This Week: Newspapers Shrinking, Readers Losing

"Quote" of the Week

Shrinking Newspapers, Shrinking World

Democratic Congress in Historic Capitulation: Not Front-Page News in Minnesota

Turn On Democracy Now!

Nygaard On TV

 

Greetings,

The news of corporate takeovers of the nation's news organizations and the severe budget cuts that often follow seems to land mostly on the business pages and in the academic journals that are only read by journalists (and journalism wonks like Nygaard). That's too bad, as these ownership changes and cuts do have real-world impacts. I give a hint this week as to why that is so.

I appreciate all of you who forward Nygaard Notes to friends and relatives. This word of mouth is how the project grows and reaches ever-more people.

Next week I hope to have an update on the ongoing, still virtually "secret" air wars in Iraq and Afghanistan. An edited version of my March story on this ("The Secret Air Wars in Iraq and Afghanistan," Nygaard Notes #366) was just published in the nationally-distributed Z Magazine, which I hope might help to stimulate some reporting on this issue. Otherwise, the online publication TomDispatch just ran another great piece on it ("Nick Turse, The Air War in Iraq Uncovered"). Find that at the TomDispatch website.

Until next week,

Nygaard

"Quote" of the Week:

This week's "Quote" is from a press release of April 12 from the American Civil Liberties Union (ACLU), headed "Americans Have a Right to Unfiltered Information About the Human Costs of War, ACLU Says:"

"The ACLU pointed out that during both the wars in Afghanistan and Iraq, the Defense Department has instituted numerous policies designed to control information about the human costs of war. These policies include: Banning photographers on U.S. military bases from covering the arrival of caskets containing the remains of U.S. soldiers killed overseas; Paying Iraqi journalists to write positive accounts of the U.S. war effort; Inviting U.S. journalists to ‘embed' with military units but requiring them to submit their stories for pre-publication review; Erasing journalists' footage of civilian deaths in Afghanistan; and Refusing to disclose statistics on civilian casualties."

Not a single U.S. newspaper reported this story.

Shrinking Newspapers, Shrinking World

The ongoing shrinking of our local newspaper, the Star Tribune, has been one of the big news items in my town lately. Since it was purchased by a "private equity firm" known as Avista Capital Management, heads have been rolling. The latest news came on May 7th, when the Star Trib announced the loss of 50 more newsroom jobs, out of a total of 383. That's about 13 percent, which is on top of the 7 percent let go in March, three months after the coming of Avista.

I used to make fun of the Star Trib's slogan "Newspaper of the Twin Cities," since I saw it as nothing more than a cheap marketing ploy. Now the Star Trib doesn't use that slogan. Now they don't have any slogan, apparently, although the de facto slogan appears to be "Newspaper of the Stockholders." I'm almost nostalgic about the cheap marketing ploy! Here's a hint of the nature of the problem:

The Coming of "Localization"

The Star Tribune's "Reader's Representative," Kate Parry, wrote about the recent layoffs and related matters on May 13th. She said that "To minimize the impact of those 50 departures on the newspaper you read, a major reorganization of the newsroom is underway." According to Parry, the Star Trib's new editor, Nancy Barnes, says that "improving coverage of local communities is a top priority."

She's in line with industry groupthink on this. Charles Bobrinskoy, one of the bigwigs at the corporation that owns the Chicago Tribune, was quoted on the website of the public TV show Frontline saying, "newspapers around the country have figured out that what you have to do today to survive is provide local news coverage." This idea is called "localization" by some. The media critic for Twin Cities newsmagazine The Rake, Brian Lambert, tells us that "In newspaper corporate speak, ‘localization' means stripping away any beat focused on any but the most parochial concerns: individual neighborhoods, city governments, and local sports." Lambert adds that "The editorial focus of both [the St. Paul and the Minneapolis] newspapers has been redirected to the minutiae of second- and third-ring suburbs because that's where higher-income families reside—people advertisers are most eager to reach."

Ah, yes: Advertisers!

On May 20 the Star Trib's editor, Barnes, published some "answers to commonly asked questions" in her paper. One of the questions she "answered" was "We heard you were going to refocus the newspaper on local news. Does this mean you are reducing national and international coverage?" And here is most of her answer:

"We have always gotten most of our national and international coverage from wire services such as the Associated Press, the New York Times, the Washington Post and others. Our commitment to keeping readers informed about the most important stories around the world has not changed...
We do, however, want to be the best source for state and local information anywhere in the Twin Cities or Minnesota. Readers have lots of sources of national news, but they have few other reliable sources of local news. Consequently, we are trying to make sure our own staff members are deployed on exclusive local content, not duplicating content that is available from wire services."

This, of course, has a big effect on how national and international issues are framed and understood by newspaper readers in Minnesota. The big question is: What sort of effect will that be? A hint of how it is going to work in my city—and, most likely, in many cities—came just five days after the editor's comments were published, as the next article explains.

Democratic Congress in Historic Capitulation: Not Front-Page News in Minnesota

The front page of the Star Tribune on Friday, May 25th was dominated by a story headlined, "Memorial Day Weekend Info You Can Use: A Water-Filled Weekend." The feature consisted of a large photo of a marina, a list of Memorial Day events, weather, gas prices, road construction information, and other "Info You Can Use."

Unless one turned to the inside pages, one wouldn't have known that the previous day, Thursday, May 24th, was the day that the U.S. Congress (the one controlled by the Democratic Party) passed a $120-billion "emergency" war spending bill that "gives the president the war funding he has been seeking for more than three months, without any requirement that he bring troops home..."

The dramatic conclusion to what the Los Angeles Times called the "showdown between Congress and President Bush" is arguably the biggest news story of the month. Certainly of the week. And is it not true that the Democratic Party that controls this Congress was voted into the majority last November with a mandate to end this war? And it is true that one of the Democrats voted into office, Minnesota Senator Amy Klobuchar, voted in favor of this historic capitulation. Yet the Star Tribune amazingly deemed this story unworthy of the front page. Not only was it less worthy than holiday plans, but apparently it was also less worthy than a legislative act to legalize a poorly-located swimming pool in New Ulm, Minnesota. That pool was the subject of another front-page story that day.

Since the vote, which I will call The Great Capitulation of 2007 (GC07), was such a major story, here is a miscellaneous group of direct quotes from a Los Angeles Times story that WAS on the front page in Los Angeles, as it was in many U.S. newspapers on the day after the GC07.

"At the White House, the president spoke enthusiastically about the legislation..."

"In the House and the Senate, Republican lawmakers praised the ...plan..."

The bill was passed by "overwhelmingly united Republicans and deeply divided Democrats," as "86 Democrats in the House and 37 in the Senate voted for the full funding package."

"The measure that passed Thursday—which includes nearly $100 billion to fund military operations in Afghanistan and Iraq through Sept. 30, the end of the federal fiscal year—contains no mention of a U.S. withdrawal."

"Under the terms of the measure... the Iraqi government would have to demonstrate progress on [18 benchmarks] by mid-July. Absent such progress, economic aid to Iraq could be withheld, though BUSH WOULD BE ABLE TO WAIVE THE RESTRICTION." [Emphasis added by Nygaard]

The GC07 passed 280 to 142 in the House and 80 to 14 in the Senate. I'm not sure it was reported in any newspaper, so here's a list of the 14 Senators who voted against The Great Capitulation of 2007.

Democrats:
Barbara Boxer, California; Hilary Clinton, New York; Christopher Dodd, Connecticut; Russ Feingold, Wisconsin; Edward Kennedy, Massachusetts; John Kerry Massachusetts; Patrick Leahy, Vermont; Barack Obama, Illinois; Sheldon Whitehouse, Rhode Island; Ron Wyden, Oregon

Independent:
Bernie Sanders, Vermont

Republicans:
Richard Burr, North Carolina; Tom Coburn, Oklahoma; Michael Enzi, Wyoming

It's hard to know the motivation these people had for voting the way they did, so I won't call any of them "heroic." But at least they prevented the "President" from getting unanimous affirmation of his hideous conduct of this crime of empire. If you're into this sort of thing, you can find the entire roll-call vote—"ayes" and "nays"—by going to this USA Today article and clicking on the links to "how they voted."

For the record, CBS News poll in May showed that nearly two-thirds of United Statesians (63 percent) think that the U.S. "should set a timetable for the withdrawal of U.S. troops from Iraq." A Zogby International poll from last year showed that "An overwhelming majority of 72% of American troops serving in Iraq think the U.S. should exit the country within the next year." That "next year" was up three months ago. As far as the opinion of Minnesotans goes—one criteria that might dictate front-page coverage, one would think—we don't really know, since the Minnesota Poll has not been conducted so far in 2007, a victim of budget cutting at its sponsor, the Star Tribune newspaper.

And, finally, the group whose opinion on this issue matters the most is the people of Iraq. "A strong majority of Iraqis want U.S.-led military forces to immediately withdraw from the country, saying their swift departure would make Iraq more secure and decrease sectarian violence, according to new polls by the State Department and independent researchers." That is the Washington Post, in a story from this past September 26th. According to the State Department, the story says, "65 percent of those asked [in Baghdad] favor an immediate pullout." The Post adds that a poll conducted by Iraqis "showed that 80 percent of Iraqis who were questioned favored an immediate withdrawal," but the director of the Iraqi polling firm that came up with that number "spoke on condition of anonymity because he feared being killed."

Turn On Democracy Now!

The tremendous national news show "Democracy Now!" currently airs on
over 450 stations in North America. Included in that list are six TV stations and two radio stations in my home state of Minnesota. If you haven't yet listened to this amazing daily show, hosted by journalists Amy Goodman and Juan Gonzalez, you can hear it or read transcripts on their website.

Many readers of Nygaard Notes no doubt already know Democracy Now! and know how valuable it is as a counterweight to the corporate media. However, you probably also know that most people still have never heard of it, even in the communities where it is currently aired. So...
I'd like to encourage people in the Twin Cities area to support a brand-new consciousness-raising campaign that is just getting off the ground here in Minnesota. The campaign is called "Turn On Democracy Now," and you can learn all about it here.

The point of the TODN campaign is to get more people to tune into the daily radio broadcast of Democracy Now! on KFAI Radio in the Twin Cities. It's as simple as that. (It also shows on several cable TV stations locally, but this campaign focuses on the radio version.) Here's how the campaign puts it on their website:

"On one day in September, we'll gather on high-traffic street corners throughout the Twin Cities from noon to 1 p.m. (when Democracy Now! airs on KFAI) holding signs reading: ‘TURN ON DEMOCRACY NOW!, 90.3 FM' (Minneapolis area) and "TURN ON DEMOCRACY NOW!, 106.7 FM" (St. Paul area)."

Fiendishly simple, no? I encourage people to sign up to hold a sign, and maybe to help organize the effort.

There may well be similar campaigns in other areas of the country. If not, maybe YOU can organize one! Go to the Democracy Now! website to find out where you can see or hear the show in your state.

See you on the streets!

Nygaard On TV

Since you are reading Nygaard Notes, it's possible that you might be interested in seeing me (Nygaard, that is) on television. If you live in the Twin Cities of Minneapolis and St. Paul, you have a couple of chances in the next week. My friends and allies Karen Redleaf and Eric Angell produce a cable TV show called "Our World in Depth" that shows on the St. Paul Neighborhood Network (SPNN) Channel 15 and on the Minneapolis Telecommunications Network (MTN) Channel 17.

The currently-airing show, "Questioning The News," features yours truly, along with Premack Award-winning local journalist Lydia Howell. talking about a range of issues having to do with, well, with questioning the news.

Catch the show in St. Paul on Tuesday June 5 at 5:00 pm (right after Democracy Now!) and on Wednesday June 6 at 10:00 am.

On Minneapolis Television Network Channel 17, the same show can be seen on Saturday, June 9 at 9:00 pm, and Tuesday June 12 at 8:00 am (right after Democracy Now!)

Anyone with basic cable service can watch it, I'm told. I don't have any cable service, so I hope this is true!

I also do a regular TV show on the Suburban Community Channels, Channel 15, on the first Monday of every month. The weekly show is called "Our World Today," and our first-Monday show is called "Through a Different Lens," and focuses on the media. The show features me and Green Party stalwart Dave Bicking, and is hosted by Suzanne Linton. The channel is available to people in the suburbs north of St. Paul, Minnesota, so if you're up in that area, the show will be broadcast live at 8:00 pm on June 4th, and they tell me it will be replayed on Tuesday at 4:00 am (!) and at noon.