March 26, 2009
While media watchers were eyeing the ominous decision by the Seattle Post-Intelligencer to close down its print operation, I was fretting the future of a much smaller publication: the Wisconsin Jewish Chronicle.
Responding to the dismal economy, the Milwaukee-based Jewish federation that owns the Chronicle turned the 88-year-old newspaper from a weekly to a monthly. They laid off all but two of its staff members, who were absorbed into the federation’s communications department.
It’s a chilling scenario for those of us in Jewish journalism, especially newspapers like ours, which are owned by Jewish federations or subsidized through the subscriptions they buy.
The tsunami hitting print journalism and the losses being suffered by federations inspired my morbid joke that we are a “dying medium for a dying people.” When I shared the joke with Sam Freedman, the New York Times religion columnist and professor at Columbia Univerity’s Graduate School of Journalism, he quickly refined it to “an ever-dying medium for an ever-dying people.” Jewish historian Simon Rawidowicz coined “ever-dying people” to describe the Jews’ propensity for pessimism, as well as their genius for survival.
Sam was the guest speaker at a half-day retreat held Sunday for members of the NJJN’s board of trustees. Considering the topic — The Future of Print and the Jewish Community — it wasn’t as depressing as it sounds. But even as Sam described the advantages that may help niche and ethnic papers like ours survive the “enormous bloodbath,” he forced us to consider ways we need to be better at what we do, and to continue to state the case for a robust Jewish press to traditional stakeholders and a new generation.
Sam spoke of the dot-com revolution that transformed reading habits and undermined the business model of print newspapers. The good news for us is that “hyperlocal” and specialty publications may at least survive the “enormous bloodbath,” as he called it, thanks to fewer direct competitors, little attraction (poaching, that is) by “aggregators” like Drudge or Google News, and the value advertisers place on our specialized audiences (that’s you).
Sam also suggested a few “Jewish” reasons why we can allow ourselves to hope. Jews are readers (he cited an astounding-if-true statistic that Jews, 2 percent of the population, buy 20 percent of all hardcover books). The older ones remain committed to the printed word. And the day schools are creating a corps of kids committed, at least in theory, to the things we write about.
Of course, the demographic wheel is turning. My rule of thumb is this: If you’re not reaching for reading glasses, you’re not reaching for a printed newspaper. (Sam’s an adviser to his own kids’ high school newspaper, and all get their news on-line or via handhelds.)
Beyond our aging core readership and the small but hardy ranks of engaged younger readers, there is the “muddled middle.” They may not be hungry for our traditional subject matter — Israel, denominational and community news, the Shoa — but they are looking, said Sam, for someone to “address a yearning for something that makes them feel Jewish.”
Should Jewish journalism go the way of the vinyl record, that’s one fewer way to fill this void. The Jewish press is one of the last settings to represent Jewish community in all its diversity. Within our pages, Orthodox must confront Reform, hawks must deal with doves, upstarts can learn from veterans.
Surveys of young Jews also find many reluctant to enter “typical” institutional settings. They are, however, willing to “do Jewish” on their own terms. Before these Jews join synagogues or create their own, a Jewish newspaper — in print or on-line — is a friendly, unthreatening, and commitment-free way to ease them into Jewish involvement.
A good newspaper also encourages activism — it can rile people up to demand more of their leaders, do a good deed, or defend the things they believe in. It shows them the ways their philanthropic dollars can benefit the less fortunate. That was why federations went into the newspaper business in the first place:
Said Sam: “It was a mistake when big papers got rid of everything that looked extravagant,” from investigative staffs to foreign bureaus. “The result was a bland product that nobody wanted. You need something that feels fresh and special and will get people talking at cocktail parties, or over the cholent.”
I’d add this: It would be a mistake for Jewish leaders to diminish the Jewish press. Instead, they should work in partnership with the community papers to improve the journalists’ ability to reach that “muddled middle” and to tell the community’s story the best way they can. Perhaps that means new business models, new media, and new products. But pulling the plug is a shortsighted strategy for an ever-living people.
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