Future of News

Former editor reveals battles inside New York Times over future of news

Lydia Lim Associate Opinion Editor

PUBLISHED FEB 10, 2019, 5:00 AM SGT  The Straits Times

News publishers face challenge of growing new sources of revenue

I spent many hours last weekend devouring reviews of and excerpts from a new book entitled Merchants Of Truth by Jill Abramson. She was the first woman to be appointed to The New York Times' top editorial post of executive editor, and held the job from 2011 to 2014 - when she was abruptly fired.

The book, billed by its publisher Simon & Schuster as "the definitive report on the disruption of the news media over the last decade", examines the epic struggles of four publishers - The Times, Washington Post, BuzzFeed and Vice - to reinvent the business of news for the 21st century.

It went on sale in bookshops in the United States on Feb 5 and is now available online as an e-book.

A key question Ms Abramson sets out to answer is whether there is a future for quality news.

In the book's prologue, she writes: "What do I mean by 'quality news'? News that isn't commoditised, merely chronicling what happened and where, like the stories doled out by public relations firms or announced at staged events. Such stories were published every day.

"Quality news involves original reporting, digging to find the real story behind the story. Investigative reporting on the murky nexus of money and politics and corporate behaviour. International reporting from hard-to-reach places and dangerous conflict zones. Stories that require the skills of professional journalists using state-of-the-art reporting tools, such as databases and crowdsourcing, and age-old shoe-leather techniques to fill in gaps in the backstory. Stories that are thoughtfully presented, taking advantage of digital technology to provide on-the-scene accounts and visuals that further explain how events transpired. Stories that are edited so as to honour the intelligence of readers rather than exploit their emotions."

As a career journalist, I am deeply invested in the answer to that question. And if you are reading this column, I trust that you too consider the matter to be of some weight.

BUSINESS OF NEWS

Ms Abramson's account exposes the unease felt by journalists and editors who learnt their craft in the years when newspapers enjoyed a monopoly over print advertising and large profits, when faced with today's revenue pressures and their implications for newsrooms.

Chief among the changes is that editors now need to take into account business considerations when making decisions, which they rarely did in the past. In fact, it used to be a source of pride among editors that they had the power to shield journalists from commercial pressures, and the clout to stand up to even the largest advertisers.

That partly explains Ms Abramson's outrage when The Times' chief executive Mark Thompson sought, on her watch, to get the news and business sides of the company to work more closely together. In her book, she recounts in detail one such incident.

"Around a table with a white linen tablecloth sat Andrew Rosenthal, the editorial page editor; Denise Warren, the head of digital operations; Thompson; and me. At one point, Thompson told me that he expected the ideas for new, revenue-producing products to come from the newsroom.

"The last thing The Times needed, I believed, was to have its best journalists distracted from their work by endless meetings with product managers who reported to Thompson. That had become the essence of my job - working on a millennial news app, helping develop the cooking app - and I knew my having to spend time in unproductive meetings on tasks I mostly hated left the news report without some of the edge it had during my first year as executive editor.

"If that's what you expect," I snapped at Thompson across the table, "you have the wrong executive editor." It was the kind of frank admission, uttered in an angry tone, that was never heard at the sedate publisher's lunches we had every Wednesday," she wrote.

NEWS IN A VUCA WORLD

While I admire her candour, Ms Abramson's accounts of her brusque dismissals of colleagues' views are also cause for reflection, for they remind me of the arrogance that can afflict journalists, not least myself.

That may have mattered less when newspapers enjoyed monopoly power, but an unwillingness to listen and be open to views different from one's own is a serious drawback in a time of disruption, when the way forward is far from certain.

The challenge of navigating in a Vuca world - an acronym that stands for volatile, uncertain, complex and ambiguous - is real, and perhaps more difficult for those who have enjoyed some measure of success and are used to having all the answers.

Indeed, in a review of Ms Abramson's book published on the NPR website, literary critic Annalisa Quinn writes: "In Merchants Of Truth, Abramson seems to see the world in black and white: new versus old, mercenary versus honourable, clickbait versus reporting, advertising versus editorial, and so on. People are either allies or enemies. But as Abramson - good Jill and bad Jill - should know, it is rarely that simple."

FUTURE OF NEWS

So is there a future for quality news?

Having weathered a tumultuous decade, The New York Times has emerged as a shining example of a legacy news publisher that has reinvented itself for the digital age. Last week, it announced that it generated more than US$709 million (S$962 million) in digital revenue last year, growing at a pace that suggests it will meet its stated goal of US$800 million in digital sales by the end of 2020. More than 3.3 million people pay for the company's digital products, including its news, crossword and food apps, a 27 per cent jump from 2017. Digital advertising rose 8.6 per cent, to US$259 million, and surpassed print advertising for the first time in the fourth quarter. 

The Times said that its revenue gains would allow it to spend more on its newsroom operations.

Far from failing, as US President Donald Trump claims, The Times is thriving. It continues to hold powerful interests in America to account, and provide outstanding coverage of important global issues, whether they break in Venezuela, China or Yemen. I am happy to declare myself a loyal subscriber and reader.

Its success did not come about from ignoring the business side of news, but from learning how to marry editorial integrity with commercial savvy, so as to serve the needs of both advertisers and readers. This is also a journey that The Straits Times and other Singapore Press Holdings news titles have embarked on.

We journalists will need to learn the critical skills of navigating ambiguity and exercising judgment in a Vuca world where old monopolies have no choice but to compete for customers' favour by creating new value. It's an uphill task but those who brave the climb can be sure of learning much along the way. For journalists and editors, a great prize is at stake.

This is nothing less than a quest - to secure the future of quality news.