Thursday, December 06, 2007

The ProJo's brave new world

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Every November, the Audit Bureau of Circulations releases more sad news about the sinking circulation of America's biggest newspapers. The Providence Journal hasn't been immune from this trend, but as I describe in this week's Phoenix, the paper is fairing relatively well: it maintains its traditionally strong market penetration, its crown jewels (including the four-person investigative team) remain intact, and if the ProJo is thinner and less ambitious than in the past, it has also been spared the big layoffs seen at a number of once-great metro dailies.

And unlike in 1999, when a protracted and bitter labor dispute broke out between management and the Providence Newspaper Guild, amicable relations have marked the run-up to what is expected later this month to be a new three-year contract agreement.

Now, as a leading part of the effort to push more readers to its Web site, projo.com, the Journal (and its parent Belo Corporation) are placing a heightened emphasis on its coverage of high school football.

So if propelling readers online through printed sports section references is part of what might help preserve the ProJo’s journalistic mission in the years to come, that seems quite reasonable. The sad thing, though, in a time of widespread retrenchment in the newspaper industry, is how trying to preserve a diminished status quo appears to be about as good as it gets.

The ProJo and Belo are bullish in assessing their respective places in a fast-changing media environment.

In a marketing blurb on its Web site, for example, the ProJo touts its “quality circulation,” and how, “Most of our readers have the Journal delivered to their homes: 74 percent of our daily circulation and 65 percent of our Sunday circulation, to be exact — one of the highest home-delivery counts in the nation! That means you can reach your audience right where they live.”

In its 2006 annual report, Belo was similarly upbeat: “Throughout its 165-year history, Belo has emerged from every major industry transition in a strong position. As we venture through the current changes in media-usage habits, we are maintaining and expanding Belo’s core competency: delivering distinguished journalistic content to the local communities we serve.”

It’s closer to the mark, however, to recognize that the ProJo occupies more of a middle role in the highly uncertain and still-unfolding transition between the print and Internet eras.

On one hand, an ongoing public-minded tradition can be seen in how the paper’s investigative and State House reporters did much of the spade work preceding the investigation and conviction of two corrupt former state legislators, John Celona and Gerard Martineau. The ProJo generally does a good job in covering the top stories of the day and marshaling its resources for big stories. And G. Wayne Miller’s voluminous recent series on Roman Catholic Bishop Thomas Tobin offered a deep look at a subject presumably of strong interest in such a heavily Catholic state.

Yet while the ProJo remains a must-read for Rhode Islanders who want to remain informed, there are days when it represents a very quick read — a point sometimes made by its own readers.

As Kevin J. Corey of Cranston wrote a in a letter to the editor published last Saturday, “I have noticed for some time now the Journal has had very little content and is mostly advertising. In the past I enjoyed reading human interest, science and a variety of articles. The subscription price we pay is for a diverse newspaper, not an advertising flyer with a limited number of articles. Please return your newspaper to the quality publication it used to be.” . . . .

The hyper-local focus signified by scholastic football and hsgametime.com represents a back-to-basics approach for the ProJo, which made its bones by mixing above-average journalistic ambition with a strongly local orientation.

Yet the narrow slice of hyper-localism also marks a contradiction from how the paper, once a pioneer in offering statewide coverage through a network of suburban bureaus, closed most of these offices last year — except for those in Wakefield and Bristol — and assigned the corresponding staffers to cover their old beats from the main office in downtown Providence.

It tells a lot about the current state of the industry that some insiders are left with contradictory feelings: describing the cost-cutting as pragmatic because of the expense of maintaining the former offices, yet hoping, too, that the new hyper-localism presages a heightened emphasis on local events.

But you can’t have it both ways, not in this day and age. As one reporter wonders, “Everyone’s in uncharted waters — how do you square that circle?”