Chronicle’s Demise is Self-Inflicted
by Randy Shaw‚
May. 22‚ 2007
If you missed the news that the San Francisco Chronicle is cutting 25% of its news staff, it was “reported” in a tiny corner of the paper’s Saturday, May 19 Business section. While many blame the Chronicle’s drastic circulation decline in recent years on the Internet, this ignores the paper’s failure to address readers’ interests. The paper has no political columnist that regularly analyzes issues facing local politicians, nobody of stature covering national politics, extraordinarily weak cultural and arts coverage, and few columnists that anyone cares about reading. By targeting upscale readers over age fifty and ignoring the needs of those most likely to resort to the Internet, the Chronicle’s collapse is no surprise.
Since its purchase by the Hearst Corporation in 2000, the San Francisco Chronicle has been like a boat heading for a waterfall whose captain refuses to change course. Now the paper, whose attorney claims has been losing $50 million annually, will become an even less desirable product by cutting its news staff by 25%.
The story of the Chronicle’s demise is told daily in its pages, and is not primarily caused by the Internet. Simply put, the paper has few interesting writers, and even fewer stories that would compel people to read the paper each day.
Let’s start with the columnists. Under prior ownership, the Chronicle touted its longtime lineup of Herb Caen, Art Hoppe, Stanton Delaplane, and even had Warren Hinckle in his prime running provocative pieces.
In 2007, the only Chronicle columnists anybody pays attention to are Matier & Ross. Jon Carroll has little following among the under 40-crowd that has stopped reading the paper, and while Carroll could be a great political columnist (as he was prior to coming to the Chronicle), his main topics ----gardening, cats, travels abroad---are popular with longtime readers but not those the paper needs to reach.
The columnists on the paper’s editorial page are an embarrassment.
Nobody has ever figured out why the Chronicle’s chief non-syndicated columnist is Republican Deborah Saunders, since her views alienate the paper’s target audience. And despite operating in the nation’s most progressive political environment, the Chronicle does not have a single progressive commentator on local issues.
Rather than turn to the astonishing array of local writing talent, the Chronicle allows syndicated columnists E.J. Dionne and Robert Scheer to offer the progressive side of national issues. Since both can be read on-line elsewhere, neither builds the paper’s readership.
People pay for the New York Times to read Frank Rich, Paul Krugman, Thomas Friedman and Bob Herbert. The Bay Area has an equally rich pool of writers to choose from, but the Chronicle editors appear to disqualify anyone who might express policy views to the left of Dianne Feinstein.
Politics appears to be the only explanation why the Chronicle’s Neva Chonin is not a daily columnist. Put her and a provocative local writer like Gray Brechin in the paper three times a week each and watch readership build.
And I have some news for the Chronicle: starting in the 1970’s, San Francisco became a mecca for gays and lesbians. Statistics from the publishing industry reveal these two groups to be major readers, which leads to the question: why is there no Chronicle columnist who regularly covers the gay and lesbian community?
There’s no way the Chronicle would run regular pieces from our own Tommi Avicolli-Mecca (and we don’t want to lose him), but what about someone politically safer like Michelle Tea?
And given the region’s demographics, the paper might even have a regular Asian-American columnist. For one of the most racially diverse areas on the world, the Chronicle’s columnist and writing staff mirrors the Bay Area’s overwhelmingly white demographic of the 1950’s.
Think the paper’s absence of gay, lesbian and Asian columnists might explain why young Bay Area residents do not read the Chronicle?
John King is not truly a columnist, but people read his urban design stories. Like Matier & Ross, King has an engaging style and expresses clear views----two features that used to be standard newspaper requirements but which the Chronicle ignores.
The Chronicle’s national coverage is also weak. Whereas the Los Angeles Times has the excellent Ron Brownstein, the Chronicle has Mark “conventional wisdom” Sandalow and Carolyn Lockheed, once associated with the right-wing National Review. When is the last time you were talking to someone and they mentioned something either of them wrote?
Of course, the national reporters are stuck with atrocious editors. Last week, the Chronicle may have been the only newspaper in America to headline the idea that the “left” supported the Senate immigration deal. None of the quotes supporting the deal in Lockheed’s accompanying article included representatives of “the left,” and every quote I saw from multiple sources showed SEIU and other immigrant rights groups opposed to the deal.
The Chronicle’s weak columnists and national reporting could be somewhat overcome by strong arts and cultural coverage. The Chronicle has talented writers in these areas, but does not give them the space to write powerful pieces. Steve Winn’s talent is badly misused, and the paper’s lack of coverage of independent theater and music has long alienated potential young readers.
The best Chronicle section is Sports. Scott Ostler, Ray Ratto, Gwen Knapp, Nancy Gay, Janny Hu and Henry Schulman represent a strong team But unlike the Times sports section, these writers seem to be cramped for space, and the paper’s declining circulation means that even important pieces---such as Knapp’s cogent analysis of the recent study showing racism in NBA referee calls ---do not enter the public debate.
Of course, the Chronicle’s biggest problem is its targeting of news coverage to an insular Pacific Heights socialite crowd, while ignoring issues affecting the nearly 70% of the city that are tenants. We are talking about a paper whose coverage of the Opera and Symphony opening nights, and to books and topics about Pacific Heights (including the entire Sunday Style section) dramatically exceeds its stories on tenant evictions, the impact of real estate development on the middle and working-class, and the Bay Area’s shifting demographics.
That targeting to the elite works if you are a restaurant or club seeking an exclusive audience; but it alienates publications that need a mass audience to survive.
The Chronicle appears to see its audience as the readers of Benefit Magazine, the workplace of ex-female friends of the Mayor.
The Chronicle’s legendary failure to cover issues of broader concern made the paper’s quote from Tom Rosenstiel of the Project for Excellence in Journalism particularly (though unintentionally) funny. Asked about the effect of the 25% cuts, Rosentiel said it means “25% of what goes on in the Bay Area won’t be covered. It will happen in the dark.”
Folks living in the Bayview-Hunters Point or Mission District are unlikely to notice the difference. Nor will the 25% cutback reduce Chronicle coverage of the Wilsey’s, Schultz’s, or Traina’s.
The only real losers will be Chronicle staffers who are laid off; Phil Bronstein, the Executive Editor who has steered the Chronicle ship under Hearst, will surely keep his.
May 22, 2008
