Prof. Joel Brinkley started the symposium off with a humorous personal anecdote about his interview with Former Prime Minister Yitzhak Rabin. But the standing room only crowd in Cubberley Auditorium turned serious as he described the sobering state of newspapers. “Newspaper are laying off staff, closing foreign and domestic bureaus, and burning the furniture,” he said. The bottom line is that newspaper sites can’t pay for the newsrooms. Next to speak was Gary Pruitt, CEO, The McClatchy Company. Pruitt began by telling of Bertrand Russell’s response when he was once asked if he was prepared to die for his beliefs. Russell said, “I might be wrong.” Pruitt said I don’t know if I’m willing to die for these beliefs I’m about to share, but I’ve certainly been willing to stake my entire career on them. Pruitt’s take on the dire situation that Brinkley described was more optimistic. He pointed out that in most cities, one newspaper per market still exists while other media has fragmenting audiences. Pruitt’s impassioned eloquence captured the audience’s attention. “Since the beginning newspapers have been indispensable in creating self-governance. Democracy and newspapers have gone hand in hand…What’s under stress is the business model…It’s a painful process but not a death spiral.” Then Pruitt gave a dramatic historical framework. “McClatchy newspapers are 150 years old…when they were 6 years old the transcontinental telegraph came along…80 newspapers emerged and went broke in the first 30 years…they survived radio and TV.” Marissa Mayer, Vice President, Search Products & User Experience, Google, followed Pruitt by articulating Google’s position. She talked about Google’s role in bringing assets from the newspapers online, indexing and distributing them. The production value of editing, fact-checking and investigative reporting are important, she said. She also shared a lively anecdote about “news junkie” Krishna Bharat, the research scientist at Google responsible for creating Google News, and his penchant for cricket.
Bill Keller, Executive Editor, The New York Times, followed Mayer and began by telling the Cubberley audience that we are entering a “landscape without maps.” What struck me was his frequent use of poetic and artistic references from William Butler Yeats and Philip Larkin to Tennessee William’s Blanche DuBois, “depending on the content of others.” Harry Chandler, representing the Chandler Family, which owned the Los Angeles Times from 1882-2000 was the last panelist to speak. Chandler recommended diversification at the corporate level.
For me, a highlight of the evening was speaking to each panelist before the symposium as they signed my commemorative print and hearing their unique response and interpretation of my image of the newsboy caught between old and new journalism.|||2678062684647615675|||Drue's Commemorative Print at 41st McClatchy - Bill Keller, Marissa Mayer, Gary Pruitt, Harry Chandler, and Prof. Joel Brinkley