made as a strategy and it's a good strategy
to concentrate on investigative and long form journalism. That sets you apart and provides
quality to the readers. But I presume that it is still come at a cause. In other words there are
still stories that you used to cover that you no longer cover because of the numbers game and
because of the amount of time that the investigative reporters spend on their stories. And so I guess
the question is overall, whereas we are serving the readers well providing what you provide are you
providing less thus you're not serving the readers as well. And would the readers rather have what
you're not providing. It's very hard to figure out. You're right our sense is that the watchdog
journalism is what other people can't do and so we need to do that both because it's the right
thing to do and because that's a niche. But here's a real life example and it involves Rosemary
students at the University of Albany. We have a major investigative project underway and we have a
senior reporter, very thoughtful person who's being who we've taken off her regular beat to work
with this core of students in a major database project. And so to cover her beat we've shifted
in someone who ordinarily does sort of short term hits who does shouldn't use the word hits
because it sounds like we're out to get folks. But the fact is these are short term investigations
under our investigations editor Bob Port. So she is picking up this beat which then robs us of
those short term projects. And so if you want to do those then you take somebody off the local
reporting beat covering everyday events in connected day or colony or something like that. And
eventually there's just aren't enough people to move around to cover all the little holes that
you're creating in an effort to do what you know is the right thing to do the watchdog reporting.
But boy it does take takes time. There's no question it takes time. Well and readers want it all.
You know we'll get letters that say how come you didn't cover the town of whatever last night.
And we say we don't have anybody to cover it but we had this. Well I'm not interested in this and
by the way can't you give me both. And that week the answer is not anymore. Well the Pew study
looking at television at which you've noted is in a similar situation is finding that 40% of the
broadcasts now come from sports, weather and traffic. So in other words the least difficult to
report to get 20% and most of the rest of it is I'm sorry to my broadcast friends but you know
put a good looking young reporter in front of yellow police tape and it's inexpensive content to
produce. It isn't enterprise reporting. You know with the difficulty of course this is this is a
result of a financial problem. The financial problem caused by the multiplicity of outlets where
people can go for information by the limited attention span for the kind of journalism that we do.
And so here's what's happening. More organizations are experimenting with charging for digital content
as a way to find the revenues. So 450 of the nation's 1300 daily newspapers according to this Pew
report now have started or have announced plans for some kind of paywall, some kind of digital
subscription model. But there's a hazard to that and I was pointed this out because his company has
a different vision and wants to keep access open to the digital side and and make it with advertising
revenues. So there is no easy solution to this because it's a business problem that is driving
a journey. I thought I saw a statistic and I forgive me if I'm wrong that that digital paywalls
produced $330 million in revenue at the cat I don't remember if it was just an industry or it was
I don't think it could have been just a New York Times. Well let's but $330 million and someone said
well great that's about what the advertising is at first quarter. It's a relative drop in the bucket
and because we in the print a business are in such a dire need of revenue we are we are eagerly
those who are getting it are happy to get it and are boasting about getting it as is the New York
Times which claims now that its circulation revenue including digital is higher than its advertising
revenue and I just find that that's a dangerous place to be because advertising has got to be
the area long term. Here's the note that I want to inject in this we're discussing it as a business
model as a tragedy for our industry which indeed it is and that's all very sad boohoo we're going
to not have jobs but there's something larger at stake here which is the news and information
has been extremely important to the development of this democracy so I have to sound like a social
sciences teacher here and what does this mean you know we are not getting information people are not
reading, viewing, listening whatever other way to get it they're not getting it because it
isn't there and that is going to have an impact which we are just beginning to see. I think you're
at 100% right? You know one of the solutions that we're seeing is newspapers in order to save money
are cutting back days of the week Syracuse so now only delivers the paper three days a week
another paper the Washington Examiner which has been a free circulation daily in the upper demographic
areas of DC in the surrounding area the Washington Examiner is no longer going to publish a daily
print newspaper they're going to weekly this is happening a lot there is some sensibility that
that's a solution to eliminate the high end that is the high cost low return days of the week but
the difficulty with that is of course then you diminish the habit the daily news consumption
habit and you may end up shooting yourself in the foot by that. I just don't think of any other
business that tries to boost business by cutting back what they offer like Macy's we're going to
have less now but it's going to be really good and uncertain days. Well but the counter argument
to that and it's one the history of the industry in 100 and thousand years will say whether we're
right the counter is that the diminished number of print newspapers that are being sold and have been
sold over the last couple of decades and what we see the demographic interests are of people who
are used to have never seen a print edition and are only no digital and no mobile that that is
where they are going and that is where the audience is going so that as the newspaper readers of
today continue to get older and die the younger people are going to be in digital and that's where
newspapers are going to survive and ultimately theoretically thrive because when you cut out the
print edition or less than the number of print editions you're cutting down all sorts of overhead
and expenses and delivery costs and and that again theoretically is our savings that are going to
go back into the continent. The rubbed that we keep going right over is that those savings are in
bodies to put out a print edition so you don't have the bodies you still don't have anything. Well
but the savings would be the savings that I'm describing would be contrary to what's going on at
the time. Junior would be shut down the press no more news print no more ink no more pressmen no
more trucks and look at all that millions of dollars depending on the size of the property saved
and then theoretically that is savings that can be poured back into the content and I think that
that is what's going to happen although because so many newspaper companies are elling those savings
need to take care of past debts before they can start thinking about the new the new
the new expensive. Incidentally the new press the times union actually cuts our costs that's the
good thing. I heard that we waited so long to put in a new press that now the cost of production
on the old press is so high that it makes a really smart return investment to do this new press.
Even if you sell no extra papers you're saving money just because the technology is bad. Yes
yes absolutely like a plate like every newspaper a page has four plates at least sign the
limit gen to black and each plate under the old technology costs us now about seven dollars the
new technology it's just over a buck so we're we're going to be saving money which is good news.
Of course the question is and I'm sure your your money people have figured this out because you
now can do such good color you're going to do more color and so you're going to have more pages
that have color thus you're going to use more plates theoretically than you used to plus because
you've shrunk the size of the paper but added pages you're not really saving in the news print area
so that said a lot smarter people at her figure this out already but that is what could happen
on the road. But the difficulty that Rosemary points to I think is true that if you don't have
the reporters all the time then when people need the news you know if news consumption becomes
episodic if people only go for the news when they know that there's something they want to find
out about and instead of having the daily news consumption habit then I think we're really going
to be in trouble and the this study finds that 42% of adults under age 30 were regular news viewers
in 2006 last year just six years later that was down to 28% so from 42% to 28% under age 30 in just a
span of six years so we're using the generation of journalists now the ones who've lost their
jobs since 2000 who are working on independence they're working for no money they're working like
they're back in college because they love it but that's not going to go on they're not going to
teach their kids to do that. So what do you think the answer is I mean if you have the answer let us
know right now I wouldn't be hearing all the answers. Hey can I can I make a radical change yeah
I want to talk about whether it is okay for TV reporters CNN specifically to be sympathetic to
men convicted of work. That's very interesting. Whoa you want to describe what happened? Yeah this
is an interesting story out of where is it students. I should know that yeah and two teenage boys
up and coming stars handsome good-looking they are convicted they actually did it of raping a young
woman and the coverage has all centered on how this is ruined their lives and the girl was
drunk and man you know you have to watch that digital life they get on these games and they just
like lose control of themselves and the protest has been what what about the girl why we're so
sympathetic to the young man here. So what happened? The complaint specifically has been about
CNN's coverage and CNN and specifically about a reporter with I think the unfortunate name of
Poppy Harlow. Poppy Harlow's hard to take her seriously and yet if you see her if you if you watch
her as I have done she's extremely earnest she has reported this story deeply and her feelings
describing what's happening to the young man come out of a place where she's she's trying to be
fair. Yeah but it's been really used against her I should say the mother of sons but I'm a feminist
so these issues affect me in all the way. Have you seen do you agree with the complaint? Have you
seen the coverage? I think the coverage has definitely left out the woman. Yeah and so then I
would ask the question and that's not to to take their side but I would ask the question isn't it
easier for the CNN in this case to talk about the two boys because they are identified they are
faces we know about them and the victim is somebody who is not going to be named. And they are
parents who are out there of course want to get the story across and and they are sympathetic you
know you don't like to see young men scrub their lives which is what they've done but they did a
serious serious thing. The problem begins with the excessive coverage of a single case I would
think. I was going to say that too I wasn't terribly interested in this case it looked like a
local story to me. Yeah when I was the editor in Troy we had a remarkable situation of five young
men the oldest was perhaps 16 who were charged with first degree rape paraded in front of the
courthouse in cuffs and chains by the district attorney taking her them in for indictment for
raping a young girl over a Saturday afternoon and evening repeatedly all five young men charged
with first degree rape based upon her allegations and then she called our reporter who had been
covering this and with her mother sitting in the room said I want to talk to you and tell you that
it wasn't what I said it was and our reporter and another reporter went into the young girl's house
and sat down with her and with her mother and the girl said actually it was consensual and I'm
really sorry about this I had had a relationship with two of these boys so the charges were dismissed
meanwhile the charges against these boys had been out there at their names were out there the young
girls name never did the choice that we faced was then in her recanting do we use her name and put
her name out there I decided not to because obviously she's a poor confused young thing but look
at what she did to these young men and you believe that was the right call because I think most of
the time when when a an alleged rape occurs and it proves not to be I mean I'll use the towanda
Brawley which is not really the best example but if somebody is going to make up a story why
shouldn't their name be a point here's the thing I think that rape is one of those cultural issues
that news media have an obligation to report about and also change attitudes about and young people
are confused about this we put them in these highly public criminalized settings the way we educate
is bizarre how come we're teaching girls to protect against rape but we don't teach boys not to rape
that goes way beyond the news media so I think that we should be playing an ameliorating role rather than
you know sensationalizing role which is what happened here do you think I believe that I'm stating
your your point of view correctly on this that you would not generally withhold the names of rape
victims because you think that that further I have advocated for that for years and with very
very bad results I've got to drive hadas always insist even when the woman said I want my name
out there I didn't do anything I want to get that so and so I think that yeah we we put the stigma
when the media puts the stigma on the rape victim that they are somehow complicit I can't think of
any other crime victim whose name we don't use yeah it's interesting I mean I feel a suffical
I can agree with you I just find it hard right you get it hurt and because and because we made it
that way I mean what I've always said is ask the woman do you want your name with help they will
tell you many women will say use my name I covered a trial in Akron in the 1980s and a doctor
a you know a medical doctor had raped 100 women in this absolutely horrific spray no one expected
that the doctor would do it it took years to find him and so when he's finally in court there was
a parade of women in there you know thrilled that he was going to finally they were going to get
justice and they wanted their names used and none of the papers in Ohio would run their name terrible
I covered one for news day about the same time a man accused of raping his wife in Suffolk County
and because of the policy of not identifying the victim in a rape case I couldn't identify
the defendant either it's always bothered me when you have a conviction in a child
case and it's incest because then if you identify the bad guy which it seems to me is name in the
paper ought to be the least of you know the punishment you identify the child which of course you
don't want to do so you either can hide the relationship and just say he was a rapist or you can say
it was incest and then use no names and both of those things are so so unattractive and that
typically what we do is we don't mention the relationship we don't let it be known that it was a yes
we just but people who know that convention that we use understand that that in not identifying the
relationship between the alleged rapist or the child rapist and the and the victim what is
happening is that has been that person's child and one to bring it back to the media will the rules
that we're discussing the traditional rules change as the digital world continues to expand and
there are so many places other than the traditional news outlets where this information can be disseminated
and that people will not guard against printing yeah what I keep seeing is a move to not using names
at all even when it's material that's completely unobjectionable live students go out and do
interviews on what it's like to be back at school for the first day don't use my name please so
so by the way here at the end of what has been a rather depressing program a moment for
expiation of our sins dear sir writes this person from the Hudson Valley could you please explain
how it became conventional for newspapers to list associated press or Reuters or Bloomberg news
in the byline instead of a human's name I find it to be a little unusual for a story not to be
attributed to a person not unusual at all it's in fact many newspapers don't use the AP byline even
if it's on the AP copy some newspapers do it routinely some people don't I'm sorry about it
you know I would like we just it saves space and the the joke in the associated press for the
photographers is that AP photographer AP stands for anonymous photography so sorry anyway well
we've reached the end of our program this this program should be we need to admit this thing
and PC girl help with this too bad so I request Bell Rosemary or Mayo Rex Smith here we are hope
you'll join us again next week for the media project
