Editor’s note: Jon Margolis is a columnist for VTDigger.org.
Boy, did you see that humongous, full-color picture of Gov. Peter Shumlin in the Burlington Free Press the other week? The one with the story about Shumlin’s phone call to University of Vermont President Dan Fogel?
It was almost 80 square inches, almost a third of the entire front page.
More than a third, really, because there were 48 square inches of masthead at the top of the page and 12 square inches of white space at the bottom, meaning the picture took up roughly a quarter of the content on the page.
Then there was a smaller photo of Fogel, also in color. And a quote from him in italics, all of which drew one’s eye before one got to the story, which took up 13.75 inches of Page One and another 33.25 inches where it continued on page four, about as much space as more pictures (black and white) of the governor.
That’s the Free Press these days. More pictures, including a colorful “Vermont Beauty” photo every day. More color. More white space. More highlights from the story set out in a separate box for quick, easy, reading.
And less of what to make room for all this more?
Oh, just … you know: news.
A comparison of a week’s worth of Freeps mid-August 2011 and mid-August 2010 shows that there were 20 percent fewer page-one stories this year than last, and an equal decline in the number of stories on the first page of the “Vermont” section.
This year’s papers had more stories inside both sections. Still, the total number of stories in both the main and local sections (excluding business, sports, and other special sections) declined from 120 to 112, a drop of almost 7 percent.
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And that understates the cutback in news. A year ago – and for several years before – both the main and local front pages featured a “What’s New” section on the left side of the page. This news roundup usually contained a four- to-five paragraph news item followed by several shorter stories. Not much detail in any of them, but they told readers what was going on.
Sometimes the shortage of news in the Free Press seems downright newsworthy. That day with the Shumlin picture (Friday, Aug. 12), there was exactly one (count ’em: 1) other story on the front page, and it really didn’t qualify as news. It was an Associated Press feature story about the Associated Press, specifically AP photographers who had shot pictures of the Sept. 11, 2001 attacks.
But at least the lead story about the phone call, that was news. Try to find any on the front page the following Monday (Aug. 15). In the upper right-hand spot – the usual site of the day’s biggest news – is a message from Free Press President and Publisher Jim Fogler telling readers that “for the first time in memory” they were producing “a Monday edition of the Free Press without a Business Monday section.”
Replacing that section would be a new section called innovate (with a lower case ‘i,’ the capital letter is apparently anachronistic) which will provide “deep coverage and bold presentation as we focus on creativity in the work place.”
To the left of Fogler’s message was another large color picture of golfer Keegan Bradley, winner the previous day of the PGA Championship tournament. Below the picture was a feature story about Bradley centering on his Vermont and New England roots (though he lives in Florida).
Considering that the tournament story – with yet another color photo – was on the front page of the sports section, the page-one feature by a reporter for USA Today (owned by the Gannett Co., as is the Free Press) could not qualify as news.
And on the rest of the front page? Well, there were about two inches of print (continued, or “jumped” as they say in the nooz biz, for a few more paragraphs on page 4) about the previous night’s concert at Waterfront Park. Only charitably classifying that story as news avoids the judgment that last Monday’s front page had no news at all.
None of this is mysterious or unique to the Free Press, where talented and devoted reporters practice first-class journalism almost every day. Because Fogler did not return a telephone message, a certain amount of conjecture is required here, but it’s reasonable to assume that the paper’s new look – bigger photos and headlines, more white space – is an effort to attract more young people, fewer of whom are reading newspapers these days. Lots of newspapers are following the same course.
Nor is the Free Press alone in raising its price – as it did in June – outside its immediate locale. In most of Vermont, the daily paper now costs a dollar (up from 75 cents) and the Sunday paper $2 (also a 25-cent hike). All over the country, newspapers have been raising their price beyond the borders of their home cities and closest suburbs. That far-flung circulation isn’t worth it; the advertisers want to reach the folks right nearby.
One inevitable result is that the out-of-town circulation drops and the newspaper’s focus turns inward, becomes more local and less statewide, an attitude which inevitably seeps into the news coverage. As Vermont’s biggest-selling newspaper by far – twice the circulation of the second-place Rutland Herald – the Free Press is likely to retain some sense of itself as the journal that sets the terms of the state’s public conversation. But less as the years go by.
One recent development at the Free Press seems inconsistent with a nationwide trend. Where so many news organizations provide less news and more opinion, the Free Press now serves up less of both. Editorials appear only on Thursday, Friday and Sunday. There aren’t even as many syndicated columns as there used to be. In their place, the editorial page runs “Public Records Act exemptions.”
This is part of the newspaper’s admirable campaign to get rid of some of those exemptions so government will be more transparent. But they are in almost indecipherable legalese (they are, after all, statutes), and, out of context, all but meaningless.
Not a bad way to fill up space without paying for it, though.
On Saturday and Monday, there is no opinion at all. On Tuesday, the “editorial” is “Comment and Debate,” in which outsiders express their strong opinions on some controversial subject. The next day brings “Wednesday’s Challenge,” featuring supposedly “provocative challenges to those in power” from readers.
Also known as letters to the editor. Some may be provocative. Few are well-informed.
Here, too, the Free Press is following the lead of many other businesses – getting the customers to do the work. Unpaid, of course. Judging from its debut, “innovate” appears to be another example. It provided almost no news, though there were two perfectly decent feature stories about businesses encouraging their employees to volunteer. One was on the first page, as was a “guest column” by Tim Volk of the Kelliher Samets Volk marketing firm. As was another message by publisher Fogler announcing that the new section will “focus on creativity in the workplace, Vermont style” and “essays by local business people on topics that touch on the theme of innovation.”
Sounds like a section that will be by, for and of the business community more than a disinterested, journalistic observation thereof.
It’s the same principle behind fast-food restaurants and allowing passengers to print out their boarding passes: hold down costs by getting the customers to do the work. But a newspaper is not a restaurant or an airline. There are things the average person sitting at home can do just as well as a paid employee. Journalism is not one of them.
