Now that we’ve all agreed that we’ll miss Chloe Gotsis, her cheery disposition, and her passion for Newton politics, I think the time is appropriate to look at what her departure from the TAB means to the city.
When Ashley Studley left the TAB in September, I predicted on this blog that GateHouse would not replace her and I defied the company to prove me wrong. I was happy to report later that month that they did just that.
I’m going to make the same prediction again, only this time the TAB has lost a full-time reporter who covered the city for more than two years. I am concerned that Assistant Editor Chloe Gotsis’ exit from GateHouse Media will mean the permanent loss of a journalist covering this city, and the Newton TAB will never see more than one full-time reporter again. At least not under its current ownership.
This community deserves more from its local paper, and I’d be happy if GateHouse proves me wrong again.
When I became editor of the Newton TAB in October 2006, I had two full-time reporters. At some point — maybe after Chrissie Long left? — the Brookline editor and I had to start sharing one of those full-time reporters. One-half a reporter never learns the community 50 percent as well as a full-time reporter. It just isn’t possible when one spends only 20 hours per week covering a community the size of Newton.
And, now, with Chloe’s departure, Newton is likely to be covered by just one reporter and one editor. Why do I think this? Because Cambridge and Somerville, cities of 106,000 and 77,000 people respectively, have been reduced — through attrition — to one editor and one reporter.
Probably Trevor Jones will become the Newton full-time reporter. I haven’t met Trevor, but I’m impressed by what I’ve read so far. But it doesn’t matter how good he is — one reporter can’t cover the mayor, the Board of Aldermen, and the School Committee. Freelancers and interns can’t pick up that slack. In most communities, it’s school coverage that suffers. But Newton isn’t a community where that can happen. We’re too passionate about our schools.
So, what happens? The mayor and the board become less accountable. The newspaper contains less news about Newton and more news written by GateHouse employees who have never set foot in the city. Residents will read less about property taxes and elections (one reporter covering 33 elected officials?) and collective bargaining and more about block parties or statewide news they read in the Boston Globe three days earlier. The editor will tear her hair out and shove it down the phone when people call and say, “My son’s pre-school sent you the honor roll two days ago and it wasn’t in this week’s paper. Why not?” (Actually, that probably already happens.)
Newton isn’t alone in this situation. GateHouse New England has dedicated just four reporters to Newton, Brookline, Cambridge, and Somerville, communities with a collective population of about 325,000 people.
It’s not that other media outlets don’t provide news. They do. GlobeWest’s Dierdre Fernandes is the best they’ve had in a long time, but there’s only so much space the section is going to allot to Newton. Likewise, Melanie Graham does a good job with Newton Patch, but I’m not sure it has the mindshare of enough residents to have an impact.
In case I haven’t been clear: I don’t think anyone could produce a newspaper that adequately covers Newton with only one reporter. It’s just not possible.
When I became the TAB’s Editor-In-Chief in 2001, Newton had two reporters, an assistant editor and one editor and I still received complaints that we didn’t cover everything.
Gail’s concerns are real.
So are the economic realities that are driving these conditions.
My advice to any concerned community activists and elected leaders reading this is that expressing your concerns to the folks in charge has made a difference in decisions that have been made in the past.
I don’t know what would happen now, but I’d urge folks to try.
Advertising revenue (should) = coverage. Do Newton advertisers provide enough revenue to support a full-time reporter?
@Bill: That’s a relevant but not simple to answer question. As you know GateHouse is a big company with papers in more than 100 Massachusetts communities and hundreds more around the country. Naturally, these papers share resources (printing press, rent, utilities, human resources staff, designers, upper management, hardware and software needs, delivery expenses and on and on). Then there’s the debt, which is where the real financial pressure comes from.
How you divide all those costs among the individual papers has to be part of the equation. How you keep your creditors from changing the locks is another.
I can tell you that Newton is a very desirable market to advertisers. At the end of the day, the coverage is what drives eyeballs which is what drives results for advertisers.
Maybe the newspaper needs its own override? Seems to be the answer in Newton when money gets tight.
@Bill: It’s not that simple. Each newspaper is not its own profit and loss center. I believe that revene from some papers helps carry other papers.
But, absolutely, this is about economics.
Greg and Gail, I think we can probably agree on one thing:
Allow me to ask a rhetorically obvious question, but would it be safe to say that Gatehouse Media’s $1B debt funded acquisition spree has had a negative impact on the Newton TAB and the other papers that Gatehouse Media owns.
Safe.
Greg and Gail: Your assumption seems to be that the only way to address my question is through the lens of the Gatehouse model. If Newton advertisers were extracted from the mix by a superior offering, could a newspaper not serve this market and be profitable?
Ahh Bill: You’re now asking a very different question, which I believe is: Is there enough revenue to support a newspaper?
You asked if there was “enough revenue to support a full-time reporter.” Problem is, you can’t just put out a newspaper with reporter/s. You need to cover all those sorts of expenses I mentioned earlier AND you need to pay someone to sell the ads.
It also depends on how you define “profitable.” How much would the owners of this enterprise want in return from their investment?
Starting an independent newspaper these days is very very tough. But Newton could potentially be a market that could support it — providing you had the right business model. There are also some non-profit models out there that may or may not work. And there are some very good independent web-only single community news sites too but they tend to be one person doing everything (writing, editing, selling, etc) except sleeping.
Bottom line, it wouldn’t be easy and you would need the right people doing it for the right reasons.
@Bill – That was at least part of the reasoning behind Newton Living magazine. Unfortunately there wasn’t enough time or depth of funding to ride that concept to profitability.
They did set a great bar for someone to try to clear, however.
@chris steele – I never quite “got” what Newton Living was shooting for. It definitely didnt seem like they were aiming to be a local newspaper replacement though.
True, not a newspaper. But they did see in depth discussion of local community issues as a core part of their vision.
Without knowing the numbers, it is unconvincing that Newton lacks advertising revenue to support a newspaper. Anecdotally, and despite the lousy publishing environment, there are many, many examples nationwide of daily, subscription based newspapers serving smaller, less affluent communities than Newton. What’s wrong here?
If what Gail describes up top is true, then we are witnessing a downward spiral, where, in time, Newton advertisers will catch on to the fact that people in Newton — get ready, this is a big one — want to read about Newton. And if there aren’t readers, then bye-bye advertising dollars. Enter crisis/opportunity.
@Bill: You wrote:
Does that still hold true? I haven’t looked into this at all, but would assume that these types of papers would be gone — or at least on their last legs — by now.
Here’s one example – my friend and her husband edit and run The Timberjay in northern MN: http://www.timberjay.com/
Gail: Why, yes. I will give you an example from my beloved home town: http://www.mlive.com/saginaw/
They have a reporting staff. Beats. Heck, I bet they have lousy coffee. Saginaw is about 2/3 the size of Newton. It is not a booming business area. However, the Saginaw News delivers a daily newspaper to paying subscribers, who would be most of the residents of that city.
And there are a number of publications throughout Michigan that have the same. What has happened here has not happened everywhere else. I would submit that this area is the outlier.
@Bill: It would be awesome if someone wanted to start a paper like that here. Heck, it would be awesome if YOU wanted to start a paper like that here. I’m confident you’d get a lot of community support, including a warm welcome from the business community. Be happy to discuss at any time.
Meanwhile, back to Gail’s point, here’s hoping GateHouse will see the wisdom of protecting one of its franchise publications from Bill’s newspaper by continuing to invest in reporters dedicated to covering Newton.
P.S. You’re welcome Emily!
I would bet dollars to donuts that if you looked at the two examples of thriving small-town newspapers, they exist without much competition from a behemouth in the next town that also covers those small towns.
With the Globe West often covering Newton better than the TAB does–at least some of the time–a number of Newton folks are not going to bother grabbing their TAB & reading it cover-to-cover. For that matter, a number of folks on my morning running routes subscribe only to the New York Times or Wall Street Journal. Apparently, that’s enough newsprint for them.
At least until they have a kid in the public schools. But it narrows the base for local journalism.
Andreae –
I don’t know about the two examples of thriving small-town newspapers, but I doubt Globe West has much to do with the economics and/or success of the Newton TAB. I say this for a couple of reasons: GW has been really inconsistent in its coverage over the years. At times the section has devoted a lot of space to Newton and the section has felt like a newspaper, and other times, it only contains slice-of-life stories. Sometimes the reporters are very good, sometimes not so much. Right now, Dierdre Fernandes is supplying some of the best reporting we’ve seen from Globe West in a very long time.
I suspect, though, that the readers of Globe West stories about Newton are also reading Newton TAB stories. If they want to know what’s going on, they know they aren’t going to get it all from the Globe. There are too many competing communities. I’m just not sure at what point they’re going to realize they aren’t getting it from the TAB anymore — because the TAB doesn’t have the resources to give it to them.
Gail:
I certainly read the TAB (and Village 14 and Patch) in order to get the news that the Globe West doesn’t cover, but I’m like you–nuts for local news.
Unfortunately, I think we’re a minority. Most of the Newton residents I know read lots of things–but aren’t concerned with local news. Barely follow it. I know because come time to vote, they call to ask me for the background.
In smaller locales–at least some of them–people care about the local paper because it’s the ONLY place to get the local news. Here, you get it–at least some of the time–from Globe West and so it’s possible to know enough to feel informed without dipping into the blogs or the TAB.
Incidentally, I doubt most people realize how often the Globe and the Times read the local papers & blogs for stories they missed–so when the little guys disappear, so does the coverage. Except for now, when we have Dierdre doing a pretty darned good job (if only she could get more ink!)