Journalism is expensive, talk is cheap, part 3

Susan Campbell invites us all to something called: Death or Metamorphosis of the Fourth Estate: The Impact of Declining Media Coverage on Democracy and Government.

Surely, no headline writer worth his/her salt would ever create a hed so long. Headless Body In Topless Bar it's not.

But the event seems worthwhile if only for the fact that Rich Hanley is not on the panel. I'm not sure what a tired hack and current flack like Dean Pagani contributes, nor what Kevin Sullivan has to offer, but I hope Pat Sheehan makes sure Jon Lender, Christine Stuart, and C. Edwin Baker are able to get a word in.

Old State House
Courtroom
Tuesday March 8
9:30 - 11:30 a.m.

Sponsored by Connecticut Foundation For Open Government

We're in hell, see us waving?

A nod to Susan Campbell for the line which I stole to headline this blogpost, and for the ongoing courage to bite the hand that feeds her when it's appropriate.

Campbell wrote a great column in Sunday's Hartford Courant about her love of newspapers, and the absolute necessity of solid journalism (newspapers) in a world prone to corruption, greed, cruelty and incivility.

I love newspapers too. In fact, I've always loved the Courant, except when I was hating it. A day doesn't go by, even now when it's a shadow of its former self, that I don't pore over every column inch. Even if I've missed it in the morning because of an early start on a job, and I get home late, I'll feel an obligation to read the Courant before I pass into sleep.

These days I've become my father, checking the obits first, but it was my father, who read three papers every day, who bequeathed his love of the printed word to me.

But I don't agree with everything Campbell says. While the Courant is AOCPN (America's oldest continually-published newspaper), a marketing boast which never earned a single reader, that fact is not enough to save it. As Campbell points out, the Courant has survived a lot. But that survival is not predictive of its future. There are a few companies of a century or more, which seemed as solid as Gibraltar (Lehman Brothers - 158 years, Washington Mutual - 110 years), and this year, they disappeared, or were absorbed by bigger companies..

But AOCPN can be a rallying cry, and I think that Campbell means it in that way. But it isn't her fellow reporters, editors and photogs she needs to convince. It isn't the readers, who are as anxious as she is for a paper with substance. It's the owners, and unfortunately, I don't think they have journalism, democracy, or even the lure of a well-told story as their first priority. If it's between the Courant and the almighty buck, I think the Courant's out of luck.

One more thing, I think Campbell is not exactly right about the lack of original reporting on web-only "newspapers." Just a look at the New Haven Independent will prove the point. But coming from a town, Middletown, which has essentially been abandoned by the Courant, I know that our little town blog is at far more civic meetings and events, in the past six months, than the Courant's staff is able to be at.

I hope the Courant survives, in it's ink and newsprint glory. And if the hard copy disappears, I hope it remains alive on the web. What's clear is that as long as there are reporters with the passion of Campbell, and her diminished team of colleagues, there will always be somebody to look over the shoulder of the crooked politician, the bullying cop, the overzealous developer and the under-represented citizen.

The perfect date

Susan Campbell, one of the few reasons to read The Hartford Courant on a regular basis, has written a book about her childhood as a devout evangelical Christian, called Dating Jesus, and will be signing copies of the book on Saturday in West Hartford at noon at the BookWorm on Farmington Ave.

I haven't read it yet, but it will likely feature Campbell's unique perspective and her engaging combination of humor and a deep sense of the importance of every human life.

Campbell Courant column regularly demands that readers consider those around us who are not as fortunate as we, when she isn't making champions of those who serve the poor and infirm or skewering pious politicians and narrow-minded bigots.

I wanna bite the hand that feeds me

I've always enjoyed Susan Campbell's feistiness. Her bravery in spotlighting bigotry and hypocrisy, and then having to suffer the slings and arrows of bigots and hypocrites. She has always done it with wit and grace. She is a voice of conscience at a newspaper that might otherwise ignore the poor, the downtrodden, the tireless, faceless volunteers, and the truly saintly.

Today's might be the bravest column Susan Campbell (and her editor), have chosen to write and print. Today, she serves a plate of steaming plate of "you don't know jack-shit about running a paper" to her corporate bosses. If this column was run with the publisher's knowledge, then god bless him. If not, I suspect Susan is going to get something more than a cranky email. But I'm sure she can handle it.

She writes much more eloquently and entertainingly than I about the downfalls of absentee ownership of a local paper. And she suggests that the editors and writers buy the OCPNIA (oldest continually published newspaper in America), and publish it themselves.

I've got a better suggestion. Leave the printing presses to the Trib. Start a new Connecticut paper that's entirely web-based. Make sure the weather, the obits and the sports scores are easy to find. Have an up-to-date traffic link. And by god, hire some great writers with the money that you'll save on ink and paper.

Go get 'em Susan.