For sale: Daily newspaper with a captive audience, healthy profit margin and demoralized staff. Serious inquiries, only…

Since Newsday owner Sam Zell admitted last week that the property was, in fact, for sale, the rumor to that effect was finally laid to rest. Which made room for the media – the media! – to portray Rupert Murdoch as the only viable alternative to buy the profitable daily newspaper. A hero, if you will.
So where does all this leave me, you and the other 2.7 million people we share this Island with? It leaves us teetering on the brink of a grand opportunity.
Here’s why.
For all the moaning happening within the newspaper industry about declining circulation, loss of readers and plummeting advertising dollars, it’s still a pretty good business to be in. Consider this: Newspaper profit margins are in the high teens – almost double that of other industries in the U.S., according to the Project for Journalism Excellence’s latest State of the News Media Report. Of course, in 2004, newspaper profit margins were in the low 20’s, so we are seeing an erosion of sorts, but it’s still not Mac ’n Cheese time.
Right now, the real challenge newspapers – and all forms of media – are facing is how to provide you the content you want, in the format you want, at the moment you want. In the quest to be innovative and visionary, the media industry is running to the internet for the answer. For the most part, everyone’s coming up with the same results: Sure, more revenue is coming in through advertising on the Internet, but it’s slow growing and, like all ad revenue, contingent on a healthy economy. That last part is especially important and especially troublesome to all businesses in America today.
The challenge Long Island, in particular, is facing is the threat of media consolidation at levels unprecedented in our region. What Long Island needs most at this moment is not what a media mogul can provide. The Murdoch-owned News Corp.’s recent acquisition of weeklies in the Bronx, Brooklyn and Queens give his empire too much say in too little space, not too mention what he owns in New York that influences that country. To acquire the dominate voice on Long Island takes Montauk to New York and turns it into a highway littered with News Corp.-driven information.
The possible sale of Newsday is the most critical topic affecting Long Island right now, and the reason it takes precedence is quite simple: The flow of information is about to be interrupted. And that is the exact reason the sale of a newspaper should be of utmost concern to the millions of people who call Long Island home.
So what we have here is a grand opportunity for Long Island to lead the way in the future of the news media, much in the same way we gave birth to the ’burbs and coddled aviation. Instead of allowing another mega media company to acquire Newsday and lose what’s left of the voice Long Island needs to bind this region together, we need to seriously explore other options. There’s lots of parking lot chatter about deep-pocketed local business types who’d be interested in buying the paper or maybe, with the paper’s price tag rumored (again) to be anywhere from $300 million (too little) to $1 billion (too much), banding together as a consortium to make the purchase. Such an action would serve to keep the paper local, something it hasn’t been since 1970, when Times Mirror bought it from Harry Guggenheim.
More likely, the time is right to consider running the newspaper as a nonprofit enterprise which is, quite possibly, the wave of the future. The philosophy of the nonprofit structure is to be of service to the people, which is directly in line with the true purpose of a newspaper. In-depth reporting, such as the type of investigative pieces we find less and less in corporate-owned media, could be nurtured and funded through a foundation within the nonprofit. While the nonprofit concept may seem unusual, it’s worked with great success on the other side of the pond, with the BBC and The Guardian, for example. Here, we have quite a few, including C-SPAN, the Christian Science Monitor, and the local paper, The Day, in New London, Conn. operating under the nonprofit structure. Even more intriguing: Since 1848, the Associated Press has existed as a cooperative venture funded by the fees of its members. In a way, it operates much like a credit union, with its members owning a part of the company. In fact, if the people of Long Island simply tossed together what they spend for their daily cup of Starbucks, you’d have a newspaper startup funded by the community. In return, the newspaper could focus on taking care of the community and reinvest the profit into the newspaper. That hasn’t happened here in a very long time.
The opportunity to reclaim a vital component of Long Island life is here. Isn’t anybody listening?

# # #

FYI...

Big changes at WNBC: A new news director stepped in last month, now Frank Comerford has become president, platform development and commercial operations for NBC Local Media while Tom O'Brien, from out west, has been promoted to Comerford's vacated post of president & GM of the station. . . Time is reporting that Marcus Brauchli, managing editor of the Wall Street Journal, will be resigning. . . .Former White House press secretary, Tony Snow joins CNN as Conservative Commentator. Prior to being press secretary he hosted Fox News Sunday, Weekend Live with Tony Snow and other FOX programs. . . . Murdoch claims he's close to a deal with Newsday, but Mort Zuckerman says not so fast . . . it's not a done deal. . . .

About Bob Greene

as told by Tony Marro, former Newsday editor, in the Columbia Journalism Review, back in 2002...

ROLE MODEL
A Larger-Than-Life Reporter

Bob Greene taught Newsday Journalists How to Investigate Corruption with a Flourish

BY ANTHONY MARRO

It was thirty-five years ago this spring that Robert W. Greene began checking reports about insider dealings by politicians in Suffolk County, Long Island. He was thirty-eight at the time, with a thick head of dark, wavy hair, a torso that was starting to stretch the fabric of his size forty-six suits (impressive bulk and a Sidney Greenstreet silhouette would come later), and a face that, while beginning to fill out a bit, still reminded colleagues of a young Tyrone Power.

He had been a reporter at Newsday for more than a decade, and also had been a staff investigator for the U.S. Senate Rackets Committee, where Bobby Kennedy had been his boss, and for the New York City Anti-Crime Committee. He already had begun to bring to his newspaper reporting the techniques of a criminal investigator, and he would develop them and refine them dramatically in the years to come.

The story he was chasing concerned local politicians who were said to be secretly investing in properties and then pushing through re-zonings that would enhance their value. There also were whispers that the district attorney was reluctant to vigorously pursue an investigation that would focus on fellow Republicans, and that the paper’s Suffolk editor had been blocking attempts by his own reporters to follow these leads.

What Greene and a team of reporters found doesn’t need to be recounted here in any great detail. Suffice it to say that the rumors were true. The politicians had been making money. The prosecutors had been pulling their punches. And Newsday’s Suffolk editor — who had died suddenly of a heart attack just before Greene moved in — had been deeply involved financially.

The impact of the stories was immediate. New criminal investigations were launched. Politicians were indicted. Government officials were forced to resign. And even before the stories were actually in print, the team had begun looking into reports about similar patterns of corruption in other Long Island governmental agencies. They found them, and one result was a Pulitzer Prize.
As more politicians fell, Greene widened his scope. Richard Nixon’s financial dealings in Florida (yes, Greene’s taxes were audited) . . . the international heroin trade (another Pulitzer winner) . . . mob efforts to control a local racetrack . . . judicial misconduct . . . bid-rigging on road contracts . . . corruption in the Small Business Administration.

Greene had many jobs at the paper. But it was the investigative team that he created that remains his most important legacy, because he used it to help develop a culture in which public-service journalism and investigative reporting became part of the newspaper’s core mission.

“The reason readers loved what Greene was doing wasn’t just that he told them that the politicians were crooks,” said Geraldine Shanahan, a team member in the early years who now is an editor at The New York Times. “They already knew they were crooks. But he told them how they did it. They could read the stories and say ‘Oh, that’s how they did it!’”

There had been investigative reporters before, of course, and some short-lived investigative teams as well, including the high-powered group assembled by Life magazine. But much that passed for investigative reporting was leaks from police agencies and prosecutors. While Greene and his team got their share of such leaks, the thing that set them apart from most others was the emphasis on original work. They built their own databases. They developed their own chronologies. They drew their own charts to trace the flow of property and money, and to connect the political and business ties of investors. This is common today, but it was so rare in the late ’60s and early ’70s that other papers interested in setting up investigative teams, including The Boston Globe and The Providence Journal, made pilgrimages to Newsday to see how it was done. And at Newsday itself, Greene took reporters — myself included — who had been keeping notes on the backsides of envelopes and the insides of match book covers and taught them how to gather and organize large amounts of information in ways that enabled them to untangle complicated business deals and tear agencies apart.

“He had this peripheral vision that could almost see around corners,” says Joe Demma, who worked with the team and later became the team leader. “He could put seemingly unconnected, unrelated facts, separated by time and geography, together to make these connections that no one else did.” Greene was a big man during most of his years on the job, the result of an appetite that rivaled Diamond Jim Brady’s and the willingness of his bosses to let him run up whatever expense account bills he cared to. The result was close to four decades of lobster dinners and two-inch-thick steaks, double Tanqueray martinis, and endless bottles of Pouilly-Fuisse and Chateauneuf-du-Pape. He once stopped a reporter new to the team from ordering a salisbury steak in a restaurant, saying: “When you eat with the team, you don’t eat chopped meat.”

His size, his bravado, his high-impact journalism, his flaunting of expense-account living, all combined to create a persona that seemed to be drawn in equal parts from The Front Page, The Sting, and All The President’s Men. The stories were legendary and many — Greene pounding on a wall so hard during an argument with editors that he sent pictures crashing off the wall of the publisher’s office next door . . . Greene protesting a ban against reporters flying first class by measuring the size of a coach seat and the size of his behind, and then announcing to his bosses that he would continue to fly in the front of the plane… Greene refusing to take a late-night question from the news desk until assured he would be paid one hour’s overtime, and then saying, “I know nothing about it,” and hanging up the phone . . . Greene falling asleep at his desk with a cigarette in his hand and setting his own pants on fire . . . Greene running his car into a light pole off the parkway and — when the utility company insisted on payment — measuring the distance from the pole to the highway and determining that the utility had illegally placed the pole too close to the road . . . Greene covering Chappaquiddick and relishing rumors about himself. “Is it true you solved the Boston Strangler case?” a waitress in Edgartown asked. “It was pure slogging,” he began his response.

The team was kept separate from the rest of the newsroom, not allowed to talk about its projects with colleagues, particularly not with other editors. Because of the autonomy it was given, the great blocks of time it was allotted for work on its projects, the large amount of money it was permitted to spend, and the huge amounts of newsprint it was allowed to consume, it sometimes was resented in the newsroom. But the Greene team was an important training ground: several of today’s top editors and reporters had stints on the investigative team.

While most of his career was spent at Newsday, Greene is most proud of a project he did not for Newsday but for reporters everywhere. After the Arizona Republic reporter Don Bolles was murdered in 1976, Greene assembled a collection of reporters from all over the country that descended on Arizona with the goal of completing Bolles’s work. The “Arizona Project,” as it was called, resulted in a twenty-three-part series on crime and corruption in the state that ran in many newspapers, including Newsday. “It was the proudest moment in my career,” he said.

Working for Greene wasn’t always easy, and over the years there were some who were happy to have had the experience and also happy to be able to then move on to other things. He could be both imposing and unyielding, with subordinates as well as with the subjects of his reporting. He permitted dissent and devil’s advocacy only up to a point. While he could be considerate, generous, and loyal to a fault, he also had considerable weight, and he threw it around. He could sometimes become so obsessed with a subject — particularly if he smelled a tie to organized crime — that he would be dictatorial and unbending in his pursuit of it. The great saving grace was that he was a first-rate reporter and editor, and a magnificent teacher, who showed up every day with great renewed energy and a pure love for the craft.

Howard Schneider, who worked as Greene’s deputy when he ran the Long Island desk, says that the journalism more than compensated for the excesses and blind spots. “Bob Greene made local news glamorous. He could generate the same passion for a story about a hero German Shepherd unjustly sentenced to death as to a multimillion-dollar public works scandal,” he says. “On any given day, Bob convinced reporters that with enough hustle, persistent sourcing, or enterprise reporting they could find a story in a small corner of suburban America that could lead the paper, make the wires, or even lead to a Pulitzer Prize.”

This was impressed on me yet again in his last year at Newsday. I was driving home from work late one night, and from an overpass that crossed Northern State Parkway I saw a long line of stalled tail lights glowing red in the dark, and many flashing lights of police cars and ambulances far off in the distance. I called the office from my cell phone and told the desk there seemed to be a bad accident on the parkway. Yes, the editor said, they knew all about it, and while other reporters and photographers were on the way, the situation already was well in hand. Bob Greene had been driving home when he hit the backup. He had detoured onto a service road, and gotten fairly close to the scene. And then — at age sixty-three, with a stomach the size of a beach ball and the lungs of a forty-year smoker — he had dog-trotted down the road, climbed over a chain-link fence, flashed his press pass at the troopers, and begun taking names, getting quotes, and dictating details back to the office.

Green retired from Newsday in 1992, and in recent years he has devoted himself to building up a journalism program at Hofstra University, where he’s a popular figure on the campus, teaching classes, supervising faculty, and regaling students with an endless stream of stories about the reporting life. He was voted “Teacher of The Year” in 2000 by the entire graduating class of the university, and was awarded the school’s Presidential Medal last year for having built up the program from approximately one hundred students to more than four hundred. He insists that the program be built around practical experience, not lecture hall theory, and requires all the full-time teachers to have spent at least ten years in a newsroom.

He’ll leave there soon, heading into at least semi-retirement after a career as a reporter, editor, author, lecturer, television anchor, teacher, and government investigator, and an early supporter of IRE. But he’s said in the past that he only wants one word of description on his tombstone: “Reporter”.

That he was — and the best one I ever worked with.

FYI...

Rupert Murdoch and Sam Zell have been named members of the board of directors of the Associated Press. . .WNYW/Ch. 5's Ron Corning is no longer co-anchor for "Good Day New York." A replacement has yet to be announced. . .

FYI . . .

We lost a great friend, teacher and mentor with the passing of Newsday legend Bob Greene. He was always there to pitch in and share his expertise at Connection Day or to take Folio Awards judging criteria to the next level.

He always appeared when we needed him the most, cheering us on whenever we caught the media paying more attention to their profits than to their public. When such remarks were directed toward his former employer, he gave us a standing ovation.

We will always be grateful for all that he taught us about news and we are indebted to him for showing us that one person really, truly does have the power to change the world.

Les Payne has been gracious enought to pay tribute to Bob at the Folio Awards on April 25.

For the record, Bob, we're proud of you, too.

FYI...

Reuters is reporting Mort Zuckerman has placed a bid for Newsday and, despite rumors to the contrary, Cablevision's Dolan family is not interested in the daily... Just in case you haven't heard, Dianne Doctor is back in New York news; this time, as FOX 5's news director. The seat had been vacant for far too long... Have you signed up for helpareporter.com? The site brings reporters seeking sources and sources seeking reporters together and oh, it's just pure bliss all around... Thanks to our friends at the Media Giraffe Project, who have helped plaster our opinion piece, What Price for Local News?, across cyberspace. We're proud to be a Giraffe alumna... If it's Spring, it must be the season for awards. FMC's Folio Awards are April 25 with none other than the legendary Helen Thomas delivering the keynote. Come out, support the cause and see what the public thinks of our local news... Co-hosting Folio is WCBS anchor team Kristine Johnson and Chris Wragge who, by the by, just earned himself an Emmy. More winners of the 51st Annual New York Emmy Awards: WNYW FOX 5 won nine awards: Morning Newscast, General Assignment, Hard News Series, Investigative Single Story, Investigative Series, Business/Consumer, Crime, Promotion News Promo - Single Spot Campaign and Advanced Media Animator/Motion Graphic Designer; WXTV Univision 41 won six awards: Continuing Coverage, Feature News Single Story, Feature News Series, Health/Science Program Feature/Segment, Societal Concerns News and Societal Concerns Program Feature/Segment; WCBS-TV won five awards: Daytime Newscast, Breaking News Story, Hard News Single Story, On-Camera Talent Anchor-News and Advanced Media Video Editor; WNJU Telemundo 47 won 5 awards: Evening Newscast over 35 minutes, Historical/Cultural Program Special, Sports Coverage Single Story, Commercial Single Spot and On-Camera Talent Anchor-Weather; News 12 Long Island won four awards: Entertainment News, Health/Science News, On-Camera Talent Reporter-Specialty Assignment and Writer News; WABC-TV won four awards: Evening Newscast over 35 minutes, Journalistic Enterprise, On-Camera Talent Reporter Investigative and On-Camera Talent Reporter-Live; Thirteen/WNET won three in the following categories: Health/Science Program Special, Magazine Program and On-Camera Talent Program Host/Moderator; WNBC-TV won three awards: Politics/Government, Sports Coverage Sportscast and Photographer News; WPIX-TV won three awards: Spot News Story, Director News, Live or Live to Tape and Technical Achievement; News 12 Interactive won for Advanced Media Interactivity. . . Locally, only The New York Times took home the 2008 Pulitzer Prize: Congrats to Walt Bogdanich, Investigative Reporting for stories on toxic ingredients in medicine and other products imported from China and to Amy Harmon, Explanatory Reporting for her examination of the dilemmas and ethical issues that accompany DNA testing. . . You met him: the Fair Media Council's 2006 Folio Awards keynoter Bob Woodruff is a recipient of the 67th annual George Foster Peabody award for broadcasting excellence in news and entertainment.

What Price for Local News?

Big trouble is brewing, and it’s more threatening to Long Island’s future than any other issue that’s been laid on the table.

The sale of Newsday trumps affordable housing, taxes, energy and even brain drain as the most critical topic affecting Long Island right now, and the reason it takes precedence is quite simple: The flow of information is about to be interrupted. And that is the exact reason the sale of a newspaper should be of utmost concern to the 2.7 million people who call Long Island home.

Potential bidders for the paper surprise no one, as their names have been bandied about for years: Murdoch, Dolan, Zuckerman. What mega-media company would not have an interest in a newspaper that still boasts one of the highest concentration rates in one of the most desirable markets in the country and, until recently, served as the fabled cash cow that helped offset losses at other Tribune Co. newspapers, including the perpetually troubled L.A. Times.

Yet, Newsday and the people of Long Island, deserve better.

Should any of the named prospects take title of Newsday, we face the ramifications of uber media consolidation, at levels unprecedented in our region. Since the Telecommunications Act of 1996, we’ve watched media companies acquire and merge, FCC regulations lessen and newsrooms disintegrate. Much of the M&As are reported to be for reasons of “synergy.” Since 2000, such synergy has borne witness to more than 72,000 media job cuts. If news and information put into perspective is what you want in your local news, you’ll find plenty of wire copy and repackaged content from other media properties in the same family to take the place of what you want, need and expect in your local news. If media companies as local businesses and employers speaks to your interests, you’ll find an incredible track record of downsizing combined with profits going to headquarters, instead of reinvested in the local property and its people.

Under Tribune Co. (prior to Sam Zell’s recent purchase of the company), Newsday has gone from a regional player with a strong track record for carefully chosen, well crafted national and international news, to a daily paper operating without a national desk, no foreign bureaus and a regional and local staff so slimmed down it’s bordering on anorexic. The product has changed greatly. With it, Long Island’s perspective of itself is shifting. Heavy on police blotter and random acts of crime, it’s an eye opener: Despite all the talk of the Island’s stronghold as a sleepy suburbia, those things do happen here. To give credit where it’s due, perhaps Newsday Editor John Mancini’s biggest achievement has been to abruptly awaken this place into recognizing it’s not so sleepy, nor as suburban as it pretends. New York Newsday was once touted as the tabloid in a tutu. Now, its provincial sister paper has turned tabloid, without the benefit, nor the budget, for frills.

What Long Island needs most at this moment is not what any of the Big Three can provide. Mort Zuckerman’s holdings concentrate too much power within the New York metro area, but pale to those of Rupert Murdoch. Murdoch’s News Corp.’s recent acquisition of weeklies in the Bronx, Brooklyn and Queens give his empire too much say in too little space. To acquire the dominate voice on Long Island takes Montauk to New York and turns it into a highway littered with News Corp.-driven information. Conversely, the concept of the Dolan family’s Cablevision acquiring Newsday places total control of the information Long Islanders receive in the hands of two properties, Newsday and News12, squarely in the hands of one owner.

There’s another aspect of information control that seldom sees the light of day: it has nothing to do with how a story is covered and has everything to do with which stories are ignored. Reporters won’t cover stories that present a conflict of interest, and editorial writers face the same dilemma. The conflicts increase as media companies are bought by larger entities. Depending on how centralized a media company, certain topics may be mandated as off limits. It’s a much more subtle threat to the free flow of information, yet it happens.

While the price of Newsday’s worth may be speculated between $300 million to $1 billion, those numbers don’t and can’t reflect its true value in the right hands. What is the real value to keep a region informed and therefore, vibrant and competitive? What would you pay for someone to trust your word? Local news is a valuable natural resource, just like the water you drink and the air you breathe. Information has the ability and the power to open your mind to new ideas, solutions and philosophies. The power of the press, when placed in the wrong hands, or too few hands, changes the fundamental concept of all American freedoms and goes straight to the heart of a democratic society. Since 1996, has America been that strong of a country? Recently, we’ve seen war on our own soil. More recently, we’ve lost our super power status and watch as three countries are poised to overtake the United States as the place where your children are guaranteed a better life. A strong, responsible news media keeps society healthy. The formula is proportional.

Is Long Island so strong we can afford to lose our only daily newspaper to big media?

We’ve seen what media consolidation has done across America, and Long Island has been bleeding all along: Our 19 commercial radio stations have not one news reporter among them, leaving us highly vulnerable in times of emergency. Put into such context, it’s imperative that Newsday end up in the hands of an independent owner who values Long Island. That won’t happen under the helm of a mega-media company.

Like it or not, Long Island’s future is tied directly to Newsday’s future. And now that our lone daily is no longer quietly being shopped around for prospective buyers, what happens next has the power to change your life.

What can you do to help? Ask your friends and family to read this piece. Forward it to your local politicians and the FCC, and let them know you care about the quality of your local news and you need a local daily newspaper that cares about Long Island.

FYI...

WNBC/Ch. 4 has appointed Vickie Burns as vice president of news. She replaces Dan Forman who left earlier in March. Burns had been the veep at NBC-owned WRC-TV in Washington. According to the NYDN, reporter Reg Champman is leaving Ch. 4 as of April 20, and WNYW/Ch. 5 will not be renewing investigative reporter Mary Garofalo's contract. . . WCBS/Ch. 2 has laid off correspondents Scott Weinberger, who specialized in investigative stories, and Andrew Kirtzman, who joined the station in 2002. Ch. 2 will no longer air "Sports Sunday,"which aired after the 11 p.m. newscast. Ducis Rodgers will continue to be the station's sports director and lead sports anchor. . . Hey, looking for exposure? Sign up (for free!) to be a source to reporters and reporters, sign up and get your story feelers out there at http://helpareporter.com. Once signed up, you get daily emails of stories in need of sources. Did we mention this is free? ....The list is getting longer for those interested in buying Newsday: Jared Kushner, owner of New York Observer and son of real-estate developer Charles Kushner, stepped forward in this morning's WSJ. . . .