It was timed no doubt, as is this one, to coincide with Labor Day.
It's an old newspaper trope, tying an article to the calendar to increase it's relevance. Usually it works, that's why we do it.
This article was published by the Neiman Foundation at Harvard, which tracks trends in journalism, and it was adapted from Christopher R. Martin’s 2019 book, “No Longer Newsworthy: How the Mainstream Media Abandoned the Working Class," published by Cornell University Press.
The gist of it is that in the 1960s and 1970s, newspapers abandoned the idea of a mass audience and, driven by a desire to capture an audience most attractive to advertisers, began to target their content toward those more affluent audiences.
As a result, "newspapers pursued more upscale readers with workplace 'lifestyle' columns featuring the lives of young professionals and their concerns about office gossip, job interview strategy, expense accounts, and office party etiquette. Personal finance news also began its ascendancy in the 1970s. The focus was on individualism: people had to take care of themselves. Time Inc.’s launch of the magazine Money in 1972 helped to kick off a boom in personal finance stories, which assumed that every upscale reader had an investment portfolio," Martin wrote.
This trend away from covering the concerns of the working class also can be measured, in part, by the loss of reporters covering the "labor beat."
"Today there are just six full-time labor reporters in the top 25 newspapers across the U.S., none in network or cable news, none at NPR or PBS, and just a few at digital news organizations and magazines," according to Martin.
"Today there are just six full-time labor reporters in the top 25 newspapers across the U.S., none in network or cable news, none at NPR or PBS, and just a few at digital news organizations and magazines," according to Martin.
I think Martin is spot on.
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Mercury file photo
Pottstown was once a town where work equaled wealth.
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It's not much different than how the increased concentration of national media on the coasts creates what some call "parachute coverage" of the "fly-over states" -- a New York Times or CNN reporter parachutes into St. Louis to report on unrest there using the same tone and methodology that they would to cover unrest in Kosovo -- and then beats a hasty retreat back to New York with a report on "what's happening over there."
There is little attempt to get a deeper understanding of the situation, get some context, understand the why; just report the what and get the hell out of Dodge.
There is little attempt to get a deeper understanding of the situation, get some context, understand the why; just report the what and get the hell out of Dodge.
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| Sunday's front page |
But this pursuit of an "upscale" audience belies that claim.
You are not serving all the people, or even most of the people, if you are tailoring your coverage to appeal primarily to the wealthier segment of the country, the people with more money to spend on your advertisers' products.
But this was done because at the time, journalism was also a viable business and the decision to pursue a wealthy audience was a business decision, not a decision to practice better journalism.
To be sure, there are plenty of other factors contributing to the decline of newspapers.
Fat and complacent for decades, newspaper managers and publishers failed to see the threat, and potential promise, of the Internet and repeatedly failed to adapt to the assaults on longtime revenue sources, like classified ads. As Google and Facebook scooped up the lion's share of online advertising, there was little left to support the traditional newspaper business model.
But I'm left to ask if local newspapers might not have had more resilience, more time to adapt to those changes, had we continually sought to remain relevant to all the people, not just the ones with disposable income.
You are not serving all the people, or even most of the people, if you are tailoring your coverage to appeal primarily to the wealthier segment of the country, the people with more money to spend on your advertisers' products.
But this was done because at the time, journalism was also a viable business and the decision to pursue a wealthy audience was a business decision, not a decision to practice better journalism.
To be sure, there are plenty of other factors contributing to the decline of newspapers.
Fat and complacent for decades, newspaper managers and publishers failed to see the threat, and potential promise, of the Internet and repeatedly failed to adapt to the assaults on longtime revenue sources, like classified ads. As Google and Facebook scooped up the lion's share of online advertising, there was little left to support the traditional newspaper business model.
But I'm left to ask if local newspapers might not have had more resilience, more time to adapt to those changes, had we continually sought to remain relevant to all the people, not just the ones with disposable income.
The business side of the business, the capitalists, not the journalists, made a business decision.
And, as it turns out, it was a pretty short-sighted one.
Perhaps that's because the late 60 and early 70s was also when local newspapers started getting bought up by chains, when Wall Street got involved.
Wall Street has ever been focused on the next quarter, not the next quarter century.
That's when making payroll, covering costs and serving your community was replaced with meeting profit projections, cutting costs and serving your shareholders.
We are now in the final, late-stage consequence of this choice.
Having abandoned the working class, they, quite understandably, have abandoned us.
And, ironically, that fickle up-scale audience we chased has as well.
They're all now getting their news digitally without realizing (or caring) that much of the digital news they read is the re-written work product of a newspaper reporter. Or, if not, that it has not been verified for accuracy or made much of an attempt at fairness.
All too often its primary characteristic is what faux conservative talk show host Stephen Colbert comedically, but prophetically, coined as "truthiness."
Dictionary.com formally defines truthiness as: "the quality of seeming to be true according to one's intuition, opinion, or perception without regard to logic, factual evidence, or the like."
Further, the increasingly fractured news audience remain largely united in one aspect, they are outraged at the idea that they should be asked to pay for news "when it's free on the Internet."
What should we expect from an audience that has never purchased a newspaper?
The bottom line here is when you let the money men make the decisions, they make decisions about money, not journalism, and certainly not community.
And when the money dries up because of the decisions they've made, or failed to make, they take their stock options and put the business up for a fire sale.
And that's when the parasites show up.
Just like in the natural world, the financial world has bottom feeders, those who take what is left, what is perceived to have little value -- financial value at least -- and strip it for parts to extract what' profit they can, a process made infinitely easier if you have no intention of making that businesses sustainable for the long haul.
They sell the real estate to a shell company, and charge the company rent to occupy a building it once owned. Eventually, they put the building up for sale too, particularly if the rent payments have covered the original purchase price.
They cut staff and run articles from other newspapers they own in the area, filling the pages with less relevant content than readers used to enjoy; thus giving readers less reason to buy that newspaper again.
The practice has become so common it even has a name: "ghost newspapers."
And Youngstown, Ohio is about to- find out what that's like.
When Youngstown's newspaper, The Vindicator, failed to find a buyer, a neighboring company bought the name, the masthead and the subscription list after it went under.
They certainly won't employ any of the journalists who know the town best.
Instead, they will continue to publish a "Vindicator" that is filled with stories about other towns, not Youngstown.
Yesterday, the day after the final Vindicator was published, the Tribune Chronicle took over publishing The Vindicator in Mahoning County.
“It’s going to be The Vindicator edition of the Tribune Chronicle,” Charles Jarvin, publisher of the Trib told WKBN News. “It will have The Vindicator masthead on it. It will be of the style of the Tribune Chronicle, however, as we go forward but it will be the Vindicator edition of the Tribune Chronicle.”
For a time, The Mercury was somewhat insulated from this trend.
Pottstown was always a working town.
Whether it was Bethlehem Steel, Firestone, Flagg Brass, Doehler-Jarvis, Gudebrod, Dana or Mrs. Smith's Pies, the business of Pottstown required labor.
Lots of it.
So covering Pottstown meant covering the lives of the people who worked at those plants.
When I arrived here from New York in 1997, I was amazed at how much Pottstown still resembled a community from the 50s or the 60s.
And like those communities, the local newspaper was still a vital part of life here.
But about a year after I arrived, word came that Mrs. Smith's Pies had been sold. It was only the latest in a long string of closures.
The Bethlehem Steel plant had been closed for years and the Doehler-Jarvis, Stanley Flagg Brass and Gudebrod plants soon followed suit.
As the paying jobs fled for lower-paying shores, local businesses fell one by one to the national chains who could sell it for less. Never mind that the money spent there did not re-circulate in the community like with a locally owned business.
It was only a matter of time before Pottstown's local newspaper got caught up in what is happening all across the country.
According to Montgomery County property records, Goodson Holding Company sold The Mercury building at 24 N. Hanover St. on April 2, 2013 for $1.2 million.
The buyer was a company called 24 N. Hanover St. LLC whose address is 885 Third Ave. in Manhattan.
By no small coincidence, that is the address of Alden Global Capital, the hedge fund that owns MediaNews Group, which owns The Mercury and all the other newspapers in the 50-mile radius.
So the company that bought the newspaper, purchased the newspaper building through a shell company with the same address, and extracted the value of the real estate by charging itself rent which, as many know, did not go into maintaining or repairing the venerable, but leaky old building.
The building has been on the market for more than a year, although several local sources have told me it has been sold. The transaction has not yet appeared in the county's property records so the final entry in that particular account book remains blank.
What should we do?
It would be nice to suggest that this Labor Day we newspaper people re-dedicate ourselves to covering all of our communities, not just our advertisers' customers, but I think it is already too late for that.
No one likes being taken for granted.
It is also probably too late for the wave of unionization that is sweeping those decimated newsrooms that remain as we try desperately to hold our ground against the final parasitical flood of hedge funds, mergers and buy-outs.
I remain a proud member of the Newspaper Guild. I know I would not have earned a living wage all these years without them, and that allowed me to raise my son, buy a home for him to live in, send him to college and become a stakeholder in the community I cover.
And I believe that unionizing will provide some protection to those newsroom employees who remain.
But unless there is a major shift in the local news business (should it even be a business?) and a sustainable model for paying us a living wage can be found, it won't be nearly enough.
The writing's on the wall. And then who will tell Pottstown's story?
-- 30 --
And, as it turns out, it was a pretty short-sighted one.
Perhaps that's because the late 60 and early 70s was also when local newspapers started getting bought up by chains, when Wall Street got involved.
Wall Street has ever been focused on the next quarter, not the next quarter century.
That's when making payroll, covering costs and serving your community was replaced with meeting profit projections, cutting costs and serving your shareholders.
Having abandoned the working class, they, quite understandably, have abandoned us.
And, ironically, that fickle up-scale audience we chased has as well.
They're all now getting their news digitally without realizing (or caring) that much of the digital news they read is the re-written work product of a newspaper reporter. Or, if not, that it has not been verified for accuracy or made much of an attempt at fairness.
All too often its primary characteristic is what faux conservative talk show host Stephen Colbert comedically, but prophetically, coined as "truthiness."
Dictionary.com formally defines truthiness as: "the quality of seeming to be true according to one's intuition, opinion, or perception without regard to logic, factual evidence, or the like."
Further, the increasingly fractured news audience remain largely united in one aspect, they are outraged at the idea that they should be asked to pay for news "when it's free on the Internet."
What should we expect from an audience that has never purchased a newspaper?
The bottom line here is when you let the money men make the decisions, they make decisions about money, not journalism, and certainly not community.
 |
Hedge funds and technology have brought us from full newsrooms,
at left in the good old days, to no newsrooms and reporters who work
at home. No, my view is not nearly so dramatic.
|
And when the money dries up because of the decisions they've made, or failed to make, they take their stock options and put the business up for a fire sale.
And that's when the parasites show up.
Just like in the natural world, the financial world has bottom feeders, those who take what is left, what is perceived to have little value -- financial value at least -- and strip it for parts to extract what' profit they can, a process made infinitely easier if you have no intention of making that businesses sustainable for the long haul.
They sell the real estate to a shell company, and charge the company rent to occupy a building it once owned. Eventually, they put the building up for sale too, particularly if the rent payments have covered the original purchase price.
They cut staff and run articles from other newspapers they own in the area, filling the pages with less relevant content than readers used to enjoy; thus giving readers less reason to buy that newspaper again.
 |
| The Aug. 6 edition of The Vindicator, almost its last, comes off the press. |
The practice has become so common it even has a name: "ghost newspapers."
And Youngstown, Ohio is about to- find out what that's like.
When Youngstown's newspaper, The Vindicator, failed to find a buyer, a neighboring company bought the name, the masthead and the subscription list after it went under.
 |
| The Vindicator's final edition. |
They certainly won't employ any of the journalists who know the town best.
Instead, they will continue to publish a "Vindicator" that is filled with stories about other towns, not Youngstown.
Yesterday, the day after the final Vindicator was published, the Tribune Chronicle took over publishing The Vindicator in Mahoning County.
“It’s going to be The Vindicator edition of the Tribune Chronicle,” Charles Jarvin, publisher of the Trib told WKBN News. “It will have The Vindicator masthead on it. It will be of the style of the Tribune Chronicle, however, as we go forward but it will be the Vindicator edition of the Tribune Chronicle.”
For a time, The Mercury was somewhat insulated from this trend.
 |
| The front page of the Aug. 13, 1948 edition. |
Pottstown was always a working town.
Whether it was Bethlehem Steel, Firestone, Flagg Brass, Doehler-Jarvis, Gudebrod, Dana or Mrs. Smith's Pies, the business of Pottstown required labor.
Lots of it.
So covering Pottstown meant covering the lives of the people who worked at those plants.
When I arrived here from New York in 1997, I was amazed at how much Pottstown still resembled a community from the 50s or the 60s.
And like those communities, the local newspaper was still a vital part of life here.
But about a year after I arrived, word came that Mrs. Smith's Pies had been sold. It was only the latest in a long string of closures.
The Bethlehem Steel plant had been closed for years and the Doehler-Jarvis, Stanley Flagg Brass and Gudebrod plants soon followed suit.
As the paying jobs fled for lower-paying shores, local businesses fell one by one to the national chains who could sell it for less. Never mind that the money spent there did not re-circulate in the community like with a locally owned business.
 |
| The Mercury building at 24 N. Hanover St., Pottstown |
According to Montgomery County property records, Goodson Holding Company sold The Mercury building at 24 N. Hanover St. on April 2, 2013 for $1.2 million.
The buyer was a company called 24 N. Hanover St. LLC whose address is 885 Third Ave. in Manhattan.
By no small coincidence, that is the address of Alden Global Capital, the hedge fund that owns MediaNews Group, which owns The Mercury and all the other newspapers in the 50-mile radius.
So the company that bought the newspaper, purchased the newspaper building through a shell company with the same address, and extracted the value of the real estate by charging itself rent which, as many know, did not go into maintaining or repairing the venerable, but leaky old building.
The building has been on the market for more than a year, although several local sources have told me it has been sold. The transaction has not yet appeared in the county's property records so the final entry in that particular account book remains blank.
What should we do?
It would be nice to suggest that this Labor Day we newspaper people re-dedicate ourselves to covering all of our communities, not just our advertisers' customers, but I think it is already too late for that.
No one likes being taken for granted.
It is also probably too late for the wave of unionization that is sweeping those decimated newsrooms that remain as we try desperately to hold our ground against the final parasitical flood of hedge funds, mergers and buy-outs.
 |
| When Hurricane Agnes struck in 1972, we were there to tell the story. |
And I believe that unionizing will provide some protection to those newsroom employees who remain.
But unless there is a major shift in the local news business (should it even be a business?) and a sustainable model for paying us a living wage can be found, it won't be nearly enough.
The writing's on the wall. And then who will tell Pottstown's story?
-- 30 --
