GT revampification & miscellaneous newspaper thoughts

According to GT Publisher Mike McInally, the GT is undergoing several changes:

First, on Friday, you will notice some major changes to the Entertainer: The weekly publication now will include a somewhat abbreviated version of the TV listings that used to appear in Sunday’s TV book.

Here’s how the combined Entertainer and TV book will work: One of the covers will be the Entertainer cover for that week. Then, if you flip the publication over, you’ll see the cover of the TV book. It sounds a little odd, but I’m betting it will seem natural when you see the combined product on Friday.

We will stop publishing the TV book that used to be part of Sunday’s paper.

This is a move that allows us to save some money; like businesses everywhere, we’re doing everything we can to keep a close eye on costs.

Translation: They either didn't make enough money last fiscal year, or worse, they didn't make any money; in either case, Lee Enterprises told them to cut costs somewhere.

(As an aside, whether or not they needed to cut costs really does depends on how much money they didn't make. Newspaper companies, including Lee, have been notorious in the past for seeking relatively high profit margins, so I'm leaving open the possibility that this cost-cutting is actually to increase existing profit, not to get back to making a profit. Anyone have the answer?)

Speaking of cost-cutting, here are a few mores changes listed in the piece (I have reordered and numbered them):

1. The job of compiling [the Entertainer's] calendar listings falls to Brandon Goldner, a journalism student at Linn-Benton Community College who also moonlights as the G-T’s afternoon receptionist. He’ll be busy.

2. We’re rolling the Home & Garden section into the Lifestyles section, a move that should allow us to retain the content of each but package them together.

3. A redesign of the G-T to go along with a move to slightly narrower newsprint.

Given the state of the newspaper industry, and given that we're talking about Lee Enterprises here, it seems clear that there was a mandate to significantly cut costs. My question is this: How much control were GT staff given over deciding where to cut costs and what changes to make?

For that matter, is the GT ever going to replace any of the staff that's leaving? AFAIK, Jake TenPas didn't do much besides edit the Entertainer, and Nancy Raskauskas already works at the GT. Is this change workload-neutral for her, or is this another case of more work, less people?

... don't get me wrong. Most of the time, I like the GT, and I like the people I know who work or have worked there. And I am pleased to see that, at least according to this editorial, there are no staff cuts taking place as part of these changes (aside from the aforementioned practice of simply not replacing people who leave). But, like many other people, I don't see how shrinking the newspaper (literally and figuratively) is going to help increase subscriptions.

Of course, maybe I've been making a mistake in assuming there is a way out. Maybe what's happening really is a downsizing of newspapers due to the ability of readers to get their news other places, like the Internet. Maybe it really is inevitable, and it's just going to be painful, and no amount of focusing on local coverage (my preferred solution) is going to help, at least not in the short term.

Oh yeah: Are similar changes coming down the pike for the DH and LE? Inquiring minds want to know.

More on the GT's editorial slant

I just figured out that the GT Publisher/Editor posted a response to this post of mine, in which I make some snide comments about the GT's editorial stances in regards to business and the environment. McInally:

Here’s the truth: The only policy directive I’ve ever seen from Lee about editorial stances is that its newspapers should write editorials about local issues. I have never, in nearly 30 years of working for Lee (the last 10 as an editor or publisher), received any other directive about what positions to take on the editorial page.

I appreciate Mr. McInally's responding, though I am still highly skeptical. There are other ways to influence editorial stances besides directives. Nevertheless, he is quite clear on his experience - and I look forward to an explanation of how editorial decisions are made, especially around candidates and elections. I wish more newspapers offered such a level of transparency into their decision-making processes.

Evanite, the Greenway, and an Editorial all walk into a bar....

A GT editorial:

The deal offers a potentially huge payoff for Corvallis and its residents: The 32- foot-wide, quarter-mile-long strip of land on the Willamette River would allow the city to fill in a missing link in its riverfront trail system. The result would be an uninterrupted 3.5-mile path for pedestrians and cyclists from the north end of downtown to Willamette Landing.

In return, Evanite wants the city’s help in getting out from an extra layer of oversight of development requests on part of its 35-acre site on Crystal Lake Drive.

This has been the basis of the deal since the beginning. I am very much in favor of an unbroken trail from Willamette Landing to Michael's Landing.... but I'm skeptical of Evanite.

Specifically, I want to know exactly what regulations Evanite wants out of - is it really just building near the river? Or is there an environmental component? Is there a chance that the land near the river owned by Evanite contains some nasty pollutants that Evanite doesn't want to deal with? And why does the GT label it "extra"? Is there any basis for that, or is that word in there to give people the impression the regulations are, for some reason, unnecessary?

I can't say I've read every GT story on this issue, but I suspect I've seen most of them, and I can't remember ever hearing about possible environmental impact or about the regulations in any detail.

This editorial, of course, is no different. Given that we're in Corvallis, it would seem like a no-brainer to at least mention the potential environmental impacts, especially if any of the regulations in question deal with them. But no... and here is where I find myself agreeing just the tiniest bit with the incensed commenters: The GT does tend to show a rather strong pro-development/pro-business bias, often in its editorial slant.

But I can't just blame the GT for that and walk away. I'd bet money that the parent corporation, Lee Enterprises, actually has policy directives surrounding editorial stances. It's not unheard of, and Lee has a reputation as a very pro-business company.

I happen to think that the existence of such policies undermines the credibility of journalism, but what do I know? The GT tells me this is a good idea, conveniently omitting even the possibility of downsides, so I guess I should just be happy that I get a trail, right?

[/rant]

Why I care about journalism, the short version

A few people have asked me why I'm so into this whole OSU College of Engineering ranking thing. One reason is the simple fact that OSU is being disingenuous insofar as they are not necessarily broadcasting the fact that the ranking Ron Adams gives out is determined by... Ron Adams!

The other reason - and the ostensible point of this post - is that I care about journalism, and I see the GT as having fallen down on this one.

1) The free flow and dissemination of information is, I believe, paramount to the functioning of any kind of democracy - direct, radical, representative, faux, etc. People cannot make good decisions without knowledge. (Note that this does not lead directly to the necessity of newspapers, or even journalism as we currently understand it. Also note that knowledge is a necessary but not sufficient condition for good decision-making.)

2) Journalism is one (historically contingent) way to spread information. I am not blind to the fact that media consolidation, capitalism and the Internet have wreaked havoc on the practice and economic feasibility of, say, newspapers. Neither am I blind to the fact that this is not entirely a bad thing, as providing new channels for the distribution of information (blogs, indymedia) has been awesome. Neither am I blind to the fact that corporate overlords like Lee Enterprises are hurting what I would consider the practices of good journalism as much as they are supporting the existence of newspapers.

3) That said, I still think there is a role for the practice of professional journalism. I would like to see professional journalism continue, as I still think it can play a large part of the role of spreading information, and thus in maintaining some semblance of the ability to make informed decisions (even if the idea that America is actually democratic is laughable, which it is).

4) Ergo, I am concerned when I see the GT do something that does not follow what I understand to be good journalistic practice. To be honest, I am surprised others are not as concerned.

OSU's internal College of Engineering ranking system

Look what I found:

Innovation capacity metric = 40 x (number of BS degrees/average number of BS degrees for top25) + 10 x (number of MS degrees/average number of MS degrees for top 25) + 20x (PhD degrees/average number of PhD degrees for top 25) + 30 x (research expenditures/average research expenditures for top 25)

As was pointed out to me, there is no mention of quality here. In fact, there is no mention of anything besides "more" - more students pushed through and more research dollars spent, with no way to take in to account quality of education or success/type of research.

In other words, it's not a very good standalone measure of the quality of a College of Engineering. It's a decent measure of productivity alone, but that's it. Also note: It says nothing about the faculty.

Second, the Corvallis Gazette-Times made a few mistakes on this one (as I not-so-subtly insinuated here). It has printed a number claiming to be the ranking of the CoE based on this metric at least once, if not twice (and in the second case, you don't even want to know where the writer of that piece initially claimed to have gotten the number for OSU's CoE ranking; it's all I can do not to post it, it's so unprofessional). In neither case did the GT even bother to mention where OSU's supposed ranking came from. That was mistake number one - sourcing a number like that should have been a no-brainer.

Mistake number two happened in at least the first case: If the GT knew that OSU was using an internally-devised number (and I have reason to believe they did), they should have asked how the metric was devised, and upon figuring that out, spent a sentence or two noting that - even in an article about the death of Martin Kelley.

I'll be honest: I don't actually get frustrated with the GT very often. It's got a pretty low reputation among almost everyone I know not in journalism circles, and I usually find myself defending the paper. Not today.