Letters

BOTTOM LINES

Huge thank you for the July/August cover story, "Money Lust: How Pressure for Profit Is Perverting Journalism." You hit the nail on the head with a sledgehammer – which, sadly, is the tool needed to crack the thick skulls of those who head many news organizations.

Alan Choate
Reporter, Mobile Register
Mobile, Alabama

Certainly it is legitimate to ask whether profit motives are influencing editorial content at newspapers and magazines. But the tone of the article implies that a newspaper can do either "service" journalism or produce "hard news," but not both. That is simply ludicrous. In a 140-page newspaper like the Los Angeles Times, there is room for everything. At the same time as our Business section expanded its coverage of small business and investing, the paper produced journalism worthy of two Pulitzer Prizes.

Karen Kaplan
Business desk, Los Angeles Times
Los Angeles, California

One serious misconception and one telling irony in your group of articles on profit pressures in journalism:

The misconception: "Clamping down on operating costs and budgets . . . to fatten the bottom line," will not, as you claim, "make a company a more attractive takeover target." It will make it less attractive. Reason: the leaner the operation, the less likely someone else can find cost savings to justify the interest expense he would have to pay to take over the asset.

The irony: you cite George Soros's Open Society Institute as backer of the project to study how ownership structures are affecting journalistic function – examining journalists' complaints that their interests and readers' interests are being sacrificed for the interests of shareholders. When Knight Ridder bought the Disney papers in May 1997, Soros Fund Management was one of our ten largest shareholders – and it liquefied its position immediately in response to market concerns that the acquisition would be dilutive to earnings. Adding to the irony is the fact that Soros was one of only a very few investors to sell on that news.

Polk Laffoon IV
Vice president/corporate relations
Knight Ridder
Miami, Florida

CAPITAL CHIC

How fitting that an issue featuring the decline of journalism should also include Alex Jones's call for real journalists to not attend the next Washington Correspon-dents' dinner ("In Washington, Boys Will Be Jerks," CJR, July/August). I suggest that Jones send a letter to all the White House Correspondents' Association members urging them not to attend the dinner, and to include in the letter a simple return section to be signed that says, "I will not attend the White House Correspondents' dinner because of the high sleaze content." When a sufficient number of signatures are returned, let CJR publicize the list. When the right names, or a significant number of names are listed, it will soon become chic not to attend.

Edward Handman
Scarborough, New York

IDENTIFYING THE SOURCE

Re "Naming Kid Criminals," CJR, July/August: For the record, it was The Jonesboro Sun that first knew the identities of the shooters in the Westside School incident and first went with the same names. It was our reporters who nailed down positive identification and obtained pictures. The New York Times relied on information provided by a stringer in our newsroom for the identifications. Our viewpoint was that these children were accused of staging a well-planned massacre and deserved no protection, and that the people of our community needed to know who was responsible.

John w. Troutt Jr.
Editor-Publisher, The Jonesboro Sun
Jonesboro, Arkansas

PLUGH'S POINTS

I am writing in regard to specific references to The Patriot Ledger, Newspaper Media LLC, and myself which appeared on page 35 of your July/August issue.

The paragraph in question contains "facts" which are inaccurate and totally misleading. The first instance is a statement that we "overpaid" for The Patriot Ledger. In fact, the purchase price was very substantially less than the amount you quoted and was for the entire company, which included nine weekly newspapers and a substantial amount of non-newspaper assets. The price paid for The Patriot Ledger, therefore, was well within the range referred to as the "appropriate" value according to unnamed analysts.

The article claims that The Patriot Ledger spent 17 to 18 percent of the paper's costs on the news and editorial department. In fact the newspaper in 1997 spent 19 percent of its costs in this department. However, the accepted industry standard for comparison of editorial expenses is based on a percentage of revenues, not costs. The newspaper spent 17 percent of its revenue in the newsroom in 1997.

The company has participated in the Inland Cost and Revenue Study for the past several years. This project of the Inland Press Association and International Newspaper Financial Executives Association compares the financial aspects of daily newspapers across the country. The newspapers in our circulation group averaged 12 percent of their revenues on the newsroom while the newspapers in our revenue group averaged 11 percent. The Patriot Ledger spent 17 percent. Even if we were to implement your quoted $5.5 million editorial budget we would be spending more than 14 percent of our revenues – substantially greater than the industry.

This paragraph goes on to claim that I said the town reporters were too expensive. I never said any such thing. The fact is that in May 1997 we had twenty-five full-time equivalent town reporters while in May 1998 we had twenty-six FTEs in these positions. More people, not fewer as your article implies.

In reference to total news staff levels, the twelve vacancies your report claimed existed were phantoms. They were new positions which had been proposed in a preliminary 1998 budget. Neither the prior board of directors nor our board had formally received or approved that budget. The fact is that in May 1997 there were 118 FTEs in the newsroom. In May 1998 we had 115 FTEs. As an aside, the Inland Survey referred to earlier shows an average of 91 FTEs in the newsroom for both our circulation and revenue categories (and we publish only six days per week while all the others publish seven.)

I reiterate my offer to have you or a senior member of your staff come to Quincy and review our books and records to substantiate the real facts.

Based on all the misinformation your reporter gathered, CJR has told your readers (and the world via the Internet) that "The paper's value to its readers has been grievously undermined as result of such economies." How can this possibly be true when none of the "economies" had taken place? Given the high regard in which we in the industry hold your publication, such a false and unfounded statement becomes doubly harmful. It is also an insult to The Patriot Ledger's editors and staff who, every day produce a great newspaper that serves our readers and our communities with fair, accurate, and factual reporting.

James Plugh
Publisher, The Patriot Ledger
Quincy, Massachusetts

CJR published the information about The Patriot Ledger believing it to be accurate. We are pleased to publish the information provided by Mr. Plugh. We regret any misimpressions our report may have conveyed.

Views from the mountain

In Why Books Err So Often [CJR, July/August], Steve Weinberg wrongly suggests that readers of my book, Into Thin Air, may have been misled "about an episode central to the story." He bases this unfair imputation largely on his reading of The Climb, by Anatoli Boukreev and G. Weston DeWalt. Having tried and failed to interview me, he made no further effort to corroborate the claims made by Boukreev/DeWalt before parroting them in CJR.

Had Weinberg done a little digging he would have learned that The Climb contains errors that, in my opinion, appear to be intended to absolve Boukreev of blame and/or discredit my reporting.

Jon Krakauer
Boulder, Colorado

Weinberg replies: My article distinguishes Krakauer's book from other best-sellers that have been criticized. Though a small portion of the book has been challenged, none of the critics have proved factual errors.

Into Thin Air was included in my article not to damn it, but rather to question a publishing practice: Book A comes out, Book B challenges it, and the author, editor, and publisher of Book A do nothing to answer, leaving readers confused.

I wish Krakauer and his editor had not ignored my requests for interviews. Only after publication of my article did Krakauer call.

Re: In response to Steve Weinberg's "Why Books Err So Often" I should like to add a little fuel to the fire, in hopes of buttressing his arguments.

I purchased Sebastian Junger's The Perfect Storm at its release, but stopped reading it on page xii, the second page of the Foreword, where the author recommends William Van Dorn's The Oceanography of Seamanship. Junger's transmogrification of the title (which slipped through the Norton editors) is pure nonsense. The correct title of Van Dorn's work is Oceanography and Seamanship. At that point, having lost all confidence in the author, I felt no need to turn the page.

Jack A. Somer
Former editor-in-chief, Yachting magazine
Greenwich, Connecticut

NO FAVORS FOR FOX

Yes, TV Guide has run covers on Fox's X-Files, The Simpsons, and Party of Five – of course we would! They are popular, breakthrough shows that warrant prominent coverage (and have received similar cover treatment from many other magazines).

But TV Guide did not, as stated in "Murdoch's Mean Machine" (CJR, May/June), run three Mighty Morphin Power Rangers covers "within several months last year." The last Power Rangers cover appeared in 1995. Nor did we run three X-Files covers "within several months last year." We ran X-Files covers in May 1996 and November 1997 (the series was also one of five shows featured on our "Returning Favorites" cover last fall – along with two NBC series, one CBS, one ABC – but that hardly constitutes an X-Files cover).

Our circulation is not 9.8 million, as your article implies. TV Guide's rate base is 13 million. (The magazine has never had 20 million subscribers.)

And we are far from the only publication to choose King of the Hill as one of the year's best shows. It was so named by Time (as part of Fox's Sunday-night lineup), Entertainment Weekly, and the Chicago Tribune, among others.

Steven Reddicliffe
Editor-in-chief, TV Guide
New York, New York

CJR is happy to correct errors made in editing.

AFFIRMING FAIRNESS

David K. Shipler's cover story on blacks in the newsroom (CJR, May/June) fails to address a key question: In light of increased minority hiring, what happens to experienced, qualified non-minority journalists seeking to better themselves, given the limited number of job opportunities?

Although I fully support the concepts of diversity and sensitivity, there is another concept that needs to be included for discussion – fairness. Is it fair to exclude those who deserve a chance to advance based on their qualifications and abilities? Is it fair to set quotas such as "20 percent (minorities) by 2010?" Because reporting and editing jobs at large newspapers are scarce, virtually every new hire over the next twelve years would have to be a minority hire to achieve that.

I am a sports reporter at The Arizona Republic. I am white and I am male. I have, I believe, built a reputation as a sound journalist and a lucid, entertaining writer. I have been part of this profession for twenty years, and have been dedicated to it every minute. Because of family reasons, I am moving to the Baltimore-Washington, D.C. area. However, in light of the goals of the desired quotas expressed in your article, I am pessimistic that I will find another newspaper job, even though I am applying for positions outside of sports (I am, above all, a reporter).

If those cited as being especially concerned with diversity truly cared about doing the right thing, they would find the resources to add to their numbers on the basis of creating opportunities for minorities and rewarding experience and expertise. The product would thereby improve, goals would be reached, and hiring would not exclude those who are qualified. I know this ultimately costs money, but can we attach a price tag to the concepts of both diversity and fairness?

I hope my opinions are not misconstrued, nor erroneous, superficial assumptions made regarding my political beliefs, morals, values, and desire for equality and fairness.

Bob Cohn
Sports reporter, The Arizona Republic
Phoenix, Arizona

CORRECTION

An article in the July/August issue, "Now, The Editor as Marketer," did not mean to imply that, in covering a new tax and licensing law enacted last fall by the city of Los Angeles on people working at home, the Los Angeles Times had completely ignored serious constitutional issues involved. In fact, the paper had been covering all aspects of the ordinance – including its constitutionality – since its inception in the city's planning commission in 1993.

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