Outgoing LA Times editor: Paper’s problems not my fault
Journalists, including ones who work for the LA Times, sometimes seem to live in a separate world from everyone else, especially when it comes to looking at their own paper’s problems.
Here’s John Carroll, who’s stepping down as editor-in-chief of the LA Times, on why circulation for the paper is declining:
Paul McLeary: One of the reasons the Los Angeles Times represents a puzzling — even disturbing — case study for the rest of us is the striking disparity between its journalistic performance (13 Pultizer prizes in five years) and its circulation performance (daily readership down 6.5 percent and Sunday readership down 7.9 percent in just the past 12 months). You must have felt at times like the gladiator who keeps vanquishing foes in the arena, yet every time he looks up at the bleachers, people are filing out the exits. As the guy who lived that paradox, do you have any insights into it to share?
John Carroll: I believe content had nothing to do with the circulation decline; if anything, the decline was mitigated by our content. Where does the blame lie? The list is long: 1. The scandal at Newsday, which prompted both our internal auditors and the Audit Bureau of Circulation to disallow certain types of sales that were previously considered legitimate. 2. The advent of the “do not call” list, which stymied our phone sales. 3. The reduction of the newspaper’s cost base by more than $130 million annually, which cut the strength of marketing and promotion efforts, among others. 4. Issues on the business side that recently prompted the appointment of new directors of circulation and marketing. 5. And, of course, increased competition for readers’ time. That’s only a partial list.
It’s not even on his radar that the paper feels incredibly irrelevant to many Angelenos, despite the fact that the LA Times’ circulation numbers are dropping faster than the competing papers’ are.
Let’s be honest here: Angelenos know where to find the LA Times. They know how to get a subscription if they want one. Telemarketers being rebuffed by the do not call lists should have only the slightest dent in circulation numbers. People aren’t reading the LA Times because they don’t want to. And that, Mr. Carroll, is absolutely all to do with content.
“Increased competiton for readers’ time” is publishing speak for “Internet,” and it’s the same sort of nonsensical boogeyman Old Media heads have been trotting out since the World Wide Web made its debut. Because, despite the fact that newspapers use text and static images, the two forms of media most easily placed on the Internet, the old guard has remained wedded to distributing their content on recycled pulp instead of rising to meet the challenges of the Internet.
Of course, that’s hardly surprising: Most print media still haven’t come to grips with the challenge presented by radio broadcasts, which will be 100 years old in 2006. Even today, newspapers are filled with stories that presuppose readers have no access to radio, TV or Internet for breaking news, when they obviously have access to some or all of these. So we get often the same Associated Press reports initially read on the radio (or printed on the Internet) at the time of the incident, instead of the longer, more in-depth pieces that the longer news cycle for a newspaper can deliver. If you have up to 24 hours to create more substantial coverage at a daily newspaper, why on earth would you think readers would settle for the quickie AP summaries they got the day before? (Obviously, as the length of time between publications increases, so should the length and depth of coverage, something that news magazines have understood relative to newspapers for decades, perhaps even forever.)
And this is even more true for local coverage, which is something that typically only the local newspapers are doing anyway, especially if it’s about something other than fires or shootings. If a newspaper is just covering the same fire readers saw on the TV the night before, in the same way, there’s no reason to pick up the paper, and who can blame them? Yet, from the smallest town to the largest city, there’s a ton of news happening that won’t get covered by the broadcasters or (via the AP and its competitors) the Internet. That is what should be in the newspaper, on the front page, above the fold, so it’s visible through the window on newspaper boxes. “We have something to tell you about that no one else has told you!” Tell your readers that, and they’ll find the time to make the paper part of their daily lives. Don’t, and they won’t. It’s just that simple.
But no, the LA Times’ problems are due to changes in telemarketing, despite the fact that single copy sales are falling faster than subscription sales. That sound you hear is the chamber musicians playing on the deck of a sinking Titanic.
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