A Voice of Hope

According to McClatchy Company CEO Gary Pruitt, “newspapers are still among the best media businesses—and the most important.” In his op-ed piece on the Wall Street Journal today (students can access it through FACTIVA), Pruitt lays out the counter-argument to the wail of voices predicting the demise of newspapers. He notes most newspaper companies are still profitable, even though circulation and advertising has slipped. Still, he asserts, newspapers are holding onto their audiences well in the face of a proliferation of TV outlets, new magazines, and certainly more web sites. He also cites surveys showing readership of newspapers hovering around 50 percent of the adult population. Pruitt’s main contribution to our understanding of the future of journalism, and the main reason his company paid $6.5 billion for Knight Ridder, is the belief that the traditional newspaper is at the top of a pyramid of media sites disseminating information. “Replacing the notion of ‘readers’ with ‘audiences,’ we’re fast becoming multi-platform, 24/7 news companies—and it’s working,” he says. Most important to this journalism professor’s ear, Pruitt reinforces his belief that a strong journalistic enterprise is necessary for the survival of self-government and democracy. That’s an important role, he notes, as democracy undergoes attack from “spinmeisters, partisans and ideologues.”