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| A boast that soon may no longer be possible to make |
Would
it someday reach the point where only one company would control the industry –
and we’d all wind up being consumers at “The Bank?”
I
COULDN’T HELP but remember that moment when I learned this week of the fact
that Gannett newspapers (the founder of USA Today and gobble up-er of many
local papers across the nation) is interested in buying Tribune Publishing.
Particularly
the Chicago Tribune itself. The newspaper that long-time Gannett boss Al Neuharth
praised as one of the nation’s best could someday wind up as a part of the
company.
A
cog in the overall machine that gives news and information to people across the
country. Because I suspect if current ownership tries to resist a sale,
stockholders interested only in the financial bottom line will wind up
stringing them up outside of Tribune Tower, and dumping their carcasses in the
heavily-polluted Chicago River.
Yet
the image of a Gannett-owned Chicago Tribune bothers me in particular, even
though I realize that modern-day newspapers are nowhere near as individualistic
as they were in past generations.
PARTICULARLY
WHEN ONE ventures outside of Chicago or metropolitan areas, there is a tendency
for the “local” papers to carry the same stories – usually written by the
Associated Press (and I don’t want to hear from any current or former AP snobs
about how the “t” in ‘the’ is capitalized; the one-time Unipresser in me says “Shove
it!”).
Even
the larger metros are losing their character and becoming merely bigger (and
more costly, which cuts into the financial bottom line) versions of
ink-on-paper distribution of information.
Which
is a medium I am going to prefer until the day I die – reading off a screen
gives me a headache after too long a time.
But
back to the future of newspapers, particularly the Chicago Tribune – which in
the interest of disclosure I should admit I do some work for on a freelance basis.
I have an interest in what becomes of Tribune Publishing, because I think about
the only other newspaper in the Chicago area left that I could write for would
be the Herald-News of Joliet (Shaw Media).
EVERYTHING
ELSE IS gobbled up, and now someone else wants to gobble up the Chicago Tribune
– which historically wanted to think of itself as the high-and-mighty voice of
the Midwestern U.S. But if it becomes a part of Gannett, it would be a sister
paper to the metro dailies in Indianapolis, Detroit, Des Moines and Milwaukee.
With
the St. Louis Post-Dispatch owned by Quad Cities-based Lee Enterprises, it
could very well wind up that the Chicago Sun-Times becomes the lone independent
voice. Either that, or an isolated voice that nobody listens to.
Because
the strategy behind all this consolidation is that newspapers have to grow into
as large of groups as possible so they can consolidate as many of their costs
as possible.
The
idea that the Chicago Tribune would remain significantly different from the
Indianapolis Star, the Detroit News, the Des Moines Register or Milwaukee
Journal-Sentinel would be laughable. It would defeat the purpose of combining
into one large company, which would require the publications to become mere
versions of one another.
THE
SCARY THING (to me, at least) is that I don’t think many people would notice a difference.
Particularly because television news already shares so much from city to city
and there often is little to distinguish (one male news anchor has a particularly
ridiculous-looking toupee, while another station’s meteorologist likes to show
more cleavage) one television station from another.
For
all I know, there may be people who think the idea of “the newspaper” that
provides the same product regardless of what city it’s being purchased in is
something good.
Just
like how they think being able to get the identical product from a Subway
sandwich franchise regardless of where one is makes for a good business plan.
I
honestly think this viewpoint is something we won’t appreciate the flaws of until
it’s too late to do anything about it.
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