How many reporters can claim getting a .45 colt revolver as part of the welcome package on their first day on the job? "That was my introduction to the newspaper business," recalls Dwight Bentel, former reporter for the San Jose Mercury News and founder of the School of Journalism and Mass Communications at SJSU. "The staff was receiving threats from bootleggers and Merle Gray, my managing editor, said if anybody starts giving trouble here, pull this out. So I sat on my desk ready to blow the middle out of anybody."
That was 1928. Over the course of 80 years, Bentel has seen bootleggers and this valley's orchards disappear. He has witnessed the replacement of metal tables, clacking typewriters and cigarette smoke-infused newsrooms with ergonomic desks and flat-panel computer terminals. Now, he is observing the gradual demise of newspapers.
The State of the News Media 2009 Report, by the Project of Excellence in Journalism, estimates that roughly 5,000 full-time newsroom jobs were cut in 2008. The report predicts that by the end of 2009, the newsrooms of American william Reisner daily newspapers may employ between 20 and 25 percent fewer people than in 2001.
According to Paper Cuts, a website that tracks newspaper layoffs, on April 27, 8,484 newspaper staff had been laid off in just the first four months of 2009. As we went to print, the Rocky Mountain News and the Seattle Post-Intelligencer had closed shop and the San Francisco Chronicle, the 12th-largest paper in the United States, and the second-largest in California, was struggling to stay afloat.
"A lot of newspaper companies are reducing the number of days they publish the print edition, some are cutting back on home delivery, or delivering only on certain days of the week," observes Carole Leigh Hutton, a former editor of the San Jose Mercury News who is now CEO of United Way Silicon Valley. "These are drastic changes from the days when a newspaper on your doorstep was a given. But we now have a generation of consumers who have grown up on computers -- they don't feel the need to hold the printed product in their hands."
For Bentel, it's a heartbreaking transition. "I have seen journalism develop, not just in Silicon Valley but also at the Spartan Daily," he says. "These reporters have done a responsible job being the voice of their audience, be it the local community or the students on campus."
And that voice, insists Hutton, is what needs to be preserved.
"When we don't have journalists going to meetings, scouring records, examining the behavior of public officials and big businesses, and figuring out what's going on, corners will get cut," she says. "When no one's watching, things go unchecked."
But, you may ask, aren't there more people watching now than ever before? Thanks to cameras in cell phones and desktop publishing software, ordinary citizens are able to partake in what was once the exclusive domain of those qualified to get a press pass.
"There have always been citizen journalists -- they used to be called ‘Letters to the Editor' writers," says Michael Stoll, lecturer in the SJSU School of Journalism and Mass Communications. "The problem is that a lot of what is called citizen journalism is in fact opinion making in the guise of professional writing. Very little of what passes for citizen journalism actually rises to the level of care, transparency and thoroughness that we consider to be professional journalism."
Samie Hartley, '08 Journalism, adds: "What people capture with their camera phones is one moment in time. It's the whole idea of ‘I knew it first and now I need to let the whole world know' and there's a market for that. The public wants to know what is happening as it's happening and these people are willing to satisfy that need without caring about accuracy. They think that someone will sort it all out for them later."
And who is this "someone"? The trained journalist.
"Incidents and accidents can be reported by anyone," says Stoll. "Scandal, social ills, misappropriation of funds, bad public policy decisions or good decisions that may have gone unrecognized are much more difficult to unearth."
Are today's Internet consumers savvy enough to make the distinction between news reporting and the patchwork of unverified narratives commonly found on blogs? "The fact that anybody who has an opinion, a keyboard and access to the Internet can publish to the world what they know and what they think makes for a lot of noise on the web," says Hutton. "I don't know if people have the time and energy to thoughtfully sort through all the various sources of information."
The research done by the Project for Excellence in Journalism finds that even with substantial increases in the number of people who rely on the Internet regularly for their news, online news outlets are viewed with more skepticism than print, radio and television. Only Google News and Yahoo News, which derive much of their content from traditional news organizations, received positive marks for credibility by most users. The Drudge Report, Huffington Post, Salon and Slate were popular, but not viewed as dependable.
"Perhaps the only thing that journalism and journalists have is trustworthiness," says Stoll. "Journalists no longer have a monopoly on the means of production of mass information. What they have is a methodology and a culture of providing timely, important information that is well-researched and accurate."
Increasingly breaking news appears on online media channels before it is broadcast on TV. When US Airways flight 1549 crashed into the Hudson River on January 15, Janis Krums, a regular guy from Florida, posted the first photo of the crash on Twitter.
For most San José State students, going online is second nature. But how many of them know how to maximize the tools at their disposal?
John Hornberg, '09 Journalism and executive editor of the Spartan Daily, is a self-proclaimed Internet junkie who relies exclusively on Google alerts, RSS feeds, Facebook updates and Twitter "news" to get his fill of national and international affairs. "These are tools that we need to be using more effectively," he says. "Journalism students can do so much more with their Facebook accounts -- they can promote their stories, find sources, look for events to cover, network with organizations … and use it as a research and promotion tool, not just to connect with friends and family."
Hornberg is leading his team's advent into the world of web 2.0 -- the Spartan Daily has more than 200 fans on Facebook, has a steady Twitter stream and updates on its sports, photo and news blogs.
Very different from the time Dwight Bentel first introduced the newspaper in 1934. "They are evolving," says the silver-haired centenarian matter-of-factly, leaning forward in his brown leather recliner at his San José home. "They're giving the audience what it demands."
And that will be the mantra for success, thinks Richard Craig, journalism professor and adviser to the Spartan Daily. "Whatever form the newspaper takes, what's going to be successful is something that fulfills a perceived need and draws people," he says. "Maybe everyone will be walking around with a Kindle (a wireless electronic reading device) in their hands. Or, if print survives, then maybe it's a thin membrane that looks like paper … who knows? We can equip our students with the latest tools and multimedia skills, but what we really want to teach them is the ability to adapt."
When training students for jobs that don't yet exist, internships are important. "For journalism students right now, they're absolutely indispensable," says Craig who is also serving as the J-school's internship coordinator. "In a time when the industry is changing so dramatically, internships are the best chance students have to distinguish themselves from the crowd."
Samie Hartley is a case in point. She interned at The Brentwood Press, the local newspaper in her hometown, and upon graduation was offered a part-time proofreader job. "In time they asked me if I would be interested in working on a story or helping out on the web and then I was slowly phased in as a full-time editorial staff member."
A proofreader on Wednesdays, a web content manager on Thursdays and Fridays and a reporter every other day, Hartley is thankful that she did not just stick to her pen and notebook while in school. "The professors kept stressing that you need to have as many skills as possible," she reports. "And I'm glad I listened."
With much of broadcast news reduced to sound bites and 140- character messages on Twitter, how can the journalism industry remain viable?
"I see a huge gap between when print collapses and when the journalism industry reinvents itself," says Suzanne Yada, '09 Magazine Journalism. "We are in that gap right now and people don't know what's going to happen. I think there is still a future for print but only in niche circumstances."
Yada may be on to something. The State of the News Media 2009 Report confirms that, in a difficult year, niche magazines such as The Economist, The New Yorker and The Atlantic were the only ones with readership gains, while U.S. News has become a monthly guide instead of a weekly.
A number of new ventures that showcase original reporting are gaining ground online. Websites like the VoiceofSanDiego.org, staffed by nine professional journalists, MinnPost.com, launched by Joel Kramer, former publisher of the Minneapolis Star Tribune, and Global Post, manned by foreign correspondents, provide investigative journalism, original reporting on the government, public affairs, the arts, business and sports, and in-depth international coverage -- everything that you would expect from mainstream media, but in a format that's now increasingly in demand.
Locally, Michael Stoll, J-school lecturer, is taking the noncommercial route for news publications. He, along with volunteers and a national board of advisers from journalism, academe, business and the nonprofit world, has formed the Public Press, an innovative nonprofit enterprise that hopes to produce an advertising-free daily newspaper and website in the Bay Area.
"We want to flip the [existing business] model [of newspapers] on its head," he says. "If you have a nonprofit organization that cuts out the advertising, which is typically 60 percent of the paper by bulk, you've just slashed one of the biggest costs of the newspaper, but you've also eliminated one of the biggest sources of income. If you can make up the difference by boosting the price by 10 percent, maybe saving by not having any ad staff, maybe delivering by bicycle because now the papers are lighter ... this is just one experiment in trying to re-envision what we do as journalists and trying to re-center it on journalism, on the real issues, not the sensation and fluff that makes advertisers feel better."
Whatever the outcome, it's certain that journalism students, faculty and professionals are not going to be sitting idly by. "The important thing to remember is that the means of distribution does not matter," says Bentel emphatically. "What's important is that the public be informed honestly and adequately by a responsible source. These are good, able, hardworking, honest reporters and editors losing their jobs. They'll figure something out."
-- Mansi Bhatia
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