Why it’s good to be at a journalism conference again
It was great to reconnect with my brethren at the California News Publishers Association’s annual legislative affairs gathering in Sacramento this week. I confess that I have largely bypassed traditional state press club gatherings over the last few years. That is because they had morphed into rather dismal affairs.
Mind you, I’m not talking about the actual content arranged by hard-working press association staffers who remain among journalism’s most enduring champions. (Although, I had noticed that seminars and panel discussions have changed over my 40 years in the business. There was a time when they offered writing tips, help getting public information from reluctant public sources and so on. Now, as often as not, the seminars focus on making money or tracking web traffic.)
When I say industry gatherings depressed me, I mostly mean the chatter around the free coffee urn between sessions. Too often they went something like this:
Me: Hey, long time no see. How is life in Sandlewood/Blueberry Hill/wherever?
White male publisher about my age: It’s going. You probably heard about the layoffs. I’m just hoping to make it another couple of years, then I’m going to retire and play with the grandkids.
And, scene.
Fewer people could afford the time and expense for gatherings like the one this week in Sacramento. Those who could were largely pessimistic about the future of the business and were more interested in lengthening the runway before the business fell off a cliff than establishing a new kind of airport that would be a going concern.
There is still some of that. But, mostly, I’ve found that the people who are left in journalism are survivors for a reason. Like me, they may not have been the best reporters or editors, but they have proven to be resourceful.
I was part of a panel titled “Building Sustainable Business Models.” This will be a surprise to anyone who has taken a peek at my personal checkbook or heard me say something stupid about an annual budget during a company executive meeting. Nevertheless, I was invited to speak about how we got from Point A (Review up for sale and an uncertain future) to Point B (Review purchased by local owners who share a vision into the future.) So, I talked about finding investors who understood the unique value proposition of a local news organization, one that couldn’t always be measured in dollars and sense, and how we planned to keep that thriving for another 100 years.
Our story isn’t unique, and it certainly isn’t the only one worth telling. CALMatters CEO Neil Chase talked about how philanthropy stepped into fill the reporting void at the statehouse. Mike Smith of the Irvine Foundation discussed how large funders were helping newsrooms collaborate on projects they couldn’t imagine alone. Lauren Gustus left me gaping at the metrics she studies at the Sacramento Bee in order to capitalize on subscriber revenue that now often outpaces the old advertising income.
And that was just from the stage. The publishers of Sonoma West told me their direct public offering for their small media company was so successful they can’t take all the money offered from readers. I heard that membership programs are proliferating, as are community events, transparency initiatives and other efforts that are business strategies, of course, but business strategies that build on and celebrate real journalism.
You don’t hear much any more about so called “sponsored content,” fake awards events, clickbait content or other revenue schemes that never had much to do with our editorial mission. Those of us who remain seem to have gone back our journalistic roots. Consequently, it feels good to gather with the tribe again.
