A Nation of Witch Hunters

When I was growing up, "innocent until proven guilty" was practically a mantra whenever someone was accused of a crime. Even if everyone knew the accused was guilty, it simply was not considered American to speak of someone as guilty until a jury had reached that conclusion.

That, after all, was the kind of thing the early settlers came to America to escape (and then, ironically, engaged in their own witch hunting in Salem, Mass.).

The newsrooms where I worked in my newspaper days were always sensitive to that. For a time, when I was a police/courts reporter, my editors always reminded me, when I came to the newsroom to write about the day's proceedings in court, to refer to the defendant as "the accused" or "the alleged" until the jury reached its verdict.

Even if we knew the defendant was guilty. We couldn't say so until it was official — meaning that a jury had reached that conclusion.

Saying so in print only made it seem — and rightly so — that the press had already reached its conclusion. To hell with the jury.

That has never been the role of the press. The press' job is to be the eyes and ears of the community. The newspapers for which I worked, as I say, were always very sensitive about that kind of thing. They earnestly sought to maintain an aura of neutrality, and most of the reporters with whom I have worked would have bristled at the suggestion that they were not absolutely fair.

It's been awhile since I worked in a newsroom so I don't know when that began to change. All I know is that it did — probably tentatively at first but grew progressively bolder as the press began to discover that no one was going to hold it accountable for prejudging criminal defendants.

Even if the press was wrong.

Today, all that is needed for the public to turn on someone is for someone else to say something. Anything. Doesn't matter if it is true. It is accepted on face value. Look how quickly people have turned on Bill Cosby, one of the most beloved entertainers of his day. He has been accused of truly reprehensible behavior. If those accusations are true, he should be held accountable. But they haven't been proven in court, which is where every American who is accused of something is entitled to face his/her accuser and defend himself/herself against the charges if possible. That's what the people who braved the unknown to settle this land wanted.

Well, at least, that's how it used to be.

How about the case of cable TV cooking star Paula Deen, who admitted using the "N word" many years ago and apologized profusely — only to be driven from the airwaves anyway by those whose only motive appeared to be a desire to see how the other half had been living all these years — not a quest for justice.

In Ferguson, Missouri, the grand jury, as you undoubtedly know, has been investigating the August shooting death of Michael Brown, an 18–year–old black man. The grand jury's decision not to indict the white police officer who shot Brown sparked riots and looting.

If you look at the transcripts of the grand jury proceedings, you will see that most of the witnesses' accounts supported the officer's version of events — and most, if not all, of those witnesses were black. The facts simply did not support accusing the officer of a crime and spending who knows how many taxpayer dollars in a futile attempt to convict him.

And that is what grand juries really are designed to do — filter the unsupported cases from the supported ones. Do you believe that there are too many frivolous cases clogging up the judicial system? Grand juries have been doing their part to keep the frivolous cases out of the system in this country for a couple of centuries. If you think it is bad now, try living in an America that doesn't have grand juries to serve as courthouse gatekeepers.

Apparently, there are, to misquote Jack Nicholson, people who can't handle the truth, though. In spite of the testimony of those witnesses, there are still people who say justice wasn't served — and that race was the reason.

That is mere speculation unless there is proof to support it. Astonishingly, there are people who continue to cling to claims that have been recanted, citing them as evidence in this case — when, in fact, they are no such thing.

Things are a bit murkier in the choking death of Eric Garner in New York in July. I haven't seen those grand jury transcripts, and I would like to because it could give me some insight into the jurors' mindset. From looking at the video, it appears that, at the least, a charge of negligent homicide might be in order — but a video doesn't tell you everything you need to know.

Videos do help, of course, and I like the idea of equipping police officers with body cameras so investigators can see precisely what the officer saw when something like this happens. It's a worthy goal, but Barack Obama's pledge to provide federal funds to help police departments pay for such cameras is one more example of how Obama ignores feasibility in order to pursue what he believes would be an ideal world.

America is already $18 trillion in debt. The wise thing — the prudent thing — would be to focus on bringing down the debt, not adding to it. Hard choices must be made. Such choices almost always involve sacrifice, and, in the last six years, many Americans have had to make sacrifices they never thought they would have to make. Their leaders must give careful consideration before asking for more.

Of course, homicides aren't the only things getting attention these days. There have been a couple of cases of rape — or, rather, alleged rape — in the news. Now, don't get me wrong. I'm not saying that rape is anything other than what it is — an act of violence. But it is the kind of charge that sticks to someone even if he's been cleared.

I covered a rape trial once. The defendant was acquitted, but he was forever linked to the charge. He lost his job, couldn't find another one locally and, eventually, had to leave town. I've always hoped he was able to pick up the loose threads of his life and get back on track.

I also left that experience thinking that, if newspapers voluntarily withhold the names of alleged rape victims (and that is a voluntary thing — it is not mandated by law — freedom of the press, don't you know), they should also withhold the names of the accused until they have been convicted.

Rape is an incendiary charge. Bill Cosby, as I have pointed out, hasn't been convicted. He hasn't even been formally charged, yet his long–time associates are throwing him under the bus, one after the other. Maybe they're right to do so. But what if they are wrong?

Yes, sexual assault is an incendiary charge. It must be handled judiciously, which makes the case of actress Lena Dunham both fascinating and troubling.

For the last couple of months, Dunham has been hawking her memoir, "Not That Kind of Girl: A Young Woman Tells You What She's 'Learned,'" which includes her account of an occasion when she was raped.

Well, to be fair, she never actually accuses anyone of rape. But she does describe an evening of what is best described as non–consensual sex.

Dunham, in case you don't remember, made advertisements for Obama's re–election two years ago. Those advertisements were intended to appeal to young voters, equating casting one's first vote with losing one's virginity.

I do not mention that to explain any conclusions I may have reached about Dunham or her moral compass or anything like that — I think most readers are capable of doing that on their own — but because her political leanings are important to remember in the context of a portion of her narrative. I refer to her description of an occasion when she claims to have been raped by a prominent "campus Republican" named Barry when she was a student at Oberlin College.

Oberlin is in Ohio and, from what I have heard, put the liberal in "liberal arts." Just about any Republican would stick out like a sore thumb there.

Her account has been effectively debunked by John Nolte of Breitbart. It was praised for its "truthiness" in TIME back in September.

Now that the reliability of the story has been brought into question, Eugene Volokh of the Washington Post wonders if this prominent "campus Republican," identified in Dunham's book as "Barry," has grounds for legal action against her.

The most egregious example of this willingness — nay, eagerness — to blindly accept anything that is said could be found in the pages of Rolling Stone last month. The article described the horrific gang rape of a woman identified as Jackie at a University of Virginia frat house.

There were angry protests and the school suspended all fraternity activities for a year. Those would be appropriate responses except for one thing — "there now appear to be discrepancies" in the account, Rolling Stone's managing editor says. More than a few, actually. There are more holes in the story than you'll find in the average block of Swiss cheese.

As a journalist, I am embarrassed by the blatantly sloppy fact checking. It is shoddy journalism, and it is inexcusable.

Rolling Stone's managing editor was right to acknowledge that the "failure is on us," but the mistakes were so basic that a first–year journalism student, never mind a newsroom full of seasoned vets, would have spotted them.

The thing that concerns me, though, is this: What if the editors at Rolling Stone knew in advance about the problems with the story, and they gambled that no one would call them on it? That it wasn't sloppiness after all?

I am reminded of the bogus charges leveled by Tawana Brawley against a group of white men back in the late '80s. Do you happen to recall who one of her chief supporters was? Al Sharpton.

Journalism in the Digital Age

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"I don't think a tough question is disrespectful."

Helen Thomas (1920–2013)
Longtime White House correspondent

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Once, when I was teaching journalism at the University of Oklahoma, a student asked me what I thought newspapers would do about the then–emerging internet. Would newspapers survive?

At the time, I thought I gave a wise reply. I told the student that I thought newspapers and the digital world would find a way to peacefully co–exist, and I really did believe that.

I remember thinking of my first newspaper job. I covered the police and fire beats in those days along with a couple of reporters from two local radio stations. We were in competition with each other, but it was a friendly competition. We often helped each other in double checking our facts. I never felt that people who listened to either radio station did so instead of subscribing to my newspaper, and I don't think either of those radio reporters felt that people who read the paper did so instead of listening to the radio.

It was generally understood that many folks did both.

The manner in which news was delivered had changed when I had that conversation with my student — and it has changed even more since — but newspapers always existed alongside the newest technological advance, whatever it was, and I believed newspapers would find a way.

But nearly all newspapers failed to grasp the nature of the challenge they faced from the internet.

Initially, most newspapers treated the internet like some kind of commercial fad. They put the fruits of their employees' labors, their content, online because, well, positively everyone had a website. It was like an email address. If you didn't have one, you were not legitimate.

But newspapers didn't treat their websites like another part of their newspaper — for which a price must be paid — because it was online. They didn't take it seriously, and so they charged nothing. Like many people, they contended that home computers wouldn't last. Computers were novelties. It was only a matter of time. Funny. Folks said the same thing about radio and television.

To be fair, few, if any, people could foresee the changes that have occurred in journalism since I had that conversation with my student. In an ideal world, perhaps newspapers would peacefully (and profitably) co–exist with the digital delivery system; indeed, I believe there was a time, a relatively brief time as it turned out, when the proverbial window was open to such an arrangement, but it slammed shut without any warning.

One of the things that newspapers failed to understand was that folks quickly got the idea that, once you paid your admission fee (internet access), everything online was free. Copyright law magically stopped at the water's edge.

I think that will change. In fact, it is changing already. Communications laws — i.e., copyright and libel laws — will be expanded via court rulings to apply to the digital world. That really is simply a matter of time.

Some of the more visionary operators of websites concluded early on that there was money to be made from charging for access to their wares, whatever they happened to be, and from hiring people who could position the digital arm of a newspaper to be on the cutting edge, but few of those websites actually were arms of newspapers.

By the time newspapers realized they were losing print subscribers — many of whom, no doubt, found they could get the same material from the internet for free — it was too late for most. Charging for access to online content was a lost cause. Savvy online news readers knew that, except for local news, they could find articles on just about anything anywhere else, and subscription rates plummeted.

Advertising revenue has paid the bills for newspapers for a long time, but advertising revenue declines when circulation declines. In the recoveries that tend to follow economic downturns, circulation usually rebounds. In the current economy, it has become a death spiral. The internet has advantages that newspapers are not likely to overcome.

If I could go back in time and re–live that conversation, I would tell my student to focus on small– to medium–sized newspapers because they were the ones uniquely positioned to provide news their readers could use.

I live in the Dallas area, and I tell my students the large city newspapers in the Metroplex — the Dallas Morning News and the Fort Worth Star–Telegram — will provide some but not all of the local news being generated in the smaller cities nearby. They simply don't have the manpower, and the tendency of some newspapers to rely on citizen journalists who can post their articles directly to the website overlooks the fact that trained journalists are much more likely to ask the questions that need to be asked and provide the information that readers want.

They're more likely to double check their facts. Their stories are likely to be better organized, and they are more likely to utilize little writing strategies that professors have been talking about in journalism school at least since I was a student. These tactics make articles easier and more enjoyable to read.

That part hasn't changed. Well–written articles make a news website stand out and have a greater tendency to make such a site a destination site that people will want to visit again.

People in those smaller cities around here can get some local news through radio stations and cable access channels, too, but the local newspaper is more likely to send a reporter to a city council meeting or a school board meeting. More detailed accounts of the high school football or basketball game can be provided by the local sportswriter. Local police and fire news won't make the big–city newspapers unless it is a really big story.

Writing for a small– to mid–sized newspaper isn't as glamorous as covering the White House or Capitol Hill, but it is the purest form of journalism remaining. Through it, journalists can serve the purpose they were intended to serve — being the eyes and ears of their community.

Not its conscience.

Too many journalists these days appear to think that they are expected to choose sides and belittle whichever side is opposite theirs. I'm not even sure that is what should be done when a piece is clearly labeled opinion; I'm absolutely certain that it should not be done in news coverage.

(When I was studying news reporting in college, I was told to present the facts as neutrally as possible — and let the reader reach his or her own conclusions. The professor who told us that once worked for the New York Times. I believed what he told me. I still do.

(Opinion writing was a different subject, and we were encouraged in that class to be sure that all opinions were confined to the opinion page[s].

(That's another problem with modern journalism. The line between news and opinion is blurry, indistinct — but that is really a topic for another discussion.)

In hindsight, I am inclined to think that I gave the concept of compromise more credibility than perhaps I should have in that conversation with my student, and, based on what I read in an article in the American Journalism Review, many in the business agree with me.

Speaking of the New York Times, Mark Potts writes in the American Journalism Review that a problem for the Times — which has dabbled over the years with a few ways of charging for access to online content — is divided manpower.

The priority at the Times, Potts writes, is the print edition. "As long as there are both print and digital products coming out of the same newsroom," he observes, "the natural internal tensions and conflicts may be too great to find a workable middle ground."

Especially when the same people are expected to perform both functions simultaneously.

Some newspapers have resolved that problem by hiring special staff to keep the website up to date while the other staffers work on the print edition. But that isn't feasible for most newspapers.

Potts argues that "the ultimate answer for the Times and other papers may lie in the nuclear option: ditching print — or greatly minimizing it — so that we're forced to deal with the digital issues as our primary concern, not a secondary annoyance."

I hope it doesn't come to that. But, to survive, newspapers will have to adapt.

"[I]t's not just about being more creative digitally and spending less time worrying about what's on Page One," writes Potts. "[W]hat's needed is a top to bottom newsroom rethink of content forms, workflows, technologies and products to adapt to a rapidly changing world."

Never Assume

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Today is the 65th anniversary of the appearance on the news racks of physical proof of perhaps the most spectacularly bad headline decision ever.

As I have mentioned before, I used to work on newspaper copy desks, and I understand the temptation to write a headline for a story when you already know — or think you know — how it is going to turn out even though it isn't official.

I worked on sports copy desks, and there were often times when Super Bowls or something similar became lopsided early and, even though much of the game had yet to be played, it was clear which team would win. On such occasions, we felt we had extra time to work on our headline, and most of the time we were right.

(I always felt that we held ourselves to somewhat higher standards at those times, given that we had the luxury of time to reflect and come up with just the right headline. I have always been proud of a headline I wrote at the Arkansas Gazette about a college football game that got out of hand early.)

That is one of the biggest differences between writing a sports headline and writing a news headline, I suppose. Most team sports events are rigidly timed. When one team grabs a big lead over another, the game eventually reaches a point when it is no longer possible for the other team to come back. (Baseball is the sole exception to that rule, I guess. In baseball, as Yogi Berra said, it really ain't over until it's over.)

But news doesn't work that way — as the folks at the Chicago Tribune found out on this day in 1948. They probably knew it already, but what happened 65 years ago was a reminder to them and a cautionary tale for the generations of editors to follow.

It was a banner headline about the 1948 presidential election, which was held 65 years ago yesterday. It famously proclaimed "DEWEY DEFEATS TRUMAN" in big bold letters on Page 1.

History remembers the 1948 campaign as Harry Truman's "Give 'em hell, Harry" campaign, the greatest political comeback ever. The 1948 election made Truman the patron saint of political lost causes. I can't remember a single political campaign in which the underdog failed to invoke the memory of Truman and his upset win as evidence that anything is possible (regardless of whether the cause was really lost at that point or not).

When I was a journalism student, they told us about the 1948 election and the Tribune headline — and I'm sure it is still this way in most schools — as a reminder never to assume.

Sixty–five years ago, the folks on the Chicago Tribune's copy desk made a huge assumption. They assumed that Tom Dewey, Truman's Republican opponent, would win the election, and it was a reasonable assumption to make. Truman was the incumbent, but he was unpopular. In June 1948, Gallup reported that only 39% of respondents approved of his job performance.

It may have been due, in part, to wishful thinking on the part of the Tribune. It was a Republican–leaning paper and had called Truman a "nincompoop" on its editorial page.

And there is no doubt that still–primitive polling methods played a huge role, too. There were flaws in polling methodology that would be corrected after the election, but the flaws were firmly in place before the voters cast their ballots as the polls persistently predicted Dewey's victory for months. Pollsters were convinced that most voters had made up their minds in September and stopped polling weeks before the election, thus missing a late shift in Truman's favor.

It has been estimated that as many as 14% of voters who originally intended to vote for Dewey decided in those final weeks to vote for Truman or someone else — or not at all.

And part of the reason was due to deadline pressure.

As Tim Jones of the Tribune writes, "a printers' strike ... forced the paper to go to press hours before it normally would." The accelerated deadline forced the managing editor to make the kind of judgment call that no editor wants to make early on an election night. He had to choose a headline for a story that wasn't over when he made the decision — but would be when the readers picked up their papers the next morning.

Obviously, he made the wrong choice. He relied on polling data that was weeks old and made the pollsters his scapegoat — even though he had also depended too much on the judgment of the Tribune's Washington correspondent, who was almost never wrong, as well as the fact that LIFE magazine had just published a picture of Dewey with the caption "the next president of the United States."

It was a huge mistake, but remember, this was in the days before the internet, before cable TV. Heck, TV was still in its infancy in those days, anyway. Few people outside the Chicago area knew of the headline faux pas — until Truman, who was returning to Washington by train, made a stop in St. Louis and was handed a copy of the Tribune with its erroneous headline.

"He had as low an opinion of the Tribune as it did of him," Jones wrote. "Truman held the paper up, and photographers preserved the moment for history."

The Writing on the Wall

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The Pew Research Center released its State of the News Media 2013 report yesterday.

For someone like me, who worked for newspapers and a trade magazine for many years — in fact, I earned my master's degree while working full time for a newspaper — and now teaches journalism in the Dallas community college system, there is much to read and absorb.

And, since we are on spring break this week, I may spend a lot of my time doing precisely that.

But I've been doing some reading already, and there are a few initial conclusions I can reach.

On the one hand, I am heartened — somewhat — by Pew's conclusion that "[f]or the first time since the deep recession that began in 2007, newspaper organizations have grounds for a modicum of optimism."

I have to say "somewhat" because, more than five years later, newspapers are not healthy, and Pew is clear on that point. Each encouraging development in the newspaper business that Pew observes is "mostly promise rather than performance. The most basic indicators have not turned around. The industry is little more than half the size it once was. Considerable dangers persist."

Good — if not long overdue — adjustments are being made in the newspaper business, and I deeply hope they will herald a revival. But so far the promise still far exceeds the performance.

I am cautiously optimistic that will change even though Pew pulls no punches when it comes to the challenges still facing the print news industry.

Advertising continues to be a major problem. For six straight years now, print advertising revenue have dropped, and digital advertising seems to be leveling off, which, as Pew notes, "suggest[s] that corporations are shifting their advertising dollars to other platforms."

That is important, given the business' "historic over–dependence on advertising." To be sure, there are many more options for advertisers than there were when I graduated from college, and it makes sense that newspapers would lose a portion of that advertising revenue on which they have depended for so long.

It also makes sense that, in order to survive, newspapers would look for new ways to compensate for that loss. Unfortunately, many have resorted to the same old strategy, providing fresh examples of the truth of the old Einstein adage that the definition of insanity is doing the same thing over and over again and expecting different results.

As is typical when times are hard, many newspapers have tried to make up for that lost revenue by trimming their payrolls — "Estimates for newspaper newsroom cutbacks in 2012 put the industry down 30% since its peak in 2000," Pew writes in its overview of the industry, "and below 40,000 full–time professional employees for the first time since 1978."

In most instances, journalists have been no different than anyone else who was affected by the recession. Their careers were interrupted through no fault of their own, and I am hopeful that, ultimately, print journalism will survive — albeit in a different form.

Their absence has been noticed. In Pew's words, "Nearly a third of U.S. adults, 31%, have stopped turning to a news outlet because it no longer provided them with the news they were accustomed to getting."

The product will have to improve, but it can only do so when newspapers have an adequate number of people on their payrolls to get the job done. I am cautiously optimistic that this can be achieved.

On the other hand, I am dismayed (but not really surprised) by Pew's confirmation of the many problems I see within broadcasting. Since many Americans simply do not read anymore, broadcasting is where most get their news, and that places a special burden on broadcasters.

Unfortunately, they are not meeting it. Instead, they pander to the lowest common denominator.

"In local TV," Pew writes, "sports, weather and traffic now account on average for 40% of the content produced on the newscasts studied while story lengths shrink."

Pew says it sees "a news industry that is more undermanned and unprepared to uncover stories, dig deep into emerging ones or to question information put into its hands."

That contributes to a general impression of bias in the media, an accusation that most often seems to be aimed at Fox News.

I am not an admirer of bias of any kind in the media, and I am quick to criticize the bias I have seen coming from Fox News (the most frequent target of such criticism) — but Fox isn't the only culprit, and Pew does not spare the others. MSNBC was far more biased in its reporting than either Fox or CNN, Pew reported, but all three were guilty of bias.

Bias is never justified in news coverage. It is acceptable in opinion pieces but only marginally. The thing that I believe is important to remember is that journalists, whether they report the news or comment on it, are guaranteed the same First Amendment rights American journalists have always been guaranteed.

I tell my news writing students to be like flies on the wall when they report the news. The reader, I tell them, should not be aware of their presence. That cannot be done in opinion writing. Thus, it is important that newspapers clearly label opinion columns and editorials as such, but it is also important for writers to use language that is appropriate for the kind of articles they write.

In recent semesters, I have been adding a segment to my news writing course on opinion writing, but I emphasize to my students that there is a huge difference between reporting the news and commenting on it, and I encourage them to respect that difference.

That doesn't mean that readers always recognize that difference.

At the community college where I teach, one student recently wrote a column that was critical of the Obama administration. This set off a virtual tidal wave of responses on the faculty email system that demonstrated all too clearly that supposedly educated adults, not students, didn't understand the difference between news reporting and opinion writing ...

Even though the column was clearly labeled "OPINION."

One respondent, who wrote a letter to the editor (which was published), erroneously called the column an "editorial," which is an opinion piece, but the terms editorial and opinion column are not interchangeable.

Since there apparently are people out there who do not know (or will not acknowledge) the difference between them, here it is in a nutshell. An editorial is typically published without a byline and purportedly speaks for the entire staff (hence, the use of the editorial we) whereas an opinion column speaks only for the person whose byline runs with it.

Both opinion writers and editorial writers are entitled to the same First Amendment protection as reporters.

There is much work to be done to repair the damage the recession has done to journalism, but it must be done if freedom is to be preserved, and it will take the best efforts of those who have dedicated their lives to the profession to accomplish it.

If that does not happen, the writing truly will be on the wall.

Nothing Can Go Wrong ... Go Wrong ... Go Wrong

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Big Tex in happier times.

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Back when I was in high school, I attended a weeklong journalism workshop on the SMU campus. Several non–journalism activities (more of a social nature) were scheduled that week as well, including the showing of the movie "Westworld" after the workshop concluded.

I was reminded of that movie when I first saw video footage of Big Tex in flames at the Texas State Fair — or, to be more precise, I was reminded of Yul Brynner, the evil robotic gunslinger, and "Westworld"'s tagline — "Westworld — where nothing can go wrong ... go wrong ... go wrong."

These days, I teach journalism in the Dallas community college system, which includes advising the students on the newspaper staff.

The paper is published weekly, and each edition is completed on Friday. (The paper is then distributed the following Tuesday.) The advisers have to be there until the last page is done, which is actually a lot of fun for me. It reminds me of the days when I used to work on newspaper copy desks.

It also reminds me of what working for a newspaper is like, the nightly challenge of playing beat the clock. There are things you expect — like deadline pressure — and things you don't expect — namely, the news.

Well, of course you expect news! It's your business, after all. But it is often a reactive sort of business. Sometimes you do know what to expect, albeit in a general sort of way, like when a trial is scheduled at the courthouse or a big game is about to be played at the high school. You don't know what the outcome will be, but you know the trial — or the game or whatever — is coming up.

Much of the time, though, you cannot anticipate what the news will be. You simply react to whatever happens.

Which brings me to yesterday.

I was driving to the campus Friday when I heard on the radio that Big Tex, the iconic figure from the Texas State Fair, had burned.

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I didn't grow up here, but I know many people who did, and I knew Big Tex was special to them. He's been greeting visitors to the Texas State Fair with his robust "Howdy, folks!" since 1952.

Any journalist in this area — and, for that matter, in neighboring areas — ought to know that. And I was pleased to find out, when I walked into the newsroom, that the student newspaper staff was on top of it. A photographer was on the scene (and came back with some great photos), and one of the reporters was trying to reach a professor on the faculty who is something of a Texas State Fair historian (and has written a book or two on the subject — or so I am told).

The professor couldn't be located, but the reporter uncovered some interesting facts that I didn't know.

I didn't know, for example, that Big Tex started as Santa Claus in a town southeast of here called Kerens.

And then a mayor of Dallas, R.L. Thornton — whose name adorns a stretch of road here that is always jammed. It is always mentioned whenever the TV or radio stations report about traffic problems — purchased Big Tex, and he's been greeting visitors to the fair ever since.

The folks at the fair swear he will be back next year, presumably with a more current wardrobe and some new boots, but it didn't look too promising when he left Fair Park in what looked an awful lot like a body bag.

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As the afternoon wore on, I felt more and more like Murray, the news writer on the Mary Tyler Moore Show who kept coming up with sick jokes about a colleague at the TV station, known only as Chuckles the Clown, who had been killed at a circus parade when he dressed as a character named Peter Peanut and a rogue elephant shelled him to death.

(When Lou Grant observed that it was a good thing more people weren't hurt, Murray agreed and said, "You know how hard it is to stop after just one peanut.")

Since I first saw that episode back in the '70s, I've discovered that there was a lot of truth in it. I spent many years working in newsrooms, and they are breeding grounds for gallows humor. Virtually nothing is sacred.

And I've lived in Texas long enough to know that Big Tex is sacred — or, at least, semi—sacred — to many.

But I really had no idea just how sacred he was until yesterday.

In the reporter's article, there was a quote from a girl who said she had been to the fair just a week ago and shot some video footage of Big Tex for a project on which she was working in school. "And now he's gone," she said to the reporter.

As I read it, I could imagine her eyes welling up with tears.

Then, as I was driving home from the campus around 8 p.m., I heard someone on one of the radio stations doing a tribute program to Big Tex.

"We've lost a friend today," the host said somberly as the song "My Heart Will Go On" (from "Titanic") played in the background.

Maybe it was all done tongue in cheek, but it sounded deadly serious to me.

Operating Without a Net

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I realize it is foolhardy to make blanket assertions, but I feel relatively safe in saying that most Americans have probably been to a circus at some point in their lives — or at least they have seen video clips of a circus on television.

There are all kinds of attractions at a circus. Some are relatively benign, but some of the most enduringly thrilling acts ever seen involve tightrope walkers and trapeze artists. Over the years, the phrase "death defying" has become something of a hackneyed cliche, I guess, but when you see those performers doing their acts high in the air, it's really the only phrase that seems adequate.

Of course, most of them never have really been defying death. Most of the time, there has been a safety net in place to catch them if they fall.

It isn't an absence of faith in their abilities. It is recognition that, well, we all make mistakes.

That's kind of how I have always felt about newspaper copy desks. I have devoted a large chunk of my adult life to both the practice of copy editing and teaching it in college classrooms. I know there were many times when I personally prevented embarrassing errors from slipping into print.

A copy desk is a newspaper's safety net. More than two years ago, I wrote about the value of proofreading, and errors that have found their way into print in the last few months alone — on both sides of the political spectrum — tell me it isn't just journalists who need that safety net.

(Sad to say, though, many journalists are losing that safety net. When economic conditions are bad, one of the first cost–cutting measures at many newspapers is to cut back on the copy desk. Reporters aren't really conditioned to monitor themselves, but they are told they must now do that very thing. Maybe some will, but, in my experience, most will not so whatever their weaknesses are — spelling, punctuation, fact checking — rapidly become the newspaper's weaknesses, too.

(As a result, the newspaper's reputation suffers, producing a domino effect — lost circulation followed by lost advertising revenue ... followed by more staff cuts — or, perhaps, reductions in publication dates. Maybe both.)

Earlier this year, the White House announced via a press release that the vice president would attend a campaign event in Road Island. That mistake was widely reported by the wire services.

(I spoke to several people at the time who observed that anyone who aspires to be president — especially someone who is president — should know how to spell the names of the states. You could point out to them that Barack Obama went to college and almost certainly does know how to spell the names of all 50 states — even though he once said there were 57 of them, not 50 — maybe he was thinking about the steak sauce? — and that it was almost certainly someone who worked for him who made that mistake.

(But the point is that the mistake was made on his behalf. And it could not be excused as what the Nixon administration used to call misspeaking yourself. It was in print.)

And then, last week, Republican presumptive presidential nominee Mitt Romney's new campaign app misspelled America.

Likewise, I guess, anyone who aspires to be president — or already is the president — should know how to spell the name of the country he wants to lead.

Of course, Romney didn't input any of the words in the app's text any more than Obama was personally responsible for mistyping the name of Rhode Island on that press release. But they're the guys at the top. The ones whose names are on the letterhead.

Spelling doesn't matter if only one person — a narrator, for example — is going to read what you write. It may even be helpful to write everything phonetically to make sure the narrator's pronunciation is right and there aren't any awkward gaps in the narration — because that is all that really counts in TV or radio script writing.

But in a newspaper or a magazine — or a web site or a press release — or anything else that many people will read, spelling counts.

I know it doesn't count for some people. I see some truly alarming mistakes in posts on the internet — and in papers that are turned in to me in the writing classes I teach. Some people clearly don't know any better — or, worse, don't care.

But when you write something that many people will read, there will be some who will recognize a spelling error when they see it — even if most who read it do not. And there will be some who do care.

I guess politicians on the lowest rung of the political ladder can get away with spelling mistakes or typographical errors. The text of any speeches they give probably will not be archived anywhere, and few local officials tend to put out press releases or anything else in print.

But Mitt Romney and Barack Obama really should see to it that they have at least one competent copy editor on their staffs (the more the better) — especially in the digital age, when you can be sure that virtually anything presidents or would–be presidents have said in the past can be found somewhere on the internet.

Romney especially should be cognizant of that. About two months ago, he told the American Society of Newspaper Editors convention that "in some of the new media, I find myself missing the presence of editors to exercise quality control."

Based on that new campaign app, Romney could use some "quality control."

But so could the White House. Two years ago, the following appeared on the White House web site prior to the G–20 meeting in Toronto. (What follows was copied and pasted directly from the White House web site in the summer of 2010. All spellings and spacings are as they appeared. I intended to use it in my news writing classes, but I haven't done so yet ...):

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Dear G-20 Colleagues:
When we met in London in April of2009, we were facing the worst worldwide economic financial crisis since the 1930s. We acted with unprecedented speed and aggressive action to boost demand and repair our financial systems. It worked.
In Pittsburgh, with recovery beginning to take hold, we agreed to work together to achieve a more balanced pattem of global growth and financial reforms to strengthen our financial system and protect our economies from instability.
In Toronto, we meet at a time of renewed challenge to the global economy. We must act together to strengthen the recovery. We need to commit to restore sustainable public finances in the medium term. And we should complete the work of financial repair and reform. Our highest priority in Toronto must be to safeguard a)ld strengthen the recovery. We worked exceptionally hard to restore growth; we cannot let it falter or lose strength now. This means
that we should reaffirm our unity of purpose to provide the policy support necessary to keep economic growth strong. It is essential that we have a self-sustaining recovery that creates the good jobs that our people need. In fact, should confidence in the strength of our recoveries diminish, we should be prepared to respond again as quickly and as forcefully as needed to aveli a slowdown in economic activity.
A strong and sustainable global recovery needs to be built on balanced global demand. Significant weaknesses exist across G-20 economies. I am concemed by weak private sector demand and continued heavy reliance on expolis by some countries with already large external surpluses. Our ability to achieve a durable global recovery depends on our ability to achieve a pattern of global demand growth that avoids the imbalances ofthe past. In Pittsburgh, we agreed that countries with extemal surpluses would need to strengthen domestic sources of
growth. Leaders and governments will need to decide for themselves how to achieve that objective. In some countries, strengthening social safety nets would help boost low levels of consumption. In others, product and labor market reforms could strengthen both consumption and investment. I also want to underscore that market-determined exchange rates are essential to global economic vitality. The signals that flexible exchange rates send are necessary to support a strong and balanced global economy.
We need to commit to fiscal adjustments that stabilize debt-to-GDP ratios at appropriate levels over the medium tenn. I am committed to the restoration of fiscal sustainability in the United States and believe that all G-20 countries should put in place credible and growthfriendly plans to restore sustainable public finances. But it is critical that the timing and pace of consolidation in each economy suit the needs of the global economy, the momentum of private sector demand, and national circumstances. We must be flexible in adjusting the pace of
consolidation and learn from the consequential mistakes of the past when stimulus was too quickly withdrawn and resulted in renewed economic hardships and recession. For our part, we will pursue measures to SUppOit the recovery in private demand and return the unemployed to work. At the same time, we recognize the impoltance of setting a credible medium-term fiscal path: that is why my Administration will cut the budget deficit we inherited in halfby FY 2013 and work to reduce our fiscal deficit to 3 percent ofGDP by FY 2015, which will stabilize the
debt-to-GDP ratio at an acceptable level in that year.
To support the recovery and strengthen the ability of our financial systems to deliver needed credit, we must maintain the momentum of financial repair. Resolving ongoing uncertainty about the transparency of bank balance sheets and the adequacy of bank capital, patticularly in Europe, will help reduce financial market volatility and the cost of borrowing. We should SUppOlt efforts to enhance transparency and increase disclosure by our large financial institutions and to act, where necessary, to strengthen the capital position of our banks. Our ability to grow
without the excesses that that put our economies at risk two years ago requires that we accelerate our efforts to bring needed financial refolIDs to completion. In the U.S., both houses of Congress have passed comprehensive financial regulatory refOlID bills. We must reiterate our commitment in Toronto to a common framework for reforms that provide:
0. more stringent capital and liquidity requirements: We want our negotiators to reach agreement on a new capital framework we can endorse in Seoul that will include higher common equity requirements, tighter definitions of capital, a simple mandatory leverage ratio, and appropriate liquidity requirements. While we consider reasonable transition measures, we must not lose sight ofthe need to make sure our financial institutions have the capital needed to withstand future stresses;
0. stronger oversight of derivatives markets: We want our negotiators to reach agreement to put in place across the major financial markets a consistent framework for oversight of derivatives markets. We should subject all dealers and all major participants in the derivatives markets to supervision and regulation, including conservative capital and margin requirements, disclosure and reporting requirements, and strong business conduct standards to mitigate the potential for systemic risk and market abuse.
0. more transparency and disclosure to promote market integrity and reduce market manipulation; and
0. more effective ji'Qlllework for winding down large global firms, along with principles for thefillallcial sector to make afair and substantial contribution towards payingfor allY burdens it creates in a way that protects taxpayers, creates a level playing field, and reduces risks to our economies.
In Toronto, I also look forward to working on our action agendas on issues ranging from energy and development, to governance reform of intemational financial institutions.
Together, we designated the G-20 as the premier forum for intemational economic cooperation. It is important that the G-20 demonstrates its continued determination to work collectively to address the renewed challenges facing the global economy. I look fOlward to seeing you in Toronto and reaffhming our unity of purpose and resolve.

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Whew!

Clearly, Obama and Romney need copy editors.

But, like so many others, they are working without one.

National politics, like high–wire acts, is a high risk–reward proposition.

It doesn't make sense to operate without a net.

Even considering the potential rewards, the risks simply are too great.

The Quest for the Bottom Line

I guess it is no secret that newspapers are struggling financially these days.

The reasons are complex, but one reason seems clear to me. As I wrote a couple of months ago, most newspapers failed to recognize the internet for the threat it posed back in the days when the internet was still emerging and was not yet a fixture in American homes.

In fact, I recall a day back in the 1990s. Newspapers still seemed to be healthy, although circulation, as always, was down. I never worked in advertising, either classified or display, so I don't know if a downward trend was noticeable in that department. As far as I knew at the time, there was no warning sign that the horizon was not sunny for newspapers.

I was teaching journalism to undergraduates, and one of my students came to me with a question that seems positively prophetic in hindsight. He wanted to know what I thought would happen to newspapers in the digital age (which hadn't even begun to blossom yet).

I'm almost ashamed to admit now that my answer must have revealed a certain naivete on my part. It certainly must have shown a lack of vision.

Sometimes I wonder if that young man remembers that exchange. With some newspapers going under and others slashing their staffs dramatically to remain afloat a little while longer, I can't see how he wouldn't think back on it. If he does, I wish I could assure him that I'm not as naive now as I must seem when I am seen in one's rearview mirror.

Admittedly, peering into the future is not an easy thing for anyone to do. That doesn't prevent many people from trying to anticipate future events, anyway, though, and, by the time this student asked me that particular question, I had heard plenty of gloom–and–doom predictions from others that never came to pass.

And my inclination at that time was to dismiss the idea that the existence of newspapers was, in any way, threatened. So I told my student that I believed newspapers and the internet would find a way to co–exist.

I still believe that will happen eventually, but many newspapers have already paid the price for management's failings and many more almost certainly will in the next few years. The number of newspapers that will survive these turbulent times and establish a mutually profitable relationship with the internet will be far smaller than I — or, I dare say, anyone else — ever dreamed.

Let me ask you a personal question here.

At one time or another, everyone loses something or temporarily misplaces something. On those occasions, have you ever found yourself searching the same locations over and over?

You might search new locations as well, but did you gravitate back to the same locations, too?

Perhaps you did that because you genuinely forgot that you searched a location before (and, if that is the case, you may have a different set of issues to resolve).

But perhaps you did that because you just knew that what you were looking for had to be in that location, and each time you searched it, you did so believing you had overlooked something that was obvious.

I'm getting the impression that newspaper management operates by the latter approach. I make specific reference to the New York Times.

And it sort of proves what Albert Einstein said. He said that the definition of insanity was doing the same thing over and over and expecting a different result.

Well, the Times is about to do something that it tried to do before, but it didn't work.

MarketWatch reports that the Times will start charging for online content in January.

Doug Mataconis mirrors my own thoughts at Outside the Beltway when he points out that the Times tried something like this a few years ago and failed.

The Times introduced something it called Times Select, in which users were charged for access to Times content, but it was dropped after awhile. I've never been privy to Times business strategy sessions, but I assumed that they discovered what I predicted at the time:

With all the free sources for news and information on the internet, most non–New Yorkers simply weren't interested in paying to read the Times four or five years ago. I suspect that even fewer will be willing to do so in today's economy.

Consequently, I predict that this pay–per–view strategy also will fail.

I understand the impatience of Times management to try to recoup its losses. I understand how frustrating it must be for the Times' publishers — not to mention its writers and editors — to think of all those people out there in Internetland who read their articles for free.

But the time to get in on the ground floor of the internet — and collect some of that seemingly endlessly easy money that was circulating in the so–called "dot–com" period — was 14 or 15 years ago. That ship has sailed. Some would say it sank.

Anyway, this is a different era. Newspapers — well, not all of them, but some of them — still can prosper in the digital age. But they're going to have to dedicate themselves to long–term goals. There are no get–rich–quick scenarios for newspapers, even if they resolve their business model issues — which shouldn't be a surprise to anyone who has been in the business for awhile.

After all, unless a publisher already has a fortune that was made elsewhere, he can't reasonably expect to make his fortune from newspaper ownership. There are too many expenses and too little revenue from a product that typically sells for 25 cents or 50 cents an issue.

But the next best thing, it seems to me, is to make the publication indispensable — and achieving that may require some publishers and their publications to take even more of a loss for awhile than they've had to absorb recently.

If they are wise, they will look at it as an investment in the future.

There is no shortage these days of online news organizations that are willing to sacrifice everything else, including accuracy, to be the first to report something. Often, it turns out that what is reported is little more than gossip and speculation, and much of the time, it is wrong, but it is followed — often, at best — by a terse article acknowledging an error.

Some of these organizations ignore their mistakes entirely — in those cases, I guess it goes without saying that the errors go without saying. Sometimes, the readers are never told that they were given false information. The organizations don't acknowledge their own complicity in its perpetuation — and, if their deception is revealed, it is hard to regain the readers' trust.

Trust. Now, that is what I'm talking about.

In these days of be first even if you're wrong journalism, I believe the news organizations that build reputations on providing reliable information, even if it isn't first, will make themselves indispensable.

And it is when a news organization is seen as indispensable that its users will pay to continue receiving it.

Generations ago, the New York Times was known as the "newspaper of record." If you saw it in the New York Times, you knew it was true.

I don't live in New York. I read the Times online. I don't know if it still advertises itself as the newspaper of record, but, if it does, that is just one more mistake the modern Times makes. I often see errors in the Times — some are small, some are not so small. It may have a cracker–jack copy desk, but if the Times calls itself the newspaper of record, it is living on its past glories — while it is being pigeonholed by modern readers as little more than a mouthpiece for leftist columnists.

Building a reputation for reliability takes time, and it takes the efforts of talented copy editors to make it happen. I hear people complain all the time about the declining quality of print journalism, yet newspaper management continues to respond to tough economies in a time–honored way — cut the copy desk first.

These days, it is fashionable to talk of how efficient online journalism can be, allowing the reporter in the field to write his/her article on the spot and post it directly to the internet.

And it certainly would be an efficient method — if writers performed all the functions of the copy desk (and copy editors do a lot more than simply make sure a writer didn't write y–o–u–r when he/she should have written y–o–u–'–r–e).

But most of them don't. Most reporters don't worry about the details.

If the New York Times — and other news organizations, both online and offline — builds a reputation for worrying about the details, I think it will enhance its value to a public that wants to know it can rely on what it is being told.

But it can't be achieved overnight.

The Challenges of Revolution

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The word "revolution" seems to be tossed about rather carelessly by some people.

Well, it seems that way to me, anyway.

I don't mean to say that it is a careless concept. Far from it. A revolution is serious business — by definition, according to Random House, "a sudden, complete or marked change in something."

Clearly, that wasn't an idle question the Beatles asked some 40 years ago, and it was asked at a time when revolution was almost literally in the air.

In fact (if you will pardon just one more musical reference), I have often thought that, when history has had enough time to absorb the revolutionary changes that were wrought in national thoughts and attitudes by the 1960s, the best song — if not the only song — a filmmaker could use as the backdrop for images of that time would be Carole King's "I Feel the Earth Move."

That's a song about the awakening of love and sexual desire, but it is also descriptive of the helpless feeling that can overwhelm a person when something that has been virtually an article of faith is being proven false — or, at least, inoperative.

Anyway, it seems to me the word revolution has been used somewhat frivolously since the days when the guidelines governing just about all of our social relationships — age, gender, race, religious, sexual — were (and, in some cases, remain) under a very public assault. It hasn't always been that way.

Eighty years ago on Friday, Gandhi launched his campaign of non–cooperation and non–violence against British rule of India with the Salt March to the village of Dandi — a truly dramatic and, yes, revolutionary moment in human history.

I've heard many things described as revolutions, whether they actually were revolutions or not. But the bar is set sorta high for genuine revolutions.

Other than an actual armed revolt, the only other kind of revolution that could have as wrenching and far–reaching influence on people as the social unrest of the 1960s or Gandhi's campaign that was ultimately successful in liberating India would be economic upheaval.

And that certainly seems to be what we are experiencing today.

At the moment, it is far from certain which side will emerge victorious. But a few basic facts are known. The most important, it seems to me, is that millions of Americans have lost their jobs since the recession began in December 2007.

Some of those jobs may return as the economy rebounds, but most probably will not. To date, few, if any, actually have.

Some of those jobs were shipped overseas, where workers do the same tasks Americans did but for a lot less. In some cases, their efficiency might be limited by their linguistic skills — but not always. In those situations where productivity has been hindered by language barriers, I suppose CEOs have simply looked at the balance sheet and seen that they were still saving money.

And some of those jobs were eliminated by emerging technology. From management's perspective, I guess, the best possible solution is to make a one–time investment in a machine that can do what one person (or more) did in the past. A machine will work nonstop and will not charge overtime. It just requires routine maintenance.

It's not the best solution for an unemployed American with a family to feed, but that isn't management's problem, is it?

That doesn't make it less of a problem, though, does it?

There isn't a day that goes by that there isn't a story in your newspaper, on your TV, on the internet about the impact that the economy is having on people's lives. The other day, for example, I saw a video on CNN.com about an auto worker in Wisconsin whose plant closed down. Rather than accept a severance package, he took a job at a company plant in Texas — and began making a "1,000–mile commute" to work instead of selling his home for a loss in a bad economy.

In the end, though, the pressure of being away from his family for five days (sometimes six days) each week was too much, and the family joined him in Texas, vowing that their hearts would stay in Wisconsin and they would one day return. Well, they're young. There's still plenty of time (probably) for them to regain control of their lives and move back to the land they love.

It's becoming more of an impossible dream for older displaced workers.

There must be some way for these workers to remain a vibrant part of the economy. After all, the point behind revolution is to make things better for all, not to leave some behind so others may prosper, isn't it?

Maybe there is a lesson to be found in history that can be applied to the 21st century. It was on this day in 1794 that Eli Whitney received his patent for the cotton gin.

The cotton gin, a deceptively simple device that automated the tedious process of separating cotton seeds from cotton fibers, is considered one of the crucial inventions of the Industrial Revolution.

As anyone who has studied American history can tell you, the Industrial Revolution brought many changes to American life. The cotton gin came on its cusp, when patent laws were still emerging, and the ramifications of technological advancements were not always readily apparent, but, in hindsight, it can be said that the cotton gin rejuvenated slavery. Because slave labor could be devoted almost entirely to planting, maintaining and harvesting the crop, plantation owners could grow larger crops and reap greater profits, making slave ownership more sustainable.

In fact, in the half century after Whitney's invention, the slave population more than quadrupled in the South. Without the invention of the cotton gin, the costs of housing and clothing and feeding slaves might well have been impractical for many, and other choices might have been made.

It's possible, therefore, that America might have been spared the agony of the Civil War and, perhaps, the anguish of dysfunctional racial relations, particularly in the South, in the century after the war ended.

But, without the cotton gin, the Industrial Revolution might have been delayed — or, worse, might never have happened at all. America might never have become the economic power it became — and the story of human development would have been entirely different.

It may seem odd, then, that, while many plantation owners became rich thanks to Whitney's invention, Whitney himself and his business partner, Phineas Miller, did not.

Theirs is a cautionary tale. And it is one that I think is applicable to the field to which I have always gravitated, journalism.

Whitney and Miller were visionaries in their development of a solution to a production problem, and, consequently, they appear to have had one foot in the future — but they clearly had the other foot planted in the past. Their plan was not to sell cotton gins; apparently, it was to monopolize the market to a certain extent, by contracting with farmers to clean their cotton for them, in much the same way that sawmills cut lumber into boards for loggers.

Cotton growers resented this, especially once they discovered how simple the gin really was, and other cotton gins, based on the original design, began to pop up. Whitney and Miller tried to stem the tide by filing patent infringement lawsuits, but, ultimately, this devoured their profits because of the primitive state of patent law. Eventually, they went out of business.

So what relationship does this have to the newspaper industry?

Well, I have observed over the years that newspaper management responds to economic adversity in a predictable way — by cutting its payroll.

Even when the complaint is a decline in editorial quality.

Frankly, I have never understood how cutting the number of copy editors — the ones who are charged with checking facts and correcting spelling, grammar and punctuation errors — can possibly address that kind of issue. The only issue it seems to address is the bottom line, but never to the extent that it can solve the economic problems faced by a publication. It is a temporary solution at best.

It seems like even less of a viable strategy in today's economic climate. But that hasn't prevented newspapers from falling back on it, just as they always have.

Maybe their mistake was not realizing that this recession, coming after a decade of zero job growth, is different from the ones that came before.

The real problem, as I have written before, goes back many years — to a time when the internet was not the pervasive presence in American households it has become. Newspaper management's great failing was not anticipating the kinds of changes that the internet would force upon them and taking steps that would allow them to co–exist — perhaps, even, to thrive.

No one has a crystal ball, of course, but, even though I have no training in business administration, that seems like an obvious thing.

And here is something else that seems equally obvious to me.

These are times that require creative, innovative solutions — even if they are temporary — that will put people back to work. Hundreds of thousands of people who would prefer to be bringing home a paycheck rather than receiving unemployment assistance are, nevertheless, losing their benefits every week.

The times cry out for leadership like Franklin Roosevelt provided in the 1930s. Within days of becoming president, Roosevelt was addressing problems that had brought America's economy to its knees. When something didn't work, FDR tried something else. He never shifted his focus from his primary mission. His attention was unwavering.

That is the kind of leadership that America needs today — not the kind that gives momentary lip service to pressing problems while pledging to focus like a laser on them and then, at the first opportunity, turns its attention elsewhere.

That is the challenge of revolutionary times.

Put Out the Fire

It is said that things are getting better.

CNN.com, for example, reports that it is encouraging that "the pace of U.S. job losses eased in December."

Presumably that means that, because fewer people are losing their jobs each month, things are better.

Try telling that to the copy editors who are being phased out at Media General's three largest newspapers.

The fire continues to burn out of control in journalism.

These days, passing the buck is in fashion, especially when the subject is the economy. It's not our fault, protest those who were elected to do something about it but have yet to do so.

Someone needs to remind them that — in the words of Billy Joel — we didn't start the fire.

But we're being consumed by it.

The Definition of Insanity

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"The definition of insanity is doing the same thing over and over again and expecting different results."

Albert Einstein

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Professor Einstein never worked for a newspaper. At least, I don't think he did.

But, even if he didn't, I have little doubt that he would have seen the newspaper industry as the embodiment of his observation.

I offer, as Exhibit A, a memo (complete with copy editor's marks and comments) that has been making the rounds at the Toronto Star.

On one hand, I find it amusing because this memo is one long example of just about everything they warned us against when I was studying journalism in school — starting with a bloated, neutral language that snakes its way around the facts without ever really acknowledging them. The publisher is basically saying that the newspaper is losing money so the paper is going to slash its staff and cut back on what it produces (in more ways than one). The newspaper is going to eliminate those on the payroll who are trained and experienced in order to replace them with untrained and inexperienced people who will work for less.

It's a decision that is made by bean counters when it should be made by wordsmiths.

On the other hand, I find this depressing because it is symptomatic of the kinds of self–defeating decisions that newspaper publishers have had to make in recent years. Just about anywhere you go in America today, the local newspaper (if there is one) is considerably smaller than it was a few years ago. There are fewer people in the newsroom with the training and the experience that the work requires.

Today's newspapers are streamlined operations. On the surface, it would appear that the publishers have made the tough but sound business decisions they had to make to survive. But the newspaper business is not like other businesses. You can't cut corners like that with a product like a newspaper and reasonably expect most people to pay the same price for less.

But publishers can't understand why they're losing readers.

The original mistake that newspapers made was failing to recognize the potential of the internet and construct a business model that would succeed in a digital age. Newspapers had to act quickly, though, to take advantage of the initial opportunity, and few had business managers who were that nimble on their feet.

Anyway, that window of opportunity slammed shut fairly quickly. And now that the internet is clearly here to stay, some newspapers are repeating what has been shown to be an unsuccessful strategy for newspapers — charging people for access to their content.

At some point, newspaper management will realize that internet consumers have many sources for news and information that are available to them for no additional cost. Unless a newspaper has this generation's H.L. Mencken or Red Smith on staff, there will be no compelling reason for most readers to fork over whatever is being charged. Most internet subscribers will gravitate to the free sources for news and sports scores.

Actually, small–town newspapers may be in a better position to profit online. A small–town newspaper is more likely to be the only source for articles on the latest local school board or city council meeting. With more local radio stations establishing an online presence, that may change in many small towns.

But many of the radio stations in metropolitan areas are online now, and they already are competing with the metro newspapers for local news. Consequently, there isn't much unique content that big–city newspapers can offer.

But reducing the quality of the product just makes it easier for many subscribers to conclude that it is a product they can live without.

I firmly believe that newspapers must offer a product that readers are convinced they must have if they are to survive. That won't be accomplished through slick advertising campaigns or offering less for the same price.

But no one has devised a business model for newspapers that will succeed in the digital world — so most newspapers insist on duplicating the mistakes others made before them.

Doing the same thing over and over again and expecting different results.

The definition of insanity.

Courtesy of the newspaper business.

Breaking News

The dire situation facing newspapers in America these days is every bit as severe as the unemployment problem.

In many ways, it is worse, I think, because a free press is so important in a democracy. Without it, I see no way for a free nation to remain free because there is no one to fill the watchdog role that literally keeps an eye on what elected officials do — or do not do.

Newspapers have been tumbling like dominoes in the last year or two, and, regardless of where one stands on the political spectrum, that should be a cause of concern for all of us.

A friend of mine sent me an e–mail this week. He observed that the New York Times Co. has decided not to sell the Boston Globe because its financial prospects had "significantly improved."

My friend concluded that this was a sign that the economy is getting better. From a business perspective, I suppose that isn't an unreasonable conclusion.

Unfortunately, his e–mail arrived in my inbox the same day that reports were circulating that the New York Times plans to eliminate 100 newsroom jobs by the end of the year.

So what is one to make of this?

I've heard many theories about the decline of newspapers. As someone who studied journalism in college and worked for newspapers for many years, I suppose I am naturally drawn to this subject. I have written about it in the past, in part to help me understand what is happening, and I see a certain amount of logic in each point that is raised.

I've heard it said, for example, that newspapers are struggling because the quality of writing has fallen. In turn, that has led to a drop in paid circulation.

There's no doubt in my mind that there is a relationship between writing that is weaker (or perceived to be weaker) than it used to be and decreased demand for the product.

But the thing that newspaper people understand that people outside the industry do not is that a drop in paid circulation is like a symptom of a disease. The disease that is killing daily newspapers is the decline in advertising revenue.

It never has been possible to pay all the expenses involved in running a daily newspaper with the revenue of a product that sells for 25¢ or 50¢ a copy. Even if a newspaper could sell its product at the Sunday rate seven days a week, it wouldn't be possible.

But the income from advertising is a different story. When advertising dollars begin to dry up, that's when the writing is on the wall for a newspaper, no matter how good (or bad) its writing is.

I was reminded of this today when I read the latest installment at a blog called The Arkansas Newspaper War. It is devoted to a topic with which I am familiar — the newspaper war between the Arkansas Gazette and the Arkansas Democrat that raged when I worked for the Gazette in the 1980s.

Today, the blog gives grades to the different departments at the Gazette, and the one in which I worked — news — gets an A+. If any of my former Gazette colleagues read this blog — and I know that at least one does — I'm sure that is a source of pride for them, as it is for me.

But then the author of the blog makes an important observation: "The Gazette ... was both weak and strong. Unfortunately, her weakness was in an area vital to success. If the well of ad dollars dries up, a daily newspaper cannot survive."

As the crisis in the newspaper industry has worsened, I've seen and heard a lot of talk about the rise of citizen journalists and internet news coverage taking their toll on daily newspapers. But, like declining paid circulation, they are only symptoms of a much larger problem for daily newspapers.

The real problem is the loss of advertising revenue. Unless newspapers can find someone with really deep pockets to pick up the slack — and it is worth noting that, in its final years, the Gazette's ownership, the Gannett Co., had pretty deep pockets — they cannot continue to exist.

And that is the kind of news that breaks a journalist's heart.

The Times They Are A-Changin'

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"Come senators, congressmen
Please heed the call
Don't stand in the doorway
Don't block up the hall
For he that gets hurt
Will be he who has stalled
There's a battle outside
And it is ragin'
It'll soon shake your windows
And rattle your walls
For the times they are a–changin'."

Bob Dylan

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If you follow current events, it's virtually impossible not to be aware of how the times are changing. But, in many respects, the changes that are occurring — or seem to be occurring — may be more in terms of attitudes than in actual policies.

Thus far, anyway.

One such change is making its presence felt in journalism. Daily newspapers, by and large, failed to anticipate the growing influence the internet would have and thus were unprepared when the recessionary times cut deeply into their advertising revenue.

Advertisers, understandably, want to invest in media where their appeals will be seen. When I was in journalism school, we were told, over and over, that we were writing with the intention of being read so we needed to tailor our writing in such a way that would grab the readers' attention and hold it. We were competing for the readers' time, we were told.

Well, there's also competition for advertising dollars, and a savvy advertiser will look for ways to get more bang for the buck. As a trained journalist, I have serious doubts that the internet can ever do the job of covering the news as efficiently as print journalists, but newspaper readership has been declining, and, from a business perspective, I don't blame advertisers for turning to the internet. To borrow a phrase from Willie Sutton, that's where the money is.

If newspapers are going to survive, they have to re–think their attitudes about the internet. They may be able to co–exist with the internet, but they will have to find a way to do so within an online culture that has grown accustomed to not having to pay for many services.

Striding confidently into the future cannot be done if one foot remains planted in the past.

Meanwhile, social policies are changing. In four states — Connecticut, Iowa, Massachusetts and Vermont — same–sex marriages are legally recognized, giving same–sex couples the same legal rights as heterosexuals.

Well, actually, the law in Iowa will be effective in about three weeks, and the law in Vermont will be effective in September. And, at the moment, such a law in California is in flux. Same–sex marriage is being debated in Colorado, Maine, Maryland, Minnesota, New Hampshire, New Jersey, New York, Rhode Island and the District of Columbia.

And civil unions, which lack some of the legal benefits of marriage, are being considered in Hawaii, Illinois, New Mexico, Nevada, Utah, Washington and Wisconsin.

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Many religious groups are reacting negatively to this, but it's a wave that seems unstoppable and, in many ways, opposition to it seems legally unsupportable.

As it always seems to be, when the facts can't be used to bolster an argument, an appeal to fear is made.

For example, a parallel often has been drawn between same–sex marriage and interracial marriage. Opposing the former, it is said, is the same as opposing the latter a few decades ago. But opponents of same–sex marriage have claimed that the two are not the same, that interracial marriage still involves partners of opposite sexes and, thus, can promote procreation.

It's odd, to me, that procreation should be used in this way. Procreation was used for many years to resist interracial marriage. Racists waged blistering campaigns against unions that could result in the births of "mongrel" children. Now, hypothetical children are being used as weapons again. But it seems, to me, that opponents of same–sex marriage will be as unsuccessful as the foes of interracial marriage were.

By the way, out–of–wedlock births account for two–fifths of all births, according to the latest data.

And, in a society that frets more and more about promiscuity in adult relationships, how can anyone argue against people who want the legal right to make a public commitment?

Finally, there is the subject of marijuana legalization.

It's getting harder for critics of marijuana to use facts to support their case. The Journal of Clinical Investigation, a top biomedical journal that makes its research articles going back to 1924 freely available online, punctures holes in the notion that cannabis can cause cancer. In fact, according to JCI, it kills cancer cells.

Along with the studies showing that marijuana is beneficial to people with serious diseases, there is a growing chorus of commentators who argue that legalizing marijuana makes sense. Legalization would save billions in enforcement costs while providing billions in tax revenue. Casual users would no longer be ostracized, abusers would be treated, not jailed, and millions of jobs would be created.

And the black market that is the cause of the marijuana–related deaths would vanish.

The president resists the tide, however, perhaps insisting on clinging to the "Reefer Madness" myth — now more than seven decades old — as a way to connect with right–wing voters who oppose him on other issues.

But the times, they are a–changin', Mr. President. And if your time to you is worth savin', then you better start swimmin' or you'll sink like a stone.

For the times they are a–changin'.

Why Newspapers Are Necessary

Nolan Finley writes a simple truth — "Newspapers may go away, but the scoundrels won't" — in the Detroit News.

Each person may have his or her own reason for wanting the newspaper to remain in existence — access to the daily crossword puzzle, the horoscope, the school lunch menus or the box scores for the sports teams — but Finley points out the most important reason why newspapers are important to everyone.

Newspapers have a vital role to play in a democracy. They're just as important today as they were when the country declared its independence in the 18th century — perhaps even moreso. In fact, in an age of instant news via cable and internet, I would drop the "perhaps" from that sentence.

"[F]or the life of me I can't see how this country can sustain a vigorous, participatory democracy if newspapers disappear," Finley writes.

Neither can I.

The breathtakingly rapid disappearance of daily newspapers "ought to disturb anyone who buys into the premise that institutions both public and private need an independent monitor to keep them honest," Finley writes. "And who wouldn't believe that, considering what the corruption and incompetence of Washington and Wall Street have done to our economy?"

There are a lot of bases to cover. And, as Finley observes, "If it's not newspapers doing the job, who will? ... Broadcasters don't have the manpower; bloggers lack the credibility."

Before you dismiss this as a lot of old–school protesting against "progress," ask yourself this question, courtesy of Mr. Finley:

"Do you want to rest a pillar of our democracy on a blogger sitting in a basement with a computer and an ax to grind?"