NEW HISTORY
By Chris Daly
The departing managing editor of The Wall Street Journal, Paul Steiger, has written a noteworthy piece about the last few decades in the newspaper business. The piece is written from his perspective as a major executive at an incredibly prosperous, somewhat specialized news operation.
I wish he had paid more attention to the much longer history of news in America (see chapters elsewhere on this page), which would suggest that this current crisis in the business model is not the first.
Still, there are some notable highlights in Steiger's piece. He draws attention to the crucial business changes taking place in the 1960s and 70s (local monopolization, selling stock to the public) that created the conditions for what now appears to have been a brief period of exceptionalism in American journalism.
Plus, he offers some hilarious inside testimony about just how flush those times were. He writes:
Around the time of the 1980 slump, L.A. Times editors were told they needed to impose modest spending restraints. I figured out I could meet my target just by eliminating first-class travel on my group's reporting trips, then allowed on flights of more than three hours or so. I was quite proud of myself until the next day, when the top editor of the entire paper, who only occasionally visited our floor, strode straight to my desk. "I like flying first class," he said with a grin. "You're setting a bad example." I found another way to reach my goal.
In the mid-1980s, when I was a deputy managing editor at the Journal, the Dow Jones CEO almost apologetically imposed limits on our then-ample spending, in the face of cyclical advertising cutbacks by financial firms. As the CEO quipped, referring to then-managing-editor Norman Pearlstine, "We gave Norm an unlimited budget, and he exceeded it."
One remarkable oversight: Steiger makes no mention of one of the biggest holes in the bucket of U.S. newspapers -- Craigslist. I guess the WSJ never derived a whole lot of revenue from readers trying to sell their used boats or extra puppies.
The departing managing editor of The Wall Street Journal, Paul Steiger, has written a noteworthy piece about the last few decades in the newspaper business. The piece is written from his perspective as a major executive at an incredibly prosperous, somewhat specialized news operation.
I wish he had paid more attention to the much longer history of news in America (see chapters elsewhere on this page), which would suggest that this current crisis in the business model is not the first.
Still, there are some notable highlights in Steiger's piece. He draws attention to the crucial business changes taking place in the 1960s and 70s (local monopolization, selling stock to the public) that created the conditions for what now appears to have been a brief period of exceptionalism in American journalism.
Plus, he offers some hilarious inside testimony about just how flush those times were. He writes:
Around the time of the 1980 slump, L.A. Times editors were told they needed to impose modest spending restraints. I figured out I could meet my target just by eliminating first-class travel on my group's reporting trips, then allowed on flights of more than three hours or so. I was quite proud of myself until the next day, when the top editor of the entire paper, who only occasionally visited our floor, strode straight to my desk. "I like flying first class," he said with a grin. "You're setting a bad example." I found another way to reach my goal.
In the mid-1980s, when I was a deputy managing editor at the Journal, the Dow Jones CEO almost apologetically imposed limits on our then-ample spending, in the face of cyclical advertising cutbacks by financial firms. As the CEO quipped, referring to then-managing-editor Norman Pearlstine, "We gave Norm an unlimited budget, and he exceeded it."
One remarkable oversight: Steiger makes no mention of one of the biggest holes in the bucket of U.S. newspapers -- Craigslist. I guess the WSJ never derived a whole lot of revenue from readers trying to sell their used boats or extra puppies.
Labels: history, journalism, newspapers, Wall Street Journal
posted by Chris Daly at 11:56 AM
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