THE VIRGINIAN-PILOT
Copyright (c) 1995, Landmark Communications, Inc.
DATE: Sunday, April 30, 1995 TAG: 9504300041
SECTION: FRONT PAGE: A2 EDITION: FINAL
COLUMN: EDITOR'S NOTEBOOK
SOURCE: Cole C. Campbell, Editor
LENGTH: Medium: 78 lines
Last Sunday, an anonymous caller left a message on the public editor's answering machine complaining that this notebook wastes space.
Thank goodness someone's reading it, I thought.
Actually, a number of you have written or called. If we didn't have such an effective public editor's column, or ample letters to the editor, I would report such comments more regularly here.
This complaint offers a reason to revisit why I write this notebook. It begins:
Good morning. This is for Mr. Campbell. When will you stop this drivel every Sunday that is intended to convince us readers that you and Frank Batten are in the newspaper business as public servants, giving us your hearts and souls to bring us the news? Nonsense. Frank Batten knows, and he makes sure you know, that the paper needs to - are you ready for this? - make money.
Yes, a newspaper company is a business. It tries to make a fair return on the resources invested in it.
So far, free-enterprise newspapers are the only ones in the world that have been capable of accumulating enough resources to cover the news aggressively and to resist governmental intrusion into what people read.
But I don't think we work simply to make money, just as I don't think people live simply to breathe. People breathe in order to live; we make money in order to pursue a larger purpose.
In a six-year study of 18 exceptional and long-lasting companies, two Stanford University business professors - James C. Collins and Jerry I. Porras - conclude that a fundamental element in their success is ``a core ideology - core values and sense of purpose beyond just making money - that guides and inspires people throughout the organization and remains relatively fixed for long periods of time.''
Their book, ``Built to Last: Successful Habits of Visionary Companies,'' lists these companies' powerful purposes: At 3M, ``Our real business is solving problems.'' At Hewlett-Packard, ``We exist as a corporation to make a contribution.'' At Johnson & Johnson: The company exists ``to alleviate pain and disease.''
At Merck & Co., the pharmaceutical company: ``We are in the business of preserving and improving human life. All of our actions must be measured by our success in achieving this goal.''
The soul of the newspaper business is to sustain democracy and free enterprise with the unfettered flow of news, information and advertising that has value to our readers.
This notebook is about how we struggle with this infinitely complex purpose.
You do very little in the pages of the paper that is not designed to make money. Evidence the Business Weekly, when you tried to sell the CD feature and it backfired.
At the first of the year, we decided to sell space to financial institutions to list their certificate-of-deposit rates. That would let everyone participate, not just the 15 or so we had been listing on a rotating basis. It would free up about a half-day of work for a staff member. And, yes, it would bring in extra money.
But we didn't do enough spadework, and the idea fizzled. We've gone back to the rotating list. We try things; some work, some don't.
I don't think many people are interested in your weekly reminiscences on the joys of journalism; we just want the news, unbiased. When I bring my car to the repair shop, I just want it fixed, not a diatribe on auto mechanics. When I buy a loaf of bread, I don't want a short history of bread making. Save the valuable newsprint and space for something we care about, not something that just makes you feel good.
Given all the media-bashing that goes on now, I think there is considerable interest in how newspapers work. Those who aren't interested in how we bake our bread will spend their time elsewhere in the paper.
The trick in editing a newspaper is to publish something for everyone, not everything for everyone.
I hope you'll accept this as constructive and well-intended.
I do. And thanks. by CNB