Who's Running the Newsroom?

By Laurence Zuckerman

In the heyday of yellow journalism at the turn of the century, powerful publishers such as William Randolph Hearst and Joseph Pulitzer did not hesitate to draft their newspapers into the service of a pet cause. Remember the Maine? But as papers strove for more credibility with readers and advertisers, publishers were banished from the newsroom, establishing a firm division that was often compared to the constitutional separation of church and state. These days, however, with economic and cultural changes wrenching the newspaper industry, many journalists are concerned that the once sacred boundary between business and editorial departments has begun to blur. "Editors are facing a harder task maintaining their virginity," says former Boston Globe editor Thomas Winship. David Burgin, editor of the Houston Post and veteran of five other dailies, is more blunt: "The whole notion of autonomy in the newsroom is extinct. Today, if you had Watergate, you would have to check with the marketing department."

Last week, in a dramatic example of this conflict, Christian Science Monitor editor Katherine Fanning, managing editor David Anable and assistant managing editor David Winder all resigned. The immediate cause: the announcement by the managers of the 80-year-old church-owned paper of plans to reduce the Monitor's size, run less breaking news and cut the staff by one- fourth. Earlier this month, Atlanta Journal and Constitution editor Bill Kovach quit in a dispute with owner Cox Enterprises over the control of budgets, staffing and Washington reporting. Although the two cases differ in specific respects, both boil down to a single issue: management's role in determining the editorial direction of the papers.

Kovach, a highly respected New York Times bureau chief, was recruited by Cox two years ago to revive the flagging fortunes of the Atlanta papers. After beefing up the staff and running hard-hitting stories on such powerful local institutions as Coca-Cola and the Georgia Power Co., says Kovach, the papers' managers began urging shorter, softer stories in the mold of USA Today. Finally, following a showdown with the publisher over control of the papers' Washington bureau, Kovach quit.

His departure sparked a high level of emotion. Some 200 Kovach supporters staged a mock funeral in downtown Atlanta, protesting the "death of a free press." Last week assistant managing editor Dudley Clendinen announced his resignation, complaining of the "continuing collision" between corporate and editorial factions. Management, he said, "sees readers as a market, as opposed to people who need information."

At the financially troubled Monitor, which has spent millions in recent years developing a radio service, a worldwide shortwave operation, a cable TV program and a monthly magazine, the editors were shocked when a cost-cutting proposal they had developed at management's behest was rejected outright in favor of a vastly different plan that would eliminate some of the paper's prized international bureaus. "No self-respecting editor could accept such a downgrading of the importance of the daily newspaper's content and such a compromising of its editorial control and integrity," wrote Anable of the new plan in his letter of resignation. "The decision-making process," says Fanning, "seems to exclude editorial input. The business side seems to be calling all the shots."

Executives at both Cox and the Monitor deny that they have compromised the hallowed division between editors and publishers. Indeed, they argue that they were simply doing their jobs: serving the interests of readers. John Hoagland Jr., manager of the Christian Science Publishing Society, says the paper's more than $200 million losses since 1961 represented a commitment that could not be maintained indefinitely. "It may be the jewel in the crown of the church," he says of the paper, "but you have to have a crown to have a jewel." The more the Monitor diversifies into other media, says Hoagland, "the sharper the requirement is for central management."

A former management consultant who helped broker the merger between American Motors Corp. and Renault, Hoagland reflects a view that seems to be sweeping the newspaper industry. Confronted by a long-term slump in circulation and intensifying competition with other media for advertising revenue, many newspaper executives are beginning to demand that editors join the management team rather than pit themselves against it. Editors, they say, can no longer afford to stay aloof from such down-and-dirty concerns as advertising, circulation, production and revenues. "The role of the newspaper editor today has changed," says Robert Giles, vice president and executive editor of the Gannett-owned Detroit News and author of Newsroom Management: A Guide to Theory and Practice. "The trick is to be able to understand management so that you can fulfill your responsibilities in these new areas and continue to have the time and energy to devote to the newsroom."

Michael Fancher, executive editor of the Seattle Times, is the very model of a modern newspaper editor. At his publisher's urging, Fancher completed an M.B.A. program at the University of Washington before taking over the newsroom in 1986. He insists that the degree was not meant to groom him for a future job on the business side of the paper but to make him a better editor. "Editors need to be involved with people in other departments to win their support for the content," he explains. "A lot of journalists feel that the journalistic significance of what we do ought to overwhelm any other consideration. Well, that's not very realistic."

One factor that is pulling editors willy-nilly into the world of management is the decline of family-owned newspapers and the surge in the value of media companies on Wall Street. "It is no longer sufficient for most owners of newspapers to show a good return year in and year out," says Ben Bagdikian, author of The Media Monopoly. "There must be increasingly higher returns because those profits are no longer just something that apply to that individual paper. They go to the parent firm, which is often paying off debt for mergers and expansions."

As part of these expanding enterprises, editors are increasingly being evaluated not only on the number of Pulitzers their papers win but also on their ability to produce maximum profits. At some of the country's larger newspaper chains, editors' year-end bonuses are linked, in part, to the bottom line. Sometimes the economic pressures from the business side have a direct bearing on editorial decisions. A publisher seeking "upscale" advertising and readers may apply pressure for upscale stories, says Burgin of the Houston Post. "You write about the chic and the trendy and the jet-setters, and you don't do as much as you would about human pain and suffering."

For old-style, independent-minded editors like Fanning and Kovach, such compromises are intolerable. But others argue that the rules of journalism have changed, and there is simply no going back. Says Fancher: "An editor who says to the publisher, 'I just want to concern myself with what's happening; you worry about making money' -- that editor doesn't last long." On the other hand, it is important for publishers to realize that quality and integrity are in themselves good investments, even if they sometimes hurt the short-term bottom line. "If the measuring stick is only profit," says Burl Osborne, who < is both editor and president of the Dallas Morning News, "you can't have a great newspaper."

With reporting by Sam Allis/Boston and Naushad S. Mehta/New York