Disappearing Ink?

Kalb Report panelists predict the future of print newspapers, encourage students to study journalism.

October 6, 2010

Kalb Report set with panelists sitting on stage on chairs

By Menachem Wecker

When GW turns 200 in about a decade, will newsprint-based information, delivered to doorsteps in a form that is compatible with coffee and slippers, be an anachronism?

The four experts who participated in the Oct. 5 installment of the Kalb Report, titled “Ink on the Brink: The Future of Print Journalism,” agreed that print will survive at least another decade. They disagreed about the details.

“The title itself suggests that print journalism does have a future, which is encouraging since everyone lately has been writing its obit,” said Marvin Kalb, James Clark Welling presidential fellow at GW and the Edward R. Murrow professor emeritus at Harvard’s Kennedy School of Government, introducing the show. The Kalb Report is recorded before a live audience at the National Press Club.

Cynthia Tucker, a columnist and blogger at the Atlanta Journal-Constitution, echoed Mr. Kalb’s optimism, with an important caveat. “I certainly think that there will continue to be newspapers in 20 years,” she said, “but I fear that there won’t be nearly as many of them.”

Forecasting a “couple of decades of consolidation,” Ms. Tucker said large-circulation, national publications would probably weather the financial storm, but she worries about the “uncertain” future of regional papers like hers. “I think without regional, medium-sized, city newspapers, a lot of citizens would be in the dark about what is going on in their state houses and their city halls,” she said.

David Hunke, president and publisher of USA Today, said he is certain that his publication will be around in 20 years, albeit in hybrid form.

“My job principally is not on the journalism side,” he said. “It’s on the business side – to unlock the funding streams that allow us to continue to produce the content that create this thing, whether it is ink on paper or any other device.”

During her publication’s 122-year history, it has gone through many publishers, said Anne Bagamery, senior editor of the International Herald Tribune based in France, but the “fundamentals of what we do have not changed.”

If the International Herald Tribune is not making money for The New York Times Company – and its profit is hard to assess because of the company’s cost and revenue sharing model, Ms. Bagamery said – editorial is not to blame.

“The business side of it is quite frankly somebody else’s job,” she said. “Those of us on the editorial side are responsible for making sure that the product we produce is worth paying for, so if you want to look out 15, 20 or 30 years, I have absolute confidence that there will be an International Herald Tribune.”

Marcus Brauchli, executive editor of The Washington Post, was equally certain about his paper’s future. “My crystal ball about the Post’s longevity says the Post will be here for a long time to come,” he said.

Newspaper circulations are certainly down, but Mr. Brauchli said papers like the Post still enjoy a “very strong, loyal core of readers.” He is also “deeply grateful” for The Washington Post Company’s ownership of several companies, including Kaplan Inc., which brought in $2.3 million in 2008.

Should newspapers get a bailout? Mr. Kalb wondered.

“No… I fear control,” Mr. Hunke said.

“My gut says no,” said Mr. Brauchli. “I guess, given my role in running coverage, I’d rather step back from the actual discussion on that one.”

“I would love to see what was proposed and how it worked,” said Ms. Tucker.

Bailout or not, Mr. Brauchli thinks newspapers have reached “overcapacity,” with too many reporters covering the same events, like White House press conferences, which can also be watched online. If reporters are just repeating themselves without adding value, they are wasting their time, he said. Instead, they need to report “high-impact journalism,” which innovates rather than repeats.

So do the panelists recommend a journalism career for aspiring reporters, if they have a nose for high-impact stories?

“Absolutely,” said Ms. Tucker. “I am still in this business, because I still am thrilled to get up every morning and find out what’s going on in the world and tell people what I think about it.”

“I’m not sure it’s necessary to study journalism to learn and practice journalism,” Mr. Brauchli said in an interview, “but I am certain that the skills of a journalist have never been more relevant – knowing how to gather and present information that matters to an audience, with a sense of fairness, balance, context and history, in an engaging way.”

Ms. Bagamery also recommended journalism as a career “enthusiastically,” though students should expect “heavy lifting.”

Asked if she enjoyed going to work, she said, “We got into this business to kick over rocks and see what crawls out from under them ... Is it a happy environment? There are pockets of happiness.”

Those pockets of happiness, she said, include working with young people. “Every single day there is something that makes you say, ‘Thank God I chose this business,’” she said.

In a follow-up interview, Ms. Bagamery brought a new perspective to the question of newsprint or pixels. If newspaper reporters were told they could continue to report stories the way they do now for stories that would appear only online, “I don’t think anyone would care,” she said.

What did matter to everyone in the audience was that a vibrant press is vital to democracy, said Michael Freedman, executive director of the GW Global Media Institute, executive producer of the Kalb Report and professor of media and public affairs.

“This is a profession that people – whether 18 or 80 – often love in both their head and their heart. It is, for many journalists, not just a job but a calling,” said Mr. Freedman. “I hope our students are learning not just to be reporters but to be the leaders of the next generation.”

“They will have in their hands the awesome responsibility and power to change the profession for the better,” he added. “I believe that is what they are taught at GW, what they were effectively told by the panel last night, and why they will continue to pursue their dreams of becoming members of a profession as important as any in a free society.”

The Kalb Report series is produced by the GW Global Media Institute, The National Press Club and Harvard’s Shorenstein Center. It is underwritten by a grant from the Ethics and Excellence in Journalism Foundation.