New Ways of Financing Journalism Will be Found, Georgia Journalists Say at NPC Forum

To: STATE EDITORS

Contact: Gil Klein of the National Press Club, +1-703-338-2721,gklein@press.org

ATLANTA, Oct. 15 /PRNewswire-USNewswire/ -- The future ofjournalism may be in niche products supported less by advertisingand more by corporate sponsorships, by interest groups and by publicbroadcasting-style memberships, leading Georgia journalists said ata National Press Club Centennial Forum here Tuesday.

(Logo: http://www.newscom.com/cgi-bin/prnh/20080917/NPCLOGO)

While Cynthia Tucker, editorial page editor of the AtlantaJournal-Constitution, described how her paper is pulling back itsreporting to the core four counties in the metropolitan area,Susanna Capelouto, news director for Georgia Public Broadcasting,said her organization is expanding.

The reason public broadcasting is doing so well is that they canspecialize on the why of journalism, Capelouto said. They make theconnection, they tell the story, and they are supported by theirmembers, so the pressure isnt there.

To keep up with the costs of doing public interest reporting,many news organizations will have to change their commercial model,Tucker said. A century ago, people could pick their newspapersaccording to their political beliefs or their demographics, andjournalism may be returning to that model.

A large part of what is now commercial journalism will have to besupported by foundations or organized more along the lines of publicbroadcasting, Tucker said. I dont see any reason why newspapers cantadopt a corporate sponsorship model much like public broadcasting.

She said the News Hour on PBS has been supported by sponsorshipsfor years. I dont see how their reporting of the news or theircredibility has been hurt by that.

Capelouto and Tucker were speaking at one of the National PressClubs forums on The First Amendment, Freedom of the Press and theFuture of Journalism the Club is holding around the country to markits 100th anniversary. At each forum, the Club gathers a panel ofleading local journalists to talk about where the news business isgoing and how to protect its core values.

The Atlanta forum was co-sponsored by the Atlanta Press Club.

Tom Baxter, editor of the Internet-based Southern PoliticalReport and senior vice president of its parent company, InsiderAdvantage, said the transition to new media is already wellunderway.

Baxter had been a political reporter and editor at the AtlantaJournal Constitution for 30 years before making the transition tothe online news company. Now, he said, when he goes to presidentialdebates and the national political conventions, he sees the onlinenews surging while the older media seem to be receding.

The next step is that (online media) might start making money, hesaid. None of us can predict which of these things are going to beprofitable.

But even without the competition from the Internet, majormetropolitan papers would have declining revenues, he said.

It would still be impossible, he said, for the Atlanta Journal-Constitution to create a newspaper and throw it on the front lawn onone side of this metro area and throw it on the door step of theother side and still make any money.

Newspapers are in trouble not only because classified advertisinghas shifted to the Internet, but also because large newsorganizations took on huge debt to expand during the last 20 years,said Kent Middleton, head of the University of Georgias journalismdepartment. They had counted on fat revenue growth to pay back thatdebt, and its not there.

The Internet will serve more niche audiences who will pay forthat news, he said, but what will be lost is the investigativereporting that major metropolitan newspapers do.

The public will miss that the most, he said. The major metroswere the only people in town that had the resources, the number ofreporters, the financial strength, the institutional memory, thecommitment of journalists and the publishers to do that work.

The next National Press Club Centennial Forum will be Thursday,Oct. 16, at New York University. It is co-sponsored by the ForeignPress Association and NYU.

Details and highlights of these forums can be found at theNational Press Clubs Web site: www.press.org.

The NPC Centennial Forums program is sponsored by Aviva USA, oneof the nations fastest-growing life insurers (www.AvivaUSA.com). Inaddition, the company is funding the production and distribution of12,000 DVD copies of the Clubs centennial documentary, The NationalPress Club: A Century of Headlines and supplemental educationmaterials.

Tom Godlasky, chief executive officer of Aviva North America,said, Our partnership with the National Press Club is based onshared values and a belief that the First Amendment, freedom ofspeech and professional journalism are fundamental to democracy,personal freedom and free enterprise.

ABOUT THE NATIONAL PRESS CLUB:

The National Press Club is the worlds leading professionalorganization for journalists. Founded in 1908, the Club has 3,500members representing most major news organizations. Each year, theClub holds more than 2,000 events including news conferences,luncheons and panels, and more than 250,000 guests come through itsdoors.

SCHEDULE OF UPCOMING NATIONAL PRESS CLUB FORUMS

Oct. 16 New York, N.Y.

Oct. 21 Portland, Ore.

Oct. 22 Seattle, Wash.

Oct. 23 Spokane, Wash.

Oct. 27 Columbia, Mo.

Oct. 29 Des Moines, Iowa

Oct. 30 Milwaukee, Wis.

Nov. 6 Salt Lake City, Utah

Nov. 10 Washington D.C. Webcast to the University of Alaska(Anchorage and Fairbanks) University of Nebraska, University ofIdaho, University of South Dakota, and University of Montana

Nov 12 Cleveland, Ohio

Nov. 13 Norman, Okla.

Nov. 13 Houston, Tex.

Nov. 17 Phoenix, Ariz.

Nov. 17 Minneapolis, Minn.

Nov. 18 San Diego, Ca.

Nov. 19 Los Angeles, Ca.

Nov. 19 Philadelphia, Pa.

Dec. 2 Indianapolis, Ind.

Dec. 3 Ann Arbor, Mich.

Dec. 8 Naples, Fla.

SOURCE National Press Club