Editor’s note: Jeff Danziger is a cartoonist and writer who has penned images and stories for Vermonters for more than 30 years.
[T]he publisher of the Burlington Free Press, Jim Fogler, has resigned and has taken a job with a retail chain that specializes in items to make your next party a decorative success. The store is called Party City. And it sells balloons, funny hats, streamers and so on in stores across the country. These items are seasonally adjusted so right about now everything is covered with pumpkin themes and cheerful skeletons. I hope there will be a Party City in my neighborhood because there’s nothing I like more than dolling up the house with paper goods to put people in a happier mood.
But what will happen to the Free Press now? There was a description of the newspaper business back in the more competitive days that I can pass on to Mr. Fogler for his new job. Journalism was said to be the science of buying paper for five cents a pound and selling it for ten cents a pound. This probably applies to the business plan of Party City as well. Doubtless it had some effect on his corporate masters at Gannett. The most recent changes of the Free Press have changed the paper into a tabloid-sized, colorful, easy-readin’ publication, full of material garnered from the Gannett Corp.’s other easy-readin’ publications. Sections of the paper are put together in a large plant somewhere in New Jersey. Much of the news and sports are of the generic type that you find in USAToday, largely designed for people who prefer news in as easily forgettable a form as possible.
The basic income of most newspapering comes from advertising, selling it, presenting it and doing whatever is necessary to make it effective. Advertisers want their products to show up alongside pleasant scenes and hopeful stories. According to some theories this ambience puts readers in the mood to buy, sort of like happy background music does in a store. Real news, death, war, conflict, disease and general misery is disheartening. It makes consumers dread the future, and in such a mood they just aren’t as likely to think they need new clothes or a car.
The Gannett Corp. sought to make all the newspapers they owned into local versions of USAToday, aimed at the lower intellectual reaches of the American middle class, people who liked the news of the day to be pleasant, undemanding and far away. For the most part these readers wanted a quick read, a blend of goofy Washington goings-on, some reviews of Hollywood mainstream movies, a recipe or two, and some cheerleading for the local sports teams. Any time spent on the unsolvable miseries of the world beyond American borders, or even their own city limits is considered wasted.
There’s some logic to this attitude, even though it’s easy to lampoon. Why should anyone worry about hellholes overseas, engulfed in war and inexplicable misery? If there’s no way you can fix what’s wrong, why trouble yourself with it? Why worry about people you don’t know and you will never know? And finally, why read about them and make yourself feel bad?
Those of us who think of Vermont as somewhat special place regarded the Burlington Free Press as a bastion of old-style local Republicanism, an excusable business-first, full-tummy Chamber of Commerce publication; a low tax, mildly reactionary devotee of the God of Things as They Are.
Paper newspapers were supposed to be dead some years ago. It’s probably a mystery to the smart people at Gannett why the paper version hasn’t died by now. It’s probably an annoyance that they haven’t been able to make an online product that will be as popular and heaven knows more profitable than the old-fashioned newspaper. In its own words Gannett Corp. is more proud of its role as a provider of “marketing solutions” than of anything resembling journalism. The newspapers it owns are referred to as “iconic brands” rather than anything proceeding from the First Amendment. The Free Press building no longer has the Old English masthead on the side of building. It has been replaced by more modern type announcing “Free Press Media.” Only a corporate soaked mentality could think of such a change.
Those of us who think of Vermont as somewhat special place regarded the Burlington Free Press as a bastion of old-style local Republicanism, an excusable business-first, full-tummy Chamber of Commerce publication; a low tax, mildly reactionary devotee of the God of Things as They Are. For example, it took the Free Press a long time to decide there was something wrong with the Vietnam War, in part because the aircraft machine guns used in Southeast Asia were made by GE down on Lakeside Avenue. That was a long time ago, and probably was the last time the paper took a strong, though wrong, stand on anything.
That’s not what it is any more. In fact one wonders what the Free Press is now. It is not, and for some time has not been, an example of traditional tough-minded American journalism. There hasn’t been anything tough about it. There’s doubt it could get any softer, fluffier or happier. An old newspaper wheeze says, “bad town, good paper, good town, bad paper.” Thus the Detroit Free Press is always going to be a better newspaper than the Burlington Free Press. Obviously this is because news comes from crime and disaster. But that’s an unthinking explanation. Under the cover of pleasantness and high employment in any city or state, there’s plenty for a newspaper to do. More intricate crimes happen when no one is looking, and a newspaper has to be, if nothing else, suspicious. No matter how honest government appears, there’s always the secret deal, the back-scratching, the favors and the trade-offs.
Gannett, like all other media conglomerates, is a business. Cutting back on the product is the duty to shareholders. Making the quarterly numbers is much more important than getting a scoop or catching malfeasance in high office. It means a promotion from the main office in New Jersey or wherever it is. So cut the staff. After all aren’t most readers and television watchers challenged by complexity? Why bother them by hiring reporters to report on government. And, while we’re at it, isn’t Party City a business? Of course it is. Paper decorations and paper tablecloths, with seasonal designs make a lot of money. Retail clerks work for minimum wage. They don’t task their intellects. They aren’t annoying and argumentative like reporters.
So no one should be surprised if the publisher of the Burlington Free Press leaves the newspaper business for the paper tablecloth and funny hat business. We wish him all success. In Mr. Fogler’s case, his experience will come in handy.
