Dancing Priest

Author and Novelist Glynn Young

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The Rise of News Deserts

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In 1970, Congress passed legislation to create the Newspaper Preservation Act. The act exempted “joint operating agreements” (JOAs) from antitrust law, and in effect allowed two competing newspapers to share the same business operations – printing presses, buildings, advertising operations, distribution methods – as long as the news operations remained separate and competitive. It was touted as a way to preserve competition between newspapers, especially in cities with two (or more) newspapers. The legislation had been introduced after the Supreme Court found a joint operating agreement in Tucson, Arizona, to be a violation of the Sherman Antitrust Act. 

The intention was (seemingly) laudable – preserve newspaper competition. What followed was very different from the stated intention. Other forces were at work. The economic foundation of traditional journalism was changing rather profoundly, and this was in the days before the internet. Joint operating agreements proliferated across the United States; the St. Louis Post-Dispatch and the St. Louis Globe-Democrat operated under one. But St. Louis couldn’t support two newspapers, and eventually the Globe-Democrat, after being sold, shut down in 1986. 

One newspaper in a JOA closing operations became almost normal. Looking back, people who’ve studied what happened have raised the question of who benefitted from the JOAs and the closing of newspapers. The answer is no surprise; it was the big newspaper chains. 

Independent newspapers have become an increasingly rare enterprise. In practice, what happens is that news takes on a sameness, with the same national stories replicated across the landscape, and local news diminished. The internet didn’t cause the development, but it certainly advanced it. I can remember the shock of seeing the Shreveport, Louisiana Times sounding exactly like what you’d find in St. Louis, Detroit, or anywhere else – the same wire service stories, the same columnists, the same editorial slant. Here is St. Louis, even book reviews and movie reviews are purchased from syndicates. 

The upshot is that local news, and issues of local importance, get short shrift. The term “news desert” has come to be applied to the death of weekly and community newspapers, but it has equal application to the subject of local news as well. (Few realize this, but the pages and the headlines for the St. Louis Post-Dispatch, now owned by Lee Enterprises, are assembled in another city.) I suppose we should feel grateful that it’s still in the United States; it could be China. Lee, headquartered in Davenport, Iowa, publishes some 75 newspapers and touts its commitment to local news. 

When journalists talk about news deserts, they are usually referring to the widespread decline of weekly newspapers in the United States. In the past 15 years, some 20 percent of weekly and community newspapers have disappeared, according to The New York Times. Thousands of communities across the country have no local newspaper. No coverage of local council meetings or school boards. No coverage of local crime. No coverage of local politicians or elections. Where newspapers have managed to survive, they resemble shadows of their former selves. 

This is true even of many newspapers in cities like New Orleans, St. Louis, and elsewhere. Not that long ago, the St. Louis region had two major newspapers, a chain of suburban journals, and a host of community newspapers. Now it’s one newspaper, owned by a chain and usually dominated by national news. The St. Louis Globe-Democrat closed; the Suburban Journals were bought by the Post-Dispatch, their function officially “incorporated” but in practice eliminated.

We still have local television news, but TV news can’t do what newspapers do, and that’s to report in depth and detail. TV news focuses on what grabs attention – like crime, car wrecks, and the weather. And for TV news to cover something as mundane as a zoning change isn’t going to happen, no matter how important that change might be to a group of residents.

News deserts are of two kinds – the disappearance of newspapers in countless communities, and the disappearance of local news in what newspapers have survived. I can still find local news in the t. Louis Post-Dispatch, but more often than not I find a lot more stories from elsewhere, produced by the Associated Press and / or syndicated from the Washington Post.

This “death of the local” is more than a loss of familiar news and community- mindedness. The evidence is beginning to mount that the end of local news is contributing significantly to political polarization in the United States. We’ll look at that next week.

Related: A Conversation about Journalism.

Top photograph by Cason Asher via Unsplash. Used with permission.

A Conversation about Journalism

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Paul CŽezanne (French, 1839 – 1906 ), The Artist’s Father, Reading “L’ƒEveŽnement”, 1866, oil on canvas, Collection of Mr. and Mrs. Paul Mellon.

We have to start talking about journalism in the United States, and specifically the decline of journalism. Newspapers, television programs, and online news sites have been talking for years about how to fix the problems of circulation, readership, viewership, and competition from social media platforms, but I don’t think they’re going deep enough.

I’ve been working on a new fiction manuscript for some months now. The story is rooted in a community and the people who live there. An event happens that attracts the news media, both local and national. While the event and the role of the media are only a small part of the story, I’ve spent time researching news media, news, and how (and often why) certain event are covered.

This wasn’t a big stretch; my B.A. degree is in journalism, and I worked with journalists for most of my professional career in corporate communications. For three decades after I graduated from college, journalism remained recognizable. In 2003-2004, I was the director of communications for St. Louis Public Schools, amid a highly controversial reorganization. I dealt with journalists daily. I was interviewed daily, and usually by multiple reporters. (My first interview occurred 15 minutes into my first day on the job, when a TV reporter wanted a statement on a teacher sickout. I hadn’t even filled out my HR paperwork when I was standing before a camera.) 

As crazy and hectic as it was, this was journalism, and particularly local journalism, that I knew and understood. The reporters were covering news that people in the community cared about. They may have liked it or hated it, but there was no question it was important to them. 

In 2004, I returned to corporate communications, responsible for a very specific slice of company issues. I was still dealing with journalism that I knew. My colleagues responsible for more general media issues, however, were dealing with a journalism that seemed almost alien. The reporters were less reporter and more activist. They asked questions like reporters, but their stories often reflected nothing of what the discussion had been about. Staff meetings often became brainstorm sessions on how to deal with this. 

The issue lasted for years. Ultimately, only one thing was going to work: calling out the reporter for a bad or misleading story – and publishing the reprimand on the company web site or blog. It’s difficult to imagine the internal opposition to this – embarrassing a reporter was something you simply did not do. It was resisted for years, but nothing else worked. What finally broke the opposition was a story that postured as news but was so obviously propaganda that even a publication widely read by journalists called the reporters out. The company published the reprimand on its blog site. The awful reporting subsided for a long time after that.

What was new in reporting back then seems to be standard operating procedure today. Newspapers like to think the internet has eaten their lunch. And it has – particularly in classified and other kinds of advertising. But reporting barely disguised as activist opinion has had its effect as well – I know a lot of people who stopped subscribing to the local newspaper because the bias was blatant. 

And there’s no question that the newspaper has a bias, but what’s interesting is that the bias occurs mostly in national news stories, obtained by the paper’s subscription to wire services like the Associated Press and syndicates like Washington Post. Local coverage has severely diminished over the years, but the paper generally does a credible job with local news. (That is, unless local news becomes national news, then it reports like everyone else.)

Where I live is increasingly unusual in that my suburb of St. Louis shares a weekly community newspaper with a few other adjacent communities. It covers what the St. Louis Post-Dispatch cannot – local council and school board meetings, local development proposals, sales and property tax issues, and other issues that affect and often deeply concern people in the community. It has a lively letters-to-the-editor page that usually has only letters about local issues, events, and concerns. What the newspaper does, sometimes well and sometimes imperfectly, is facilitate democracy and self-government. 

People are looking closely at the connection between newspapers, and the decline of newspapers, and the increasing inability of the United States to govern itself, except by crisis. Next week, I’ll have a post about a newspaper that tried some rather innovative – it dropped all references to national news and issues from its opinion pages. 

Photograph of The New York Times by Wan Chen via Unsplash. Used with permission.

When Your Manuscript is Problematic

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I knew the manuscript would be tricky. The story is about what flows from a hoax. The hoax itself occupies a tiny part of the story; the ramifications are the story. But I knew this would not be an easy road, especially in today’s cultural climate. I anticipated I would be paddling a canoe against a raging torrent.

I was not wrong.

I researched my agents. I found one whom I thought would be fair and not reject the manuscript out of hand. The research paid off; the agent gave it a fair reading.

The response: I love the characters. The story is well-paced and compelling. It keeps you engaged all the way to the end. It’s an important story. But none of the publishers we work with would even consider publishing it.

To continue reading, please see my post today at American Christian Fiction Writers.

Photograph by Karla Hernandez via Unsplash. Used with permission.

Writing is a Lot Easier than Editing

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In late December, a story idea took possession of my head, and I began to write. The narrative flowed like it never had before with five previous novels. This one was different; its predecessors had been part of a series, while this one was a completely different story.

On Feb. 18, I write this note in my writing log: “Reach 90,543 words. First draft is completed.” While I can’t say it was effortless, the writing of this story was surprisingly easy. I knew from the beginning how the story would end, and, working without an outline, I kept moving toward that end.

Then came the formal editing.

To continue reading, please see my post today at the ACFW Blog.

Photograph by Andrew Neel via Unsplash. Used with permission.

The Legacy of a Teacher

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In 1983, a colleague at work suggested I might be interested in a new masters program at Washington University in St. Louis. It was the Masters in Liberal Arts, and it had been designed for “older students,” people who had been out of school and working. I looked into it, talked with the program coordinator, and decided to try it. It was only one night a week per class, and my employer generously subsidized college-level courses as long as they were part of a degree program. I figured it was extremely low-risk; if I didn’t like the program, I could simply stop.

The deal clincher was what my colleague said about the professors who taught in the program. They were among the very best professors at the university; in fact, there was something of a waiting list to teach MLA courses. The reason: the students were older, more experienced, firmer in their convictions, more inclined to challenge the teacher, and interested in the subject being taught for its own sake.

I signed up for a course entitled “Science, Creation Science, and Pseudo-Science,” taught by Dr. Michael Friedlander of the Physics Department. It was essentially a philosophy of science course. Dr. Friedlander, with a South African accent with a British university overlay, was a physicist specializing in cosmic rays. He was also known for having participated in anti-nuclear protests at the university some 30 or so years previously. He had gotten himself into some difficulties with the students at the time because he supported peaceful protests only, believing they would accomplish far more.

Brookings Hall and the Quadrangle at Washington University

This was my test course, to see if I would stay interested enough to continue. I found the subject fascinating and challenging. I found Dr. Friedlander to be personable, funny, thoughtful, kind, and respectful, even when he disagreed with you. I was completely charmed. He was my introduction to the MLA program, and he turned me into a committed fan.

A year or so later, I saw he was teaching another MLA course, this one in a partnership with another professor. The course was “The History of Science,” and it was every bit as good as the first course I’d taken. 

I can’t say I became close personal friends with Dr. Friedlander. But we’d often talk before or after class. His office door was always open, and he seemed to be one of those teachers who actually liked students and like teaching. 

When the time came for graduation in 1988, I asked Dr. Friedlander to be one of the three MLA professors who would lead my oral discussion. The “orals” weren’t really like an oral exam, but more like an extended discussion, for the professors to see what it was you had learned through the program. And he was just as charming and funny in that discussion as he was in class. With Dr. Friedlander, what you saw is what you got.

This past Sunday, I saw his obituary in the St. Louis Post-Dispatch. He had retired many years ago. He was 92 at the time of his death. The funeral home had a link for the service livestream, and I was able to watch it. His rabbi conducted the service, and his son, daughter, and a grandson spoke. I was especially moved by the grandson’s words. I told myself that this was a man who was loved by his family.

I can also say, from experience, that Michael Friedlander was well-liked and deeply respected by his students. He left a legacy of character: why kindness matters, how we can respect each other no matter our beliefs and politics, and why it’s important to be able to laugh at ourselves. He had an impact on my life, and I will be forever grateful.

Related: Washington University’s obituary.

Top photograph: Dr. Michael Friedlander.

“An Effort to Understand” by David Murray

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It may be the most idealistic definition of communication I’ve ever seen: “With sincere intent and real imagination,” writes David Murray, “all human beings can understand one another.” 

Murray is the editor of Vital Speeches of the Day. He’s the force behind the Professional Speechwriters Association. He leads the Executive Communications Council. He blogs, usually daily, at Writing Boots. He’s spent more than three decades in the communications business; I first met him when he was editor of Speechwriter’s Newsletter, back in the dark ages before social media, web sites, smart phonies, Amazon, and Google. 

He’s also politically blue. But he’s an unusual blue, one who believes that the politically red might actually be worth talking with. And thus his new book, An Effort to Understand: Hearing One Another (and Ourselves) in a Nation Cracked in Half. It’s an optimistic book, reflecting the optimism and general good humor of its author. It’s a book about communications, comprised of short chapters ranging across the breadth of contemporary life – family, work, politics, change, culture, language, environment, leadership, friendship, and more. 

What links all of these things is the idea of communication. Life works because communication works. When communication doesn’t work, things unravel. Marriages fail. Friends stop speaking to each other. People suspect each of other of the most nefarious motives, simply because of what candidate they might for. Or, as Murray might say, communications fails when we stop acting like adults. 

It’s not about civility, he says; civility is not communication. Preaching to the choir and remaining safely inside our political bubbles isn’t communication, either. It’s not screaming names and labels at people to force people to back down and admit we’re right and they’re wrong. 

David Murray

Instead, communication is about understanding. We can have profound and fundamental disagreements about any subject or issue; the United States was founded in the context of profound and fundamental disagreements about government, people, and political philosophy, disagreements which still shape the nation today. But if we’re to hold this American experiment together, we have to make a sincere, sustained, and good-faith effort to understand each other. 

No one said it’s easy, least of all Murray. Coming from the moderately conservative (red) side of the political spectrum, I took him at his word, and I read his book to understand. I knew his politics; I knew we disagreed on a number of very basic things. But I also knew he would have something worthwhile to say, and something I could learn, because Murray is first a communicator. He’s not a political partisan seeking to convert me or any other reader to his way of political thinking. He’s a communicator seeking to understand others and himself, only asking for a similar understanding in return.

The 60 short essays of An Effort to Understand will make you laugh. They will make you think. Most importantly, they will make you look beyond the red and blue labels we use to objectify and categorize people. They will help you understand.

This may be the best book on communication I’ve ever read.