A future for newspapers

The decline of newspapers began not with the arrival of the Internet but with the departure of the moguls, wealthy and powerful men like Joseph Pulitzer and William Randolph Hearst, even if not as famous, who built and guided their papers and helped them thrive. Eventually, as they died off, their proud newspapers fell into the hands of corporate newspaper chains committed more to profit than journalism.

So writes Dan Kennedy in a new book The Return of the Moguls. If moguls were the key to newspapers' past, he says, perhaps they are also the key to their future.

Kennedy's assessment of the fall of newspapers conforms with my own. I spent most of my career with The News Journal in Mansfield, Ohio, one of five mid-sized papers once owned by Harry Horvitz, a Cleveland millionaire who usually spent one day a week at each of his papers (four in Ohio and one in New York). In the 1980s Horvitz sold The News Journal to the Ingersoll chain, which then sold it to Thomson, after which it was sold to Gannett. Each chain paid a higher price for it and other papers in the group and, to maximize profits, found it necessary to cut both staff and content, leaving our newspaper just an echo of what it once was. Then came the Internet to give newspaper readers and advertisers an alternative.

Similar scenarios played out in communities large and small across the country. Yet newspapers are far from finished, Kennedy writes. Most of them remain profitable, their paper product much more so than their web pages, and most remain a vital source of news for their communities. They may still have a future, and that future, argues Kennedy, may like their past depend upon newspaper moguls, individual owners with big bank accounts and a commitment to quality journalism.

He mentions several but focuses primarily on three: Aaron Kushner, who tried but quickly failed at the Orange County Register; John Henry, who has been doing exciting things at the Boston Globe; and especially Jeff Bezos, with his Amazon fortune behind him, bringing hope (and lots of new technology) to the Washington Post.

If newspapers are to survive, Kennedy thinks it may depend upon the deep pockets of moguls like these who will support their papers' experimentation to find ways to bring back both subscribers and advertisers. Other newspapers across the country will be watching closely, ready to quickly copy any strategy that works.