The New York Times gave a generous sendoff to Al Neuharth, who died April 19 at 89. The longtime Gannett newspaper executive did a lot of good for journalism and some things not so good.
Among the latter, surprisingly not mentioned in the lengthy Times obituary, was the way his success at building Gannett into a publicly-traded powerhouse encouraged copy-cat newspaper owners to go public. The move was highly consequential for the newspaper business, so much so that it may well be a major reason for decline of the press in this country.
Not long ago I interviewed all of the most influential stock analysts who follow the newspaper business. The interviews were for a book, “Taking Stock: Journalism and the Publicly Traded Newspaper Company,” I co-authored with a couple of University of Iowa colleagues. I asked each of the analysts whether going public had been good or bad for journalism. The unexpected near-unanimous response: bad!!
I was taken aback. After all, the analysts made their livings following the publicly traded newspaper sector and advising investors whether to buy, sell or hold newspaper company stock. Analysts could be expected, therefore, to be unabashed boosters of the “going public” trend in newspapers. Here is why they typically said they took a dim view of it:
“It’s hard to make a case that it’s a positive for journalists or journalism, because it forces a focus on financial objectives” .…”Going public forces management to tighten the belt, to come out of the ivory tower, to invest less in editorial. Staffs are leaner and there is less investigative reporting. The quality of newspapers has degraded, and part of that is due to going public.”
Almost none of the analysts I interviewed had a good word for the “going public “ craze in newspapers Al Neuharth more than anyone helped create.
Newspapers unquestionably are a business, but also a different kind of business, one that is a public trust and public service rolled into one. When newspaper owners decided to sell stock to the public and list it on stock exchanges they declared in effect that they wanted to be measured in the market place, by the standards of any other business. It’s almost poetic justice that a speculator like Sam Zell would be attracted to the Tribune Company as a business and it would soon be driven into bankruptcy.
Under Neuharth, Gannett did a lot to promote minorities and women. The company also acquired very good newspapers and turned them into mediocrities while newspaper executives hummed happily all the way to the bank. That’s not what’s usually said about the departed in the newspaper business, but in the case of Al Neuharth it’s the truth.
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