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Tuesday, 17 April 2007 17:50 |
| John North
Editor & Publisher |
After covering a talk and question-and-answer session on ìThe Future of Newspapersî at UNC Ashevilleís Reuter Center on March 30, I was intrigued by the priorities that Jeffrey P. Green, the new publisher of the recently revamped Asheville Citizen-Times, revealed on two particular issues.
One issue raised more than once by the mostly gray-haired audience members concerned the responsibilities of a newspaper to the public as a community trust.
Should a paper present news and opinion that the community needs to know ≠ó and serve as a watchdog on governments and the private sector ó or should it pander to what its readership surveys and Internet story ìhitsî show are the kinds of articles in highest demand?
The other issue concerns what it says about a community when its daily
paper chooses to feature hyper-local news coverage, while relegating
international and national news to a page or two in the back of the
business section.
To their credit, some audience members expressed revulsion at Greenís
implication that most Ashevillians only want to read about themselves.
They felt this meant that Ashevillians are narcissists who could care
less about the outside world. The question of the AC-Tís
ìresponsibilitiesî persistently was raised.
Clearly exasperated, Green, ever the savvy businessman, wryly told one
critic that ìëresponsibilityí doesnít guarantee paychecks for my
shareholders and employees.î
However, he conceded, ìI do think newspapers have certain unique
responsibilities,î but he tied those obligations to local news
coverage. ìIíll leave it to The New York Times to worry about the rest
of the countryî≠ ó and the world.
Green vowed that, as the AC-T becomes more profitable, it would
reinvest a portion of the proceeds in more investigative reporting.
(Inquiring minds, Iím sure, are waiting with an air of skepticism on
this promise.)
When several audience members urged Green and the AC-T to step out
boldly from what they perceived as the shackles of the Gannett Co.
chainís ownership and take some nontraditional stances in editorials,
one man insinuated that Green might lose his job if he did so.
In response, the ever-pragmatic Green said, ìIím far more likely to
lose my job over financial performance than over any editorial position
I take.î
The AC-T publisher noted his preference for taking moderate positions
on issues and that he feels his paperís role is ìto reflect what my
audience is.î To me, this once again sounded like pandering to public
tastes, and I wonder how this moderation philosophy would have
manifested if Green had led the AC-T during the Jim Crow era.
Ultimately, while I wish Green well on a personal level, I hope he is
wrong in his approach of newspapering-by-opinion-poll. I, too, fear the
AC-Tís hyper-local emphasis in todayís increasingly globalized world
will foster an increasingly narcissistic and ill-informed Asheville.
ï
John North, publisher and editor of the Daily Planet, may be contacted at publisher-at-ashevilledailyplanet.com.
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