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Newspaper franchise?

Submitted by Rick on Thu, 11/17/2005 - 10:03pm.

There is an interesting article in E&P called Re-Thinking Knight Ridder's Future. The discussion is about options that Knight-Ridder has for selling the company:

"This, too, is a good time to 'break up the box,' Rosen argues.

One way would be to find local owners for individual Knight Ridder papers, vet them like the pro sports league vet prospective team owners -- and charge them a premium.

'Who would be likely in this country to pay a premium for the Kansas City Star?' he said. 'People in Kansas City ... that grew up with the paper, and for whom it has a certain value that the Olympia (Wash.) paper, say, would not.'

Then, too, there's the non-profit or foundation route that's worked for the St. Petersburg Times, and The Anniston (Ala.) Star adopted more recently.

'Take a look at the Scott Trust in the U.K. that publishes the Guardian,' Rosen said. 'It's a commercial newspaper that makes money and just happens to be the most Web-savvy and forward-looking paper in England.'

We have public broadcasting, why not public publishing? Couldn't we have a local, not-for-profit, K-R franchised paper that had a busniness model like NPR? It could be a real living institution, rather than a daily annoyance.

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This community should think a

Submitted by Rob Richards on Fri, 11/18/2005 - 6:44am.

This community should think about this. The affect it would have would be amazing. Just my opinion, but the Olympian is woefully inadequate. Just bad journalism, bad reporting.

I like the Olympian's column

Submitted by Sarah on Fri, 11/18/2005 - 11:59am.

I like the Olympian's column Other Voices and I like John Dodge's environmental reporting. Impressed with some of Tony Overman's photography too.

Otherwise often disappointed with their local reporting, it seems to be hastily tossed together.

A good locally controlled newspaper would make a huge difference here.

Would this new paper just bec

Submitted by The Fire Inside on Fri, 11/18/2005 - 12:51pm.

Would this new paper just become an expanded version of Other Voices, though?

If someone could put together a more coherent paper to challenge The Olympian they would probably do fairly well. There are a lot of people in town who wouldn't purchase The Olympian if it wasn't the only game in town.

The answer to your first ques

Submitted by Rob Richards on Fri, 11/18/2005 - 1:36pm.

The answer to your first question is a resounding no. If done right, it could be a well balanced news source that is representative of this community, while remaining firmly objective in it's reporting.

The roadblock to this is that a new paper would immediately be competing with Knight-Ridder, the second largest newspaper company in the US. They would make it extremely difficult to get a foothold in this market. They have vast resources at thier disposal, most likely a local group would have a very difficult time competing.

Being hastily tossed together

Submitted by Rob Richards on Fri, 11/18/2005 - 1:31pm.

Being hastily tossed together is something that many dailies have to deal with. You are forced to produce news everyday, and sometimes, in order to meet a deadline, reporters are forced to go with what they can dig up in a small amount of time.

That make sense, I wonder wha

Submitted by Sarah on Fri, 11/18/2005 - 2:56pm.

That make sense, I wonder what the alternative is. Any way to do a daily and include more in-depth reporting? I assume that would require more staff.

The problem, from what I see,

Submitted by Rob Richards on Fri, 11/18/2005 - 3:51pm.

The problem, from what I see, is that more emphasis is put on the bottom line, meaning the paper making money, than is put on good investigative journalism. This is an attitude that would have to change in order for reporting to get better.

Overman is a fantastic camera

Submitted by FPK1 on Fri, 11/18/2005 - 12:47pm.

Overman is a fantastic camera man. If you can find his photo of game agents darting an elk from a helicopter you will be impressed.

Whoa, I found it, what a phot

Submitted by Sarah on Fri, 11/18/2005 - 2:50pm.

Whoa, I found it, what a photo !

Did you see the dart in fligh

Submitted by FPK1 on Fri, 11/18/2005 - 4:17pm.

Did you see the dart in flight?

Oh yes, part of the brillianc

Submitted by Sarah on Fri, 11/18/2005 - 7:00pm.

Oh yes, part of the brilliance of this photo. So much motion captured, wonderful use of angles and placement, our eyes as viewers are led right along.

There's only one problem that

Submitted by emmettoconnell on Fri, 11/18/2005 - 3:59pm.

There's only one problem that I could see with a local owner of the Olympian, who could buy it? The Olympian is a huge money-maker for KR (as would any state capital paper), so the cost would be incredibly prohibitive.

Other than that, if you did end up getting your hands on a paper, do you keep the folks that came with the chain around (such as the editors and other management) or do you bring in your own folks? And, if you don't already own other papers, where do you get people with the right experience?

The best option might be for the Olympian to be sold to a local chain, like Pioneer, or for someone to start and online/offline (more than?) weekly competition, like the Northwest Voice in Bakersfield, CA.

Groups like Poynter have inve

Submitted by Rob Richards on Fri, 11/18/2005 - 4:29pm.

Groups like Poynter have invested in local newspapers in other areas. It might have to come down to a large non-profit group, possibly not NW based, buying it and allowing it to be controlled locally.

I say keep the folks, the cause of bad journalism stems from the actions at the top of Gannett or Knight-Ridder, not in the newsrooms.

You've got to remember, too,

Submitted by The Fire Inside on Fri, 11/18/2005 - 5:00pm.

You've got to remember, too, that The Olympian is probably a stop on the way up, not a final destination.

This is still a fairly small community and, with it, we get a smaller news publication.

From my experience, community

Submitted by Rob Richards on Fri, 11/18/2005 - 5:08pm.

From my experience, community based journalism doesn't really have anything to do with the size of the town. The Shelton-Mason County Journal is a great example of a small town newspaper providing great local coverage. It is, of course, locally owned, and always has been. The corporate run Olympian has a hard time being a community newspaper because the ones making the big editorial policies are in a boardroom thousands of miles away.

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