Ailing U.S. newspapers abandon newsrooms as pandemic deepens woes
14 December, 2020
The buzzing newsroom has long been the lifeblood of American newspapers. However in recent months the buzz has become virtual as the pandemic deepens the industry crisis and forces journalists to job remotely.
Lately, established dailies like the NY Daily News, Miami Herald and Baltimore Sun have joined other news outlets abandoning their headquarters, amid pandemic workplace restrictions that had already left them empty.
Tribune Publishing, owner of the Baltimore daily and others, has acknowledged it really is re-evaluating its property needs since it struggles with a hard environment, with lower print circulation, falling advertising revenues and increased charges for health and safety.
But many journalists say the increased loss of the newsroom has changed the type of their function and worry that newspapers might not exactly re-establish newsrooms even after the pandemic.
"A newsroom is much more collaborative than a large amount of other workspaces are," said Emily Brindley, a good reporter at the Tribune-owned Hartford (Connecticut) Courant, which shut its newsroom this month.
"I definitely think that it's going to impact the product," added Brindley, an organizer of the Courant Guild, which represents journalists. "I do believe that you will have some intangible effects."
Among Brindley's colleagues in Hartford, Daniela Altimari, said she believes the pandemic "proved that people could all home based and still released a newspaper," making it unlikely the newsroom will reopen. She fears for the standard of the work.
"Newsrooms happen to be factories for ideas in ways. There's a lot of chance encounters," Altimari stated. "You receive ideas by speaking with colleagues. Those chance encounters can really lead to better work."
Victor Pickard, a good professor who follows the sector for the University of Pennsylvania's Annenberg School for Communication, said the pandemic "is obviously accelerating and exacerbating the journalism crisis, but this crisis predated the pandemic by years."
He said large newspaper chains such as McClatchy and Tribune "are actually seizing this possibility to cut costs, as they often do as a way to maximize profits," while adding that right now "they're not very successful these days."
The move out of the newsroom follows an extended crisis for the sector which has seen consolidation by major chains, the closing of several smaller papers, and hedge funds buying newspapers and then slash costs and squeeze out as much profit as possible.
End of the myth -
For decades, the newsroom has been a mythical place whose atmosphere was captured in films from "His Girl Friday" to "All of the President's Men" to "Spotlight."
"There's a sort of alchemy that happens once you have a whole lot of reporters in an area together," said Marijke Rowland of the California-based Modesto Bee.
"There's nothing quite as interesting, radiant and at times weird as employed in a newsroom," she said. "That's an incalculable loss, for local journalism particularly."
Some major newspapers including the New York Times, Washington Post and Wall Street Journal possess maintained as well as boosted their journalistic staffs even while they adapt to remote journalism.
"No-one doubts that (the major dailies) will reopen if it is safe to take action," stated Dan Kennedy, a good Northeastern University journalism professor.
But smaller local and regional newspapers are in more challenging straits and may struggle to obtain newsrooms back, he noted.
"I just hope that any newspaper owner who is focused on doing a good task understands the importance of experiencing a good newsroom," Kennedy said.
But with a business in turmoil and facing challenges from a good shift to digital news consumption, some fear the newsroom will become a relic of the past.
"These trends happen to be so structural they have hardly any options," Pickard said.
"The advertising income model is irreparably damaged and can never keep coming back for newspapers. For all those that happen to be not able to maintain themselves through subscriptions, which includes nearly all newspapers apart from the national big three, there's not much they can do.
"It's very difficult to stay profitable, so they're going to continue to spend less."
Source: japantoday.com
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