Virtual Newsrooms and the Dehumanization of the News

Our man in the OBX worried that we're growing weary of his narrowly-focused insider baseball news content. He needn't fret, especially when he offers a phrase like, "a cornerstone of newspapering is being able to humanize the day’s activities" and helps me consider yet one more thing I hadn't. Also, as I told him, the internet's leading forum for dipshittery absolutely needs a media critic. And so, on with the criticism.

Apologies for dragging this particular dead horse into the yard for another flogging, but I believe it bears mention and repeated attention. Today’s micro-outrage involves local newspapers and shops with which I’m familiar.

Chicago-based Tribune Publishing, my former employer, announced recently that it planned to close the offices of the Capital newspaper and Maryland Gazette in Annapolis, Md., also a former employer, along with several other papers, among them the New York Daily News and Orlando Sentinel. Those papers will still publish, but staff must work from home or make other arrangements.

Capital-Gazette staffers planned to meet at the offices on Labor Day to clean out desks and to bid farewell to the newsroom. Trib Publishing got wind of the plan and locked staff out of the building. Understandably hacked off, reporters and editors convened in the parking lot and then drove to the city dock for an impromptu rally.

Tribune executives couldn’t be reached for comment, according to one report, but a labor relations executive texted that the proposed Labor Day gathering “raises important Covid-related health concerns.” This would be laughable, were it not galling. We’re supposed to believe that a newsroom full of reporters and editors who have spent the past six months covering the pandemic wouldn’t follow safe practices for gathering and interaction. We’re also supposed to believe that a corporation that’s whacked staff and strip-mined newspapers across the chain suddenly is focused on worker safety and well-being.

You might remember that the Capital was where five staffers were shot dead in the newsroom in 2018 by a man who held a long-standing grudge about how he was portrayed in coverage. The paper won a Pulitzer Prize for its work in the aftermath of the killings, and security and materials were bolstered to make the offices safer. Temporarily, it turns out.

The decision to close the offices in Annapolis and elsewhere is a real estate and bottom line move, company officials say, exacerbated by the pandemic (funny how the pandemic became a convenient corporate excuse for everything from furloughs and layoffs, to mandatory attendance by “essential” workers). Not coincidentally, one of Tribune’s primary investors and influencers is an outfit called Alden Global Capital, a vulture capital firm that I’ve mentioned in this space. AGC has spent the past decade acquiring and wangling a seat at the tables of newspapers all over the country and siphoning off money through staff cuts and various meat cleaver practices. The Trib, and by extension Alden, pulled a similar move with the Norfolk Virginian-Pilot. The Trib essentially merged the Newport News Daily Press, my old haunt, with the Pilot. They sold the Pilot’s longtime downtown Norfolk office building for $9.5 million to a real estate developer, and forced Pilot staffers to work from home and travel to Newport News in the event of office functions.

Shuttering newsrooms, sending everyone home and selling the space is one more way to wring every last nickel out of newspapers. The pandemic has shown that many companies are able to function without a central office culture. I’ve argued in the past that newspapers are different and cannot be run like traditional businesses. Newsroom culture is vital to the newsgathering process, especially at smaller papers. As others have said, a newsroom is often a community’s eyes and ears, and on good days, maybe its conscience. Reporters and editors lean on each other for feedback and ideas. There’s incredible value in being able to walk a few steps and have face-to-face contact with peers, given that a cornerstone of newspapering is being able to humanize the day’s activities. Without a newsroom, there’s still interaction, but when everyone’s separated, phone calls and emails and social media contacts are inadequate substitutes. Everyone benefits when it’s done well.

(A few words about anonymous sources, if I might, which have gotten a lot of play lately after a recent piece in The Atlantic about the president’s alleged remarks of disdain for war dead and ceremonial tributes: Newspapers and news organizations have done a piss-poor job through the years of explaining the how and why and value of anonymous or unidentified sources in breaking stories. Reporters and editors always prefer that sources go on the record and identify themselves. Sometimes, given the nature of information or someone’s position, that isn’t an option. They have jobs and mortgages and families to feed. Sometimes, identifying oneself can compromise their position or that of colleagues. Retaliation can be swift and brutal. Just ask Alexander Vindman. Though they are anonymous to the public, people in the reporting chain know who they are. Reporters, editors and, depending on the sensitivity of information, sometimes lawyers carefully weigh whether to run stories dependent on unnamed sources. Stories rarely run at legit news organizations if sources aren’t deemed credible. I’ve never written about national security or government shenanigans, but I’ve written stories where the unnamed source or sources were the subjects themselves. He or she had no comment for print, but confirmed details off the record or what reporters call “on background.” Then, you flesh out stories with other sources. People on social media gave me gas for linking to The Atlantic piece. “Anonymous.” “Not credible.” “Your bias against Trump is evident.” “You never would have run that story in your old newsroom.” “If somebody isn’t willing to ID themselves, you don’t run it. Journalism 101.” Yes, by all means, explain Journalism 101 to me.)

Getting locked out of an office that’s getting ready to close is a minor indignity in the assault against newspapers. But it also drives home that there’s no act too small or petty that those in charge will not use to reinforce their position. There was no reason not to permit staffers to take a last lap around the newsroom, a place where many have given their heart and soul and do work because it’s important to their community. Likely, they did so for the same reason that too many others in power act: Because they can.