Soldiers Without Swords:
Is The Press Up to the Current Challenge?

Jay T. Harris

Reed Sarratt Lecture at the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill

October 22, 2001

Good evening.

It is a pleasure to be here in Chapel Hill to deliver this year’s Reed Sarratt Lecture.

It is also a personal privilege. I knew Reed Sarratt as a colleague, a friend, and a gentleman during the years when he ran the Southern Newspaper Publishers Association. I am honored to deliver this lecture that carries his name and honors his memory.

We come together at a trying time in our nation’s history.

It is a time, in the wake of the recent terrorist attacks on our people, our nation, and our very way of life, when deep and conflicting forces clash in the national psyche. We know shock and sorrow, remorse, resolve and a longing for just retribution.

We may feel fear as individuals, but we are nevertheless possessed of an unbounded confidence as Americans united.

At such a time, it may seem inappropriate to talk about what might appear a narrow or parochial interest.

But I hope to make the case tonight that three points regarding the Press are fundamental to our nation’s success in the current challenge.

The first of these points is that the strength and vitality of the American Press is central to the strength and vitality of our democracy.

• The second is that a strong, vital and independent Press is essential if the American people are to contribute wisely to the course our government pursues as the current challenge unfolds.

• The final point is that without that contribution from the citizens of our democracy, a democracy which places the ultimate decision making power in a presumably informed citizenry, our chances for success in any sustained national effort are diminished. And the challenge ahead of us – leading a global effort to root out terrorism – must certainly be sustained if it is to be successful.
I make this argument tonight because I believe the strength, vitality and independence of the American Press are at risk – and the consequences of that given the challenges facing our nation could be serious.

***

Let me begin then with a definition, and the background you’ll need to evaluate my case.

First the definition. When I refer to the Press it is Press with a capital "P" and I mean by that to include not only newspapers, but television, radio, magazines and Internet operations which have the provision of serious news as a key part of their mission. I will speak primarily about newspapers tonight, for that is my background, but my argument applies equally to the news media generally.

I could fill an entire semester’s course with the background for this argument, but since you plan to go home tonight and I have a plane to catch in the morning, let me give you only the essentials.

I will start at the beginning – with our national Constitution.

I believe that this nation, despite its historic and contemporary flaws, is the greatest nation on the earth. It has produced, with much struggle, a society unequaled in the bounty, liberty, equality and protections it provides those who live here.

Are we a perfect nation? No.

But our nation is blessed.

America was endowed with many blessings. Among the greatest of those, although seriously flawed at its inception and improved only through trying and at times bloody struggle, is the Constitution.

The Press is protected in the First Amendment to the Constitution. It is the only business so protected because the Framers saw a free press as essential to the maintenance and health of our democracy.

And what did the Framers seek to accomplish when they included freedom of the press in the First Amendment? At the most obvious level, they sought to ensure that government could not inhibit the free and widely circulated expression of disparate views, a process they viewed as a bulwark of liberty.

But more importantly, the government the Framers created was of a particular sort. It was a republic, a representative democracy. The ultimate authority to set or change the nation’s course was vested in the people who would select those who represented them. And for this reason it was deemed essential that the American people be as well informed as possible about contemporary affairs so they would be capable of making wise judgments collectively.

***

As is the case with living organisms, institutions in society evolve. That they do this is as inevitable as it is unavoidable. They must evolve to adjust to the context of their times.

The Press is no exception.

At the time the First Amendment was adopted in the late 18^th century, newspapers were composed primarily of reports of developments in, or affecting the economic life of, the community, of events beyond the town in which the newspaper was published, and the opinions of its owners and contributors. In short, they were "public forums" in which citizens could learn about current events and debate the issues of the day.

James Carey, a distinguished professor of journalism at Columbia University, provides a succinct description of the evolution of the Press from that point.

"In 1800 the most common name for an American newspaper was The Advertiser, Carey wrote. "Take that literally…[T]he purpose of the newspaper was to advertise, to spread the wares and interests of commerce and industry…And the relationship between business and journalism was an intimate one.

"Later, when we entered the day of partisan journalism, there was no conflict between the business office and the news operation. They were joined. Crudely put, newspapers sold ideology; business success and political success were linked through patronage and subsidy…

"But once the press in the late 19^th Century declared its independence from political parties and other institutions, its also had to declare independence from its own business office and from the institutions of commerce. As a result, we have been peculiarly blessed in the United States: Organs of journalism have generally been owned by journalistic companies that honored the divorce of commerce and journalism," Carey concluded.
 
 

The most recent evolution of the Press has been a fundamental change in the nature and priorities of its owners.

Until roughly thirty years ago the vast majority of daily newspapers, for example, were owned by individuals or families. More often than not, the owners were residents – indeed, they were frequently influential leaders – of the communities in which their newspaper operated.

While there were certainly exceptions, most owners saw their newspapers primarily as tools for advancing progress (as they defined it) and secondarily as a means of generating wealth.

In recent decades, the ownership model has changed substantially. First, we saw the creation of groups of newspapers, or radio and television stations, by private owners. Then, the ownership of those enterprises shifted increasingly from private (i.e., being owned by an individual or family) to public (in which "shares" of ownership are sold on the stock market to the highest bidder.)

The consequence of this shift and what happened next is crucial. It was summarized well in a recent article by Earl Wilkinson, executive director of the International Newspaper Marketing Association.

"One by one," he wrote, "family-run companies mostly interested in profitability over time – with an eye toward their predecessors’ obsession with quality journalism, community and politics – were exposed to the riches of Wall Street."

These companies went public, or were purchased by public companies and eventually were run by new leaders with different priorities.

The big change occurred, as Wilkinson notes, "as the stock market became democratized via institutional investors such as pension funds."

"Instead of hundreds of individual investors, many publishers were now mostly concerned with 10 or so major investment funds that held their stock. That, by itself, intensified the pressure on newspaper chief executive officers to shift their agendas from politics, journalism and community, and toward ‘maximizing shareholder value’" in the short-term as compared to the focus on profitability over time that has satisfied most family owners.

The final addition to this insidious stew occurred as newspaper companies, which generally did not compete with one another for readers, began to compete with one another for the favor of institutional investors. This competition constantly intensified, according to Wilkinson, because "historical over-performers" kept "raising the bar, meaning the other companies have to keep up to stay competitive."

In short, when the leader of the pack raised profit margins or growth rates – frequently by cutting costs – the others felt compelled to follow suit lest they risk losing their investors.

Let me interject here that the only sure winners – or at least the most likely winners – in such a competition are the institutional investors whose favor the companies curry. Their goal is short-term results and most companies do their best to achieve that goal.

Possible, but less certain winners, are those with a longer-term perspective, such as employees with company stock in their 401K program. Their interests are growth and value over the long-term. If managing to satisfy the short-term demands of the large investors ends up weakening the value and vitality of the franchise in the long-term, as is often the case in my view, than investors with a longer time horizon would be more likely to lose out.

Those most likely to lose our readers. The cuts that are frequently made, particularly in weak economic times, to move closer to the institutional investors short-term goals result in a newspaper that offers less in the breadth, depth and reliability of its daily report.

And when readers lose, the community loses and so, ultimately, does the nation.

***

I find myself in full agreement with Wilkinson’s diagnosis of the problem – but we part company on the remedy.

"Is it fair to criticize corporate managements for doing whatever it takes to satisfy shareholders, as Wall Street annually changes its expectations and publishing companies vie for position within the publishing sector?" Wilson asked rhetorically.

He answered his question with an unqualified "No."

"[O]nce the decision is made" to go public "you live by the rules," he concluded.

I see it differently.

At a purely personal level, I remain committed to a proposition I laid out earlier this year in an address to the American Society of Newspaper Editors:

"I neither believe nor will I accept that the current trend can’t be changed, that the proper balance can’t be restored, that the unwise is somehow unavoidable or that a course that is inconsistent with our principles and values must be followed." But there are reasons larger and more important than personal principle for taking a stand again this debilitating status quo. They include the original intent of the owners who took the companies public, the loss of independence the shifting balance of power represents, and transcendent national interests that supersede the narrow interests and focus of corporate executives or institutional investors.

It is clear that when the then-current owners took their companies public they had neither the intention nor the expectation that their companies would one day be controlled by people concerned primarily neither with journalism nor public service, but rather with short-term profit and uninterrupted growth.

Had they known where the path of public ownership would lead their companies they almost certainly would have not taken it, or at least not in the way they did.

They might have chosen instead the path taken by other owners who had the foresight or good counsel to see the potential danger and took steps to avoid it. These included companies such as the New York Times, the Washington Post and the St. Petersburg Times.

But, such exceptions noted, today we see an example of the law of unintended consequences: a profession devoted to public service – in this case, journalism in the public interest – based in companies whose primary objective has become the creation of the greatest possible wealth for its owners.

This new ownership, or more accurately the corporate management which operates the company, has decreased investment in what was once viewed as a sacred "public trust" – journalism in the public interest. It’s priority now is the maximization of profit (to the extent the market demands) more or less regardless of the affect on the enterprise’s ability to honor and fulfill that once-sacred trust.

Let me be clear that I am not saying that good journalism cannot be done in the context of a healthy business, or by one that is publicly-held. There is ample evidence that is not the case. Nor am I arguing that newspapers should become non-profit organizations.

To the contrary, I believe deeply that a good newspaper and a good business go hand in hand. Indeed, without a good business it would be impossible for a newspaper to do good journalism over the long haul.

The point of disagreement is how a "good business" should be defined. What is good enough in terms of profitability and sustained year-to-year profit improvement?

Economists differ on this question, as they seem to disagree on all others.

On one side are supporters of the classic view of Adam Smith, the 18^th century Scottish philosopher who propounded the famous "invisible hand" theory of the interrelationship between self-interest and the common good. Smith’s view was that a person pursuing their own interest, while not intending "to promote the public interest" frequently ended up doing so.

We have learned over the years though that while the free market can produce enormous social good it does not always do so. At times, the operation of the free market, the unrestrained pursuit of individual or institutional interests, can have an adverse effect on the larger society.

A more contemporary economist, E.F. Schumacher, a German-born economist who worked in England, noted that economic activities propelled at a "frenzy" by unrestrained self-interest may not be "effective for long" and may, in fact, "carry within themselves the seeds of destruction."

And maybe that is the most important point, because the news business – if you approach it as a public trust as well as a business – is different from most businesses.

Many businesses can reduce expenses more or less proportionately with demand and revenue without doing irreparable damage to their core capabilities, their market position or their mission – although the human costs it should be noted are frequently painfully high.

But newspapers are different. News and reader’s interests do not contract with declining advertising. Nor does newspapers’ responsibility to the public get smaller as revenue declines or newsprint becomes more expensive.

And, I think a compelling body of evidence is developing that the continuing reduction in news resources, while satisfying to large shareholders, is eroding the circulation base and loyalty of readers, and therefore doing incalculable damage to the long-term vitality of these businesses.

***

When I first began to raise these matters publicly in a series of addresses following my resignation last Spring the concerns I raised were largely abstract and hypothetical.

I began then, as I did tonight, by citing the clear-eyed view the Founders had of the necessity of a free press to our democracy. It was to them an obvious and powerful need when the country was younger; at a time when the issues facing our people while new and profound were nevertheless relatively simple to describe, if not to solve.

And could it reasonably be argued, I asked back then, that in our almost infinitely more complex world of today: driven by technology, complicated by an increasingly inter-connected global community and global economy, made raw by powerful competing interests, that the American people need to know less?

I said the answer was no.

I argued then that the issues that concerned us about press performance were not important issues because we were in bad times. They were important issues for our times, important without regard to the state of the economy or the level of profits of the news business.

It was a time, I said, when Americans’ will need to know more and more about our increasingly interconnected global community. They will need to know this so they can effectively engage our political leaders on the role and direction our country takes in this unfolding new world.

It is six months later and everything, as we have heard again and again since September 11, has changed. Arguments I made then which were abstract or hypothetical now have the hard bite of reality and necessity.

To explain, let me draw from an unpublished article I wrote recently with Geneva Overholser, the former editor of the Des Moines Register.

An essential requirement for a democracy to prevail in any significant and protracted conflict is the informed support of a broad cross section of its citizenry, we wrote. American success in the war now before us will depend in part on whether our media place the public’s need for information above the quest for higher profits.

The struggle seems certain to last for years – testing our will as a people and testing some of our nation’s bedrock principles. Rarely in our history have the American people had a more pressing need for the information they require to understand the challenges the nation faces and to help guide its course.

In the weeks since the September 11 attack, news organizations have risen admirably to the challenge, fulfilling their responsibility to the nation and its citizens. Some, including the New York Times and CNN, have distinguished themselves.

Others, which typically give their readers or audience a much less filling diet of news, have likewise responded meritoriously in the immediate wake of the terrorist attack. But these organizations, which together serve the majority of the American people, will soon face both self-imposed and external pressures to return to their usual offering of a far less sufficient fare.

Not least among the factors facing many already stripped-down organizations are stamina, resource constraints, and the need to balance telling the rest of the news with the need to tell the story of the "war against terrorism" in all its dimensions, foreign and domestic.

Many newsroom staffs are virtually exhausted. Over the last four weeks they’ve reached deep inside and thrown all they had at telling the biggest story of their careers. But it is a pace that they cannot sustain. It is the sad fact that only a handful of news organizations in our nation have sufficient breadth and depth on their staff to handle coverage of the current challenge and their normal responsibilities.

For all news organizations, be they established news companies with financial progress as their new priority or corporate conglomerates in which news organizations constitute a minor part of the whole, the challenge currently facing our nation and her people will be a time of testing and definition.

Earlier this year, as the economy began to weaken and projected earnings of news organizations were in decline, many companies cut their news department budgets, some by levels unmatched even during the years of the Great Depression or World War II. And those cuts only exacerbated reductions made in prior years, as media companies have changed the size and the nature of their news organizations to achieve profits two or three times the national business average.

Writing in the wake of the September 11 attacks, Felicity Barringer of the New York Times, reported that, "…American broadcast news operations are confronting the reality of two decades’ worth of budget cuts in foreign news." Cuts in staff, she reported, were the result of "relentless pressures for profits of the 1990’s." During the same period, the news staffs of many local newspapers, television and radio stations were pared for the same reasons.

***

In a prescient keynote address to the 1998 Catto Conference on Journalism and Society at the Aspen Institute in Colorado, Max Frankel, former executive editor of the New York Times, offered the following observations:

"The market gravitates to the mass and the mass, except at extraordinary moments of peril, is content with superficial news," he said. But in "rare moments of great stress, crisis, or scandal… the public will inevitably turn to the media for guidance and enlightenment."

This is such a moment.

The American people need to be fully and consistently informed about the challenges that face our nation and the world. For this to be accomplished, the resources stripped from the nation’s news organizations to increase investor profits need to be quickly and permanently restored.

All Americans, including corporate CEOs and large investors, must do what they can to support the nation at this time of challenge.

The CEOs of media companies need to recognize that in the final analysis their most important obligation is to the public – and they must lead their companies accordingly. Large investors in these companies – and the Wall Street analysts who cover them – will need to decide whether they will put their financial interests ahead of the national interest.

In this time of national emergency, let us challenge the contemporary leaders of the corporations that control American news organizations to prove themselves equal to their historic responsibility and to the challenge of our times.

The American people should demand and accept no less.

***

In conclusion, let me offer a fuller picture of what should be done. It may provide a handy guide for those interested in whether they are getting all they should from their local newspaper, radio or television station.

Several weeks before the September 11 attacks I spoke to the annual convention of the National Association of Black Journalists. In that address I noted that many newsroom leaders were being encouraged, given the diminished resources they would have to work with, to set priorities and work smarter.

In that relatively quiet period for news such advice may have been the best one could offer. And it has a certain superficial logic if you say it fast.

But it no longer is helpful, if it ever truly was.

In the current situation, and the one likely to face us for years to come, we have in addition to the normal run of the news to cover – a mammoth, multi-faceted, never ending story to cover with local, national and international dimensions. And it must be covered fully so that readers are well informed and capable of playing a wise and constructive role as citizens.

It is the conventional wisdom today that "everything has changed." No doubt, many things have. And I hope that the news media – local as well as national – go behind that headline to tell us what has changed, what has been lost, and what has been gained. And I hope as well that they stay on this task – for the changes will unfold over time.

The American people will need to know much more about international news, diplomacy, other cultures and other perspectives than has been offered by most newspapers and television stations over the last decade or so.

The letters and Op-ed pages of our newspapers should feature not only local views, and American views – but also voices and views from around the world. The Internet makes such an interchange of ideas possible. It is the public forum provided by the 18^th and 19^th century local newspaper updated with the aid of modern technology to serve members of the emerging global community of the 21^st.

This is not a story, and will not be a story, for which a single daily wrap-up on terror, our response to it, and its impact on the world can be written or produced. Nor can it be handled with six or eight bullets in a "Today’s Update" approach.

And even if readers begin to lose interest as the story and events unfold slowly and without drama, as they occasionally will, the Press still has an obligation and a responsibility to cover it well and fully.

But it is not an option – either as a strategy or a practice – to cover the big story in the way it should be by shortchanging everything else in the name of setting priorities.

For life in our communities will go on in its fullness.

I came here this morning over Highway 64 from Nags Head where I spent the weekend.

The drive across was full of visual reminders that despite the tumult and tension of these days, life goes on as it did before September 11. In some ways, nothing has changed.

Kids are still going to school and we need to cover education. Business continues in its myriad forms –agriculture and forestry, light and heavy industry, high technology and local retail. The road is lined with churches large and small. You see the promise of America – and the promise of America as yet unfulfilled.

Children will be born, adults will wed, and the elders will die. Parades will come down "Main Streets", Little Leagues will play their games and Rotary will meet each week.

These are the continuing stories of American life, played out every day in every community. These stories too must be told by the Press. For it is from the telling and sharing and reading of these stories that communities are born and grow and thrive.

That too is part of the noble work of the American journalist – a public servant with a public trust – that must be fulfilled in times of crisis as well as times of calm.

Thank you.