When I posted on the possibility of The Capital Times purchasing the Wisconsin State Journal from Lee Enterprises, Wisconsin State Journal and Lee Enterprises - Bleaker Than I Thought, it elicited more than the average number of comments.
There were important points made:
Then George Hesselberg, long-time friend and admired columnist, said:
Parts of this are inaccurate, mean, vengeful and just cranky. Happy Holidays. Your only beef is with the edit page - gee, now there's news - so you advocate closing the whole thing because of it...The more media, the better off the community.
I did have a beef with the editorial page, particularly for the hypocrisy I saw in their financial models, which did not speak kindly of the public sector or of the leveraged buyout which contributed to the financial mess in which Lee Enterprises is now immersed.
I agree, the more media the better. In fact at this juncture I want to bring in Bill Lueders' excellent article in this week's Isthmus, Will the Capital Times buy out Lee Enterprises? I strongly recommend reading it to get the best understanding of the issues. For example:
How valid are such musings? Watchdog tried to find out. But Capital Times publisher Clayton Frink refuses to discuss his paper with Isthmus, and the company's patriarch, the winsome philanthropist Jack Lussier, hung up on a polite inquiry after offering this unenlightening explanation for his reticence: "I've got my reasons."
The Lueders article is important for another reason. It is more than a blog post; it is news . Those of us who blog are not reporters or journalists in the true sense of the word. Occasionally I do research and even interview people for what I post. Normally I share views and opinions.
That is why we need journalists and newspapers. Also see the fina article bu former Wisconsin State Journal editor, Tom Still, "Newspapers in crisis: Why their future matters for our democracy”
For reasons that range from recession to the rise of the Internet to the changing reading habits of Americans, general-circulation newspapers are caught in a survival crisis like none since the Depression...
...Most newspapers have reacted by cutting news space, newsroom staffs or both. That may be the only short-term option, particularly for publically traded newspapers worried about debt loads and the next quarterly report, but the long-term strategy should be the opposite: Deliver high-quality news and information, regardless of the medium.
That is why I am so down on Lee Enterprises. In an effort to be profitable for shareholders, they, like Zell with the Chicago Tribune, further jeopardized their core mission, bringing people news.
We do not have enough of that. The Internet delivers news provided by the real journalists. Those journalists are supported by newspapers, not the Internet. Newspapers conduct the investigations; they do the reporting.
They tell us about arms deals, contaminated wells, Senate seats for sale, and burglaries.