Local Media Ownership is on the Wane

Just behind that wave of change to media culture came another, equally if not more significant change. Deregulation made it possible for major corporations to emulate Queen Mary and take journalism and media in-house. As this report goes to press, the bulk of national media outlets are owned and operated by major conglomerates. In fact, the 15 largest newspaper chains now control over half of this nation's daily newspaper circulation.4

One of the results of this shift in media ownership has been a shift in the focus of local media. The family ownership that was the hallmark of the Seattle market from the early days of print has, for all practical purposes, disappeared. Among broadcasters, only Fisher Broadcasting, a division of a prosperous local flour milling and real estate conglomerate, is locally owned. As this report went to press, Fisher became one of the larger media conglomerates when it purchased a number of additional radio and television stations. And Seattle's Blethen family, also owner of multiple media outlets, remains pitted against media giant Knight-Ridder to maintain 51% ownership of The Seattle Times.5

Profitability, always a priority, is now paramount. For major daily newspapers, a return on investment of 15%, the industry average according to Columbia Journalism Review5 became a critical target. Stockholders expected it, although it was already "at least two-and-a-half times the margin of Standard & Poor's index of 500 companies."6 Today major papers target 20%. Smaller market daily papers have an even higher target. For radio broadcasters, the mergers and acquisitions were going at such a fast pace there was scarcely time to estimate an ideal return. In television, the comfortable and prosperous 35% return of the '70s and '80s looked paltry. Conglomerates wanted 50% or more. In many cases — at most commercial VHF stations in medium to large markets — they got it. In fact, today profitability of those stations in the Seattle-Tacoma-Everett market ranges upwards from 60%, according to a long-time local broadcaster and a media analyst in New York City, who declined to be identified.

Meanwhile, corporate ownership of media has begun a subtle shift in news media's perception of how it fulfills its role in community service. More and more media are arguing that their responsibility for public service is executed by the news function. Yet, as far back as 1986, David Shaw, a reporter for the Los Angeles Times, interviewed Fred Friendly, former president of CBS News, who told him, "the people who run the networks today, unlike the men who founded the business, do not regard news as a public services but as a commodities, "just like porkbellies."7 Indeed, news is about conflict and violence, corruption and failure. It is simple if not simplistic; controversial if not contrary. The difficult and complex issues addressed by the community sector are seldom covered by news programming. Research from the Project for Excellence in Journalism, funded by the Pew Charitable Trusts has shown a significant rise in coverage of celebrities, violent crime, and features along with a decrease in coverage about state government and foreign affairs.8

Today, news organizations are competing harder with less content for fewer readers, listeners, and viewers. Daily newspaper circulation has dropped by nearly four million from 1980 to 1997, while population has boomed9 Television viewing is down and network evening news has dropped in viewership from 37.3 percent of television homes in 1980-81 to 24.3 percent in 1996-97, according to Neilsen annual averages for 48 weeks (September, 1996-August, 1997).

Much has changed, then, from 1981 when then King Broadcasting Chief Executive Officer Ancil Payne, asked about viewer research, blustered, "I don't care what the public wants to know. We're responsible for doing the work to find what they need to know."

This mission — getting citizens the information "they need to know" — is the reason many, if not most, young people seek careers in journalism. Seen in this light, it's an altruistic calling. Ethical, responsible journalists want to provide citizens with tools for living. They want to help build social capital. Political reporting is intended to give citizens what they need to make good decisions at the ballot box. It's also intended to keep an eye on the activities of their government and by that observation to help citizens keep their government on the straight and narrow. Former KING-TV reporter Bob Simmons put it this way:

"...You have news-sense and you know what the community needs to know. You go ahead and cover it and you explain the community to itself as part of the function; and you... unconsciously, gauge stories in that sense: Will this help people understand who they are? Will this help people understand where they live?"

That approach to the reporting behind the story-telling, was the most basic method reporters and their media used to find out about their community. It was the reason reporters were hired in the first place. It was the cost of doing business. It was also the way the community learned about itself.

Today, that kind of reporting has been lost to cost cutting and reducing head count. Yet, nearly every journalist in Good News/Good Deeds' focus groups said that if they could do anything to improve their product it would be to add more staff. In fact, staff size continues to decline.

To compensate, remaining staff members are expected to report in quantity. For example, in the mid-'80s following The Tacoma News Tribune's sale to McClatchy Newspapers, news reporters were pressed to generate as many stories as possible each day. "Story count" was the mantra. They were certainly not encouraged to do more complicated — and therefore more expensive — work, the kind of work required for effective coverage of the community sector. That remained the case as recently as spring of 1998, according to a Tribune editor, when the newsroom was reorganized into teams and the teams were evaluated on productivity goals.

Budgets have changed the information quality as well. A former newspaper executive told Good News/Good Deeds that editorial research budgets have been significantly trimmed over the past several years. The American Journalism Review, in stories about media ownership, noted the pressure for profit that has become a signature of media today: "With the 15 largest chains now controlling more than half of the nation's daily circulation, journalists no longer simply compete for readers in the marketplace of ideas; instead huge information companies vie for market share."10

It seems apparent now that principally two things have affected the style of news coverage. Both are linked to profitability. The first factor is the drive for "numbers" which represent readers and audiences demographically attractive to advertisers, as indicated by the Audit Bureau of Circulation (ABC) print circulation figures and television ratings provided by AC Neilsen in the Seattle market. That drive has penetrated newsrooms so completely that one journalist participant in a Good News/Good Deeds focus group said:

"If practical reality were no object, the thing that would help [improve coverage] the most would be if there was some equivalent of ratings for individual newspaper stories; because the problem is: we are guessing what the readers are really reading. The front page reflects what the newspaper thinks maybe are the six or seven most interesting stories in the paper, but we have no equivalent of knowing that somebody is number one in drive time."

The second thing is the drive to cut costs, which has given citizens a preponderance of uncomplicated stories that are easy to produce and often present simplistic, polarized points of view. Crime scene reports are a good example of a negative outcome. The reports are simple and uninformative. How many versions of the Nicole Simpson/Ron Goldman murder were reported before an approximation of truth surfaced? Think about the volume of stories that developed around the death of Princess Diana. When Gianni Versace was murdered, initial reports were primarily speculation, first about the designer and then about the suspected killer. But what was it that we learned from any of these quick and dirty updates?