Daily News-Miner needs to tell the people of Fairbanks: ‘We’re not owned by a vulture hedge fund’
The Fairbanks Daily News-Miner eliminated its Saturday edition this weekend, shifting to a 6-day publishing schedule, a sensible decision that is long overdue.
A 5-day publication schedule for the News-Miner would be better, given the tiny size of the newspaper editing and reporting staff, but this is a step in the right direction. It may sound strange to portray any cutback as a positive move, but the newspaper can’t afford to stick with the old schedule.
The technological revolution has been calamitous for the newspaper industry, putting thousands of newspapers out of business and eliminating tens of thousands of editing and reporting jobs. This translates into less accountability in state houses, court houses and city halls throughout the United States.
The newspaper business was once a money machine, sustained by businesses that needed newspapers, along with countless pages of classified advertising and generations of readers who knew that a newspaper subscription was part of functioning in adult society.
But somewhere between the World Wide Web and the latest iPhone, not to mention Google, Facebook, Craigslist and other names unknown 30 years ago, just like that we have a new world order.
The aftershocks of the 2009 financial collapse dealt a knockout blow to the media empire of Dean Singleton, who owned the Daily News-Miner at the time through a family trust. The trust had bought the Fairbanks paper in 1992.
The Daily News-Miner was never technically part of Singleton’s MediaNews Group, which grew into the second largest newspaper company in the nation by circulation.
Most of the Singleton newspapers ended up in the hands of Alden Global Capital, a hedge fund that has hollowed out newspapers across the land and become one of the largest—and worst—newspaper chains in the nation.
Alden Global Capital has done lasting damage, liquidating assets and eliminating jobs, leaving watchdogs with no bark and no bite.
About half of the newspaper circulation in our country today is controlled by hedge funds or private equity funds that have little or no regard for the public service work of newspapers.
“Studies (and our own eyes) have shown that when financial firms like Alden buy local newspapers they cut local reporting staffs far more than family papers or nonprofits do,” Steve Waldman, president of Rebuild Local News, wrote in a column bemoaning the sale of more newspapers to Alden.
We are lucky that Fairbanks has not joined the ranks of “news deserts,” communities with no local newspaper or an anemic publication not worthy of the name.
That’s because the nonprofit Helen Snedden Foundation, named for the wife of the late publisher C.W. Snedden, bought the News-Miner back from Singleton in 2016, paying about $4 million, “a sale price based on the fair market value of real estate and equipment,” the foundation reported to the IRS.
The News-Miner owns its building, but it’s not as valuable as you might guess because the land is leased from the Alaska Railroad, like many properties in that part of town.
I’d like to see the Daily News-Miner start to use its pages to tell its real story: “Not owned by a vulture hedge fund” would be a good slogan for an ad campaign.
The best thing the newspaper has going is that it is locally owned by a nonprofit that is not trying to bleed the place dry and is focused on keeping the paper going.
The newsroom staff when the News-Miner Sunday edition launched in November 1984—with a 158-page behemoth—was about three times larger than it is today.
Now the newsroom staff is barely in double digits. New recruits often have little or no experience, because the paper can’t afford to pay well, and new employees are often forced to learn on the job.
People in Fairbanks need to know about the paper’s finances, its struggles and its limitations if they are to understand the challenge and the need for assistance.
Most of the paper’s failings are caused by not having enough experienced editors and reporters to cover everything and do it well. This is not something that employees or managers would say in public.
I will always have a soft spot in my heart for the paper and though everyone who works there cringes when I criticize its performance, they don’t understand that I did the exact same thing during the 37 years I worked at 200 North Cushman Street. I believe that the way to improve any piece of writing, including my own, is to identify what needs to be fixed.
A long time ago when police reporter Debbie Carter was shadowed by a high school intern, the child mentioned the vociferous ways of Dermot Cole in passing, having seen me working in the office: “I sure feel sorry for whoever is married to Dermot Cole,” the child said, unaware that she was addressing the woman who was married to Cole.
I was never a good manager. I admit that. But at times I did some good newspaper work. We tried hard, even when we failed. The people who work at the News-Miner today are trying hard, even when they fail.
A lot of people have no clue about the intricate dance demanded of those who start with nothing each day and have to create, print and deliver a finished product by the next morning. It’s harder than it used to be because of the size of the staff.
That doesn’t mean the paper should ever be free of harsh criticism. It never will be. Criticism comes with the territory.
It’s been years since I had any involvement with the paper, other than as a reader and subscriber, but I have plenty of free advice about what the Daily News-Miner needs.
The Daily News-Miner is part of the connective tissue of the town, having operated under that name since 1909. It is the oldest commercial enterprise in Fairabnks.
And it needs community support to improve its news coverage.
As a nonprofit, the foundation posts an annual report to the IRS known as a 990. It should publish the 2022 report on the News-Miner website and be upfront with the readers about finances.
Here is the most recent 990 available for the foundation on the internet, for tax year 2021.
The foundation has some resources to continue to subsidize the newspaper, but it can’t go on indefinitely.
In addition to driving home the value of local ownership by a nonprofit, the newspaper can do more, it seems to me. Here are some ideas.
Set priorities: The newspaper is running far too many stories that are churned out as fast as possible, with no editing and little substance. There is always tension between quantity and quality. The paper is out of balance now, with an emphasis on quantity.
Communicate with readers: The News-Miner should do more to let readers know about the inner workings of the newspaper, the challenges and what it is doing to deserve support. When it hires reporters and editors fresh out of college, and usually fresh from Outside, they won’t know all they need to know for quite a while.
Improve the website: The News-Miner website needs a complete overhaul. It is a relic of an era that has long passed—the time when a newspaper would simply post the contents of the printed paper online and leave it at that, unchanged until the next day.
The website is static and rarely updated. The News-Miner has a paywall, but it isn’t giving paying customers a reason to come back throughout the day. Print newspapers may survive in some form, but the future is online.
Reader comments: I’ve gone back and forth on this for a quarter-century, but I think the News-Miner should allow reader comments on its news stories.
It should also have someone police them. This doesn’t require the top editor or reporter to track every morsel of spam from someone who has a third cousin who makes a fortune at home working a few hours a week. An entry-level employee could eliminate the obvious comments and flag others.
Is this practical? I’m not sure. But the paper should try to find a way to make it work.
To get more people reading the website and communicating with the newspaper, reader comments are an option. With its tight paywall, which means the paper knows who is commenting, there is a way to keep things from getting out of hand.
Long ago, the anonymous vitriol of reader comments destroyed the healthy “letters to the editor” section of the paper, a great loss to the sense of community in Fairbanks.
You can’t imagine anyone these days finding enough material to write a full-length play based on letters to the editor, which Melinda Mattson did.
Her play was one of the most popular ever produced in Fairbanks, featuring letters from such luminaries as Joe Vogler, Joan Koponen, Kevin Harun, Eva Heffle, Ron Crowe, Cleo Hensley and the greatest of them all, Fred Stickman Sr.
Use more resources: The daily reporting of the Alaska Beacon is solid and available to the News-Miner for free. The paper is not making enough use of the Beacon’s stories. Sometimes it duplicates the coverage with its own reporters, a misuse of resources.
The News-Miner should also talk to the Associated Press about joining that news service again. It dropped the AP a few years back for cost reasons, but the replacement wire services—which produce much longer stories and are often not written for a national audience—are an uneven replacement. The longer stories often appear to be dumped onto pages just to fill space.
The AP coverage would provide a much greater selection.
The Alaska coverage of the two AP reporters remaining in Alaska is minimal, but one plus with the AP is that it would give the News-Miner more access to Alaska stories in other newspapers, including the state’s best paper, the Anchorage Daily News.
The newspaper should use more state and national stories on the front page on those days when it has only local stories of little importance to highlight.
Other sources: KUAC is the only local radio station providing local news. The commercial stations don’t have any reporters. Perhaps the News-Miner can work with KUAC and with the commercial TV stations to share coverage.
University support: The University of Alaska should be doing much more to support the News-Miner with interns and other assistance. The Snedden Chair was set up with a $2.6 million gift from the Snedden family. The lack of awareness by UAF is a problem.
Expand the editorial board: The editorial board of the News-Miner should be expanded to include some community members, not just employees and former employees. The paper needs to expand its reach and include more opinions on its editorial page.
Foundation support: The News-Miner could make a good case to the Rasmuson Foundation for support of its work in Fairbanks. It could make an even stronger case to the Stroecker Foundation, the legacy of the late Bill Stroecker, a banker who appreciated the News-Miner.
The newspaper could explain to the foundations and to the people of Fairbanks that it has a role to play in supporting the community.
The most important thing is to start a real community discussion on the pages of the News-Miner.