Tax breaks, thin newspapers, and fiscal cliffs, oh boy!
We are playing chicken with some very big problems, rather than getting on with some solutions.
Matt Fikse
Entering what ought to be an uplifting mid-July week, I find myself suffering from topical depression. That is, every principal topic of discussion seems to lead to depression. Here is my working list, with the most important last.
State of the news media: Monday morning's Seattle Times print edition provided graphic proof of what ails mainstream media. Faced with competition from new media, metro dailies everywhere are responding not with deeper and more serious coverage of
state and local issues — hard to find elsewhere — but are on a self destructive path toward ever lighter and more frivolous coverage. This leaves readers less informed about issues important in their communities and ultimately asking the question: Why do I need this newspaper anyway?
More than half the space on the Times' Monday front page was consumed by huge photos and the beginning of a story about a Gig Harbor chainsaw artist who does interesting carvings of horses. More than half the space on the sports front page was consumed by a photograph and beginning of what is billed as a series of articles on columnist Steve Kelley's attempt at 63 to rehabiliate his golf game. Nearly half the space on the local, second-section front page was consumed by photos and a story about a jumping-dog competition in Mill Creek.
If you searched the rest of the paper you could find truncated versions of international and national stories covered in greater depth by the Wall Street Journal and New York Times, a syndicated editorial column, a column by Seattle city councilwoman Jean Godden warning that the Seattle Storm women's professional basketball team should not be left out of plans for a new NBA/NHL arena, and a brief collection of local news stories. They've got to be kidding, right?
Times economics columnist Jon Talton does day-in, day-out quality analysis and commentary on national, state, and local issues but is online more often than in print. Most readers probably do as I do, reading the Times online Monday through Saturday, for local coverage and blogs, and buying the print edition only on Sunday.
Prediction: Seattle soon could be the largest market without any daily print newspaper.
Our crazy state tax code: Articles in Crosscut and elsewhere locally invariably focus on ways to find new state and local tax revenues, or stress the need to make the present code fairer. I refer such authors to the report last month by the state Department of Revenue enumerating tax subsidies and loopholes extended to favored enterprises and sectors at state and local level. The report, required by law to be issued every four years, enumerates 640 such exemptions but focuses on those 452 which likely raise revenue if eliminated. Some $29.3 billion could be generated in the 2012-13 biennium if they were erased, the department report says.
New taxes? How about $29.3 billion in new revenues? Fairer taxes? How about eliminating some or all of these special tax favors, treating all business and all personal taxpayers the same, lowering rates for all, and thus generating greater economic growth and jobs and, in turn, fresh tax revenues? Would some enterprises be hurt by withdrawal of their tax breaks? Tacoma News Tribune columnist Bill Virgin points out that the abovementioned Seattle Times Co. would lose a Business & Occupation tax break, a sales-tax break on purchase of computer equipment, and a sales-tax exemption on sale of newspapers.
The biggest beneficiaries, though, are heavy political hitters such as Microsoft and Boeing and they are the reason why the tax breaks' repeal is so difficult. Gubernatorial candidates Jay Inslee and Rob McKenna, like previous candidates, have pledged to review and then eliminate some of the breaks. Inslee, however, has proposed to enact several new ones.
Washington state, of course, is not alone in inflicting such abuses on its own economy and revenue base. The federal budget is chock full of equivalent subsidies. Faced with a long-term debt crisis, President Barack Obama and Republican and Democratic leaders of Congress have pledged their thorough review and the elimination of some — but not just yet.
The looming fiscal cliff: I detailed several months ago the financial and economic implications if White House and Congress reach the looming "fiscal cliff" at which they will arrive Dec. 31, unless action is taken before then to reduce federal deficits by other means. On that date, unless somethng happens beforehand, the so-called Bush tax cuts will expire, along with long-term unemployment benefits and anti-recessionary payroll tax breaks. Arbitrary spending cuts, split 50-50 between Defense spending and so-called discretionary (non-entitlement) spending, will kick in.
Rep. Adam Smith and a small bipartisan group of House and Senate leaders are agitating on behalf of responsible congressional action before then. But the outlook is not promising.
Ranking Democratic congressional leaders, including Sen. Patty Murray, have suggested publicly that Democrats should play "chicken" with Republicans on the issue and let the automatic cuts take place, presumably generating rage among voters against the GOP. I see this as a dubious premise. More likely, a plunge off the fiscal cliff would generate voter rage against leaders and candidates of both parties. President Obama has proposed that Bush tax cuts should remain in force only for families earning less than $250,000 annually, with everyone else getting what amounted to a tax increase.
Several updated projections are available regarding the fiscal cliff's effects on the economy. The consenus is that the combined effect of the post-Dec. 31 actions would be to cut U.S. GDP by 2 to 3 percent over the next couple of years. (The International Monetary Fund projected over this past weekend that U.S. growth in the year ahead would total only 2 percent, which means that the fiscal cliff's effects would be to erase growth entirely or put us back into recession).
All of this could have been avoided if Obama had embraced his own deficit-reduction commission's proposals in 2010 or if the congressional "super committee," co-chaired by Sen. Murray, had come up with proposals to avert the Dec. 31 crisis. Will we fall collectively off the cliff? The most likely outcome, instead, will be to resort once again to a "continuing resolution" which will postpone the mandated Dec. 31 changes from 90 days to six months — thus leaving a new Congress and a President Obama or Romney to deal with the matter.
This will get us past year's end and spare sitting legislators from having to take unpopular actions before the November election. But financial markets will take a hit, voters will get a scare, and we'll shake once more the world's confidence that we can manage our own affairs more responsibly than the Greeks or Italians.
The cost of Afghanistan: We passed the 11-year mark last month of our intervention in Afghanistan. In that time some 2,000 Americans have been killed there, some $400 billion in our tax dollars spent, and 12,000 Afghan civilians killed. If we depart on schedule at the end of 2014, all signs point to a return of the status quo ante in that country with power sharing among the Taliban and regional tribes and warlords. Secretary of State Hillary Clinton declared in Kabul last week the provision of long-term, post-2014 U.S. aid to the present Afghan government. We may be spared from sending most of it since, in all likelihood, the present government will dissolve within months of our departure.
See what I mean about topical depression? And I've not even mentioned the sad plight of the Mariners.
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Comments:
Posted Wed, Jul 18, 7:54 a.m. Inappropriate
Ted, I would be interested to hear your thoughts as to why metro newspapers are taking the self destructive path away from intense local coverage. It seems so obviously wrong-headed. What happened to the chants of going hyperlocal of just a few years ago? For many to be sure, local he-said, she-said, meeting coverage is a nonstarter but it doesn't have to be that way. Where is the vision at The Times? Quality can still matter but you have to make it interesting and relevant. It's interesting to me when The Stranger, which has always been on solid financial ground, continues to move forward and grab their first Pulitzer when other publications are falling apart. What does that say?
Posted Wed, Jul 18, 7:57 p.m. Inappropriate
I happen to like chainsaw art...makes short work of a totem pole.
Posted Wed, Jul 18, 9:31 a.m. Inappropriate
Ted, 1) How many Pulitzers have YOU won? 2) Have you been around the country and looked at local papers? Ours is far better than most. Yes, the Monday and Tuesday papers are thin but the rest of the week, and especially Sunday, look robust. 3) And for Tom Hyde: If The Stranger is on "solid financial ground," it's because they live on ads exploiting young women. Oh, and by the way, the Seattle Times won a Pulitzer this year, too.
Posted Wed, Jul 18, 9:56 a.m. Inappropriate
Ted,
"Faced with competition from new media, metro dailies everywhere are responding not with deeper and more serious coverage of
state and local issues — hard to find elsewhere — but are on a self destructive path toward ever lighter and more frivolous coverage."
It's not the competition with "new media." I wish comentators would quit repeatedly stating this falsehood. Its the competition with Craigslist. The Seattle Times has more readership than ever. The Times Picayune in New Oreleans cut print production to 3 days per week and slashed tne newsroom. It has a wopping 87% share of the market. Its not eyeballs being drawn somewhere else, its advertising revenue that subsidizes the content those eyeballs aren't willing to pay for.
If we mis-identify the problem, we have no shot at solutions.
Posted Wed, Jul 18, 11:14 a.m. Inappropriate
Thanks for the early comments.
As most people my age, I revere good print journalism. I was a Seattle Times writer and editor, right out of grad school, and fully intended to spend my entire professional life there---until military service took me away and I got diverted elsewhere. In semi-retirement, I was quite pleased to return home to Seattle 11 1/2 years ago and to write a regular column for the print P-I and, then, to contribute regularly to Crosscut and occasionally to national print
publications. Daily print journalism is having a hard time finding a successful economic model. The Wall Street Journal, New York Times, and Washington Post still produce an excellent daily print product. But they, too, are under bottom-line pressure and relying on other properties for income streams.
The Times is our local paper and, therefore, of great importance to us.
It is now reduced to five columns and relatively few daily pages.
How shall those column inches be filled? One school (including some so-called media consultants) would argue that soft features, accompanied by photos, are the way to go since public tastes
have dumbed down over a couple decades. I would say that print
dailies' ONLY comparative advantage lies in their capacity to do informative, analytical pieces on important local issues--the kind of coverage lacking on nightly local TV news or in alternative media.
Will advertisers adequately support a print daily operating from the first premise? Experience thus far says no.
I do follow newspapers in other major markets. I also read dailies in smaller Puget Sound markets. I find, for example, that the Tacoma News Tribune and Bellingham Herald both do a better job of local news coverage than the Times. I would be thrilled if the Times' print fortunes improved. I like the periodic investigative reports it publishes. To save overhead, I'd probably cutback the editorial-page staff, now producing a skeleton page, and/or ask its staff to double at news coverage. I'd keep covering local sports, entertainment,
arts, and other topics thoroughly. I'd increase substantially
daily coverage of economic, financial, transportation, environmental,
real estate, school and other local issues and reinstate once robust
day-to-day coverage of such bodies as the city and county councils,
Legislature, Port of Seattle, Sound Transit, and public and quasi-public agencies where decisions are made daily affecting the lives
of everyone in the metro area. There would be a place for Gig Harbor woodcarvers and Mill Creek jumping dogs, though not for a series on Steve Kelley's personal golf game. But they would not consume a majority of limited space on sections' front pages.
Posted Wed, Jul 18, 9:05 p.m. Inappropriate
"To save overhead, I'd probably cutback the editorial-page staff, now producing a skeleton page, and/or ask its staff to double at news coverage.
I'd keep covering local sports, entertainment, arts, and other topics thoroughly. I'd increase substantially daily coverage of economic, financial, transportation, environmental, real estate, school and other local issues and reinstate once robust day-to-day coverage of such bodies as the city and county councils, Legislature, Port of Seattle, Sound Transit, and public and quasi-public agencies where decisions are made daily affecting the lives of everyone in the metro area."
---------------
And you would pay for all that increased coverage with -- what was it again, oh yeah, "cutback the editorial page staff." I don't know whether to laugh, to cry, or to call whoever it is responsible for locking people in rubber rooms.
Wait, the rubber rooms have been shut down too. No money to pay for them. I guess the people who engage in magical thinking now have positions on Crosscut. Keeps 'em from ranting in the streets and disturbing the dogs.
Seriously, Ted, there's no money for any of what you want. The next piece of big news about the Seattle Times will be Chapter 7.
p.s.: A serious question: Ted, when you were with the newspaper, did you have any detailed idea of who the readers actually were and what parts of the paper they preferred? Did you know where its revenues came from, and in what proportions?
Posted Thu, Jul 19, 6:57 a.m. Inappropriate
To answer your query and expand a bit on the topic:
I was a young reporter and editor at the Times many years ago when print journalism ruled. It was an 8-column paper and there was a huge news hole to be filled because it was the vehicle locally for retail and classified advertising. We published several editions daily, updating stories as they developed. We all worked on the premise, I believe, that our readership pretty much consisted of
most of the literate population of the circulation area. The P-I
had a bit more populist readership and larger out-of-Seattle circulation. Managers and senior editors had data breaking down readership more specifically.
Current data no doubt would show a smaller readership base, since so many get their news in other places. But those who still rely on daily print journalism tend to be more highly educated, have average or above incomes, and/or be older than the general population. The online versions of daily print newspapers no doubt would have a slighly different readership. (Daily newspapers thus far have been unable to make a profit from their online products). Too many daily papers today, it seems to me, are chasing an audience they don't have (and may never get) while not maximixing the one that they do. Daily newspapers probably should see themselves as no longer serving mass audiences but, instead, important niche audiences.
Posted Wed, Jul 18, 11:20 a.m. Inappropriate
Also, judging any newspaper by one day's fare is absurd. Take a look at today's Times, and you'll see plenty of serious local news.
Posted Wed, Jul 18, 12:31 p.m. Inappropriate
The Times in effect announced it was going way soft when it moved Nicole Brodeur to the horseshit and hoorah beat. She is one of the few people on the Times able to write effectively with an edge but it's hard to put an edge on a marshmallow.
Posted Wed, Jul 18, 12:50 p.m. Inappropriate
(Steve Kelley? - please. Master of the triplet phrase.) Why on earth the Times didn't hire Art Thiel and Steve Rudman, or any of the rest of the PI sports staff, is inexplicable.
Posted Wed, Jul 18, 1:38 p.m. Inappropriate
David Simon (The Wire) occasionally writes about newspapers, his experiences and where things went wrong from his perspective. It speaks to some of these issues, eloquently.
A Newspaper Can't Love You Back
Dirt Under the Rug (a case for beat reporting and what happens when you don't have it anymore)
Posted Wed, Jul 18, 1:40 p.m. Inappropriate
Ah, no linking here. So ...
http://davidsimon.com/a-newspaper-cant-love-you-back/
http://davidsimon.com/dirt-under-the-rug/
Posted Wed, Jul 18, 8:53 p.m. Inappropriate
Crosscut published pretty much the same article, with somewhat different particulars, on June 8th. I commented extensively there, right down to my observation of how thin the Seattle Times is compared to the newspapers I delivered when I was a kid.
I don't think anything's changed in a month and a half, so I'll just link to the earlier story. My comments are there. The short version here would be that the Seattle Times is in its death throes, along with the rest of its industry.
http://tinyurl.com/6regxbn
Posted Fri, Jul 20, 10:19 a.m. Inappropriate
Not living in Seattle but familiar with the Seattle Times, I read it on line. And I agree with Ted Van Dyk. The same is true for our local newspaper. Our community paper --- 300,000 ---- has the same issues. And I read it on line too. Not good enough reporting to pay for it. This means the "death spiral" with less circulation, fewer advertising dollars, less income, fewer top notch reporters and reporting, all leading to even less circulation.
Posted Fri, Jul 20, 10:50 p.m. Inappropriate
I decided one day recently to count the number of pages of a Times weekday edition front section devoted to advertising. Including full-page and part-page ads, the result was 1/3 of the the section. That's not counting the huge photos.
SLOG has excellent news and political reporting, unless you happen to be a troglodyte. And as TVD says, other dailies around the region have much better reporting than the Times.
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