Farewell Gallant Knight

The news that Knight Ridder sold itself to a much smaller newspaper chain has saddened me to a surprising degree. Sure, I'm supposed to be all New Media Guy, crowing about another signpost on Old Media's road to the hinterlands. First off, I think new media triumphalism is a bunch of hooey. The hard times of what Jeff calls Dead Tree Media are not brought on by the rise of computer-based media, they are brought on in the main by the prolonged death throes of reading in America. People aren't eschewing newspapers in favor of blogs, they are in the main ignoring both in favor of American Idol and PlayStation. No one whose vocation or avocation is wedded to the written word can feel good about that.

Second, I'm saddened because the sale is an artifact of the further commodification of the news. In a way this is probably a case of things aren't the same, but they never were. But the old school journalists writing rememberances in the BJ harken back to the days when newspapers were about the news qua the news, as opposed to the news as a lure for eyes on advertisements. Whatever media arises triumphant, it likely will have a lot less concern for informing the public and more for it's bottom line. That's a world I feel less good about.

Third, it bothers me that Knight-Ridder, homegrown institution that it is, will be no more. Since learning the history of John S. Knight in high school journalism class, it's been a point of civic pride to see a Knight-Ridder byline. During the seven or so years I lived out of state, seeing the byline was a connection to home. It feels like a part of Akron history is being extinguished

Finally, I worry about the furture of our paper. McClatchey has declared its intention to sell off the BJ and a slew of other papers whose balance sheets are insufficiently gaudy. So who will buy it? I am most worried, of course, about a purchase by NewsCorp or Sinclair or some simlarly right-wing media group. I accept neither the pat liberal criticism that the BJ is hopelessly conservative , nor the pat conservative criticism that it is hopelessly liberal. On balance the reportage is on balance. The fact that the editorial stance pisses me off as often as it inspires me is probably a healthy sign.

The response, gauged in part by the comments in this BFD post, has been pretty much a yawn. Don't mistake me, ABJ is far from a perfect newspaper. As K-R has been on the current austerity tear, its local reporting has visibly suffered. While some stars like Willard and Oplinger still do good work, increasingly local coverage has looked more like civic boosterism than journalism. Editorially, they tend to dig into positions driven by certain agendas -- most notably hating Arshinkoff. I hate the courthouse coverage because, well, be grateful I haven't subjected you to one of my Phil Trexler tirades.

Most of all, I hate paragraphs that look like this.

Or this.

But for all its faults, this is my newspaper. Growing up in Wadsworth, the BJ was the reason I identified as being from greater Akron. It's a big part of the reason I feel like I'm home living here. When it was a Knight paper, the Beacon Journal was unmistakably the Akron paper. What will the future hold. Will the new owners further slash local reporting to contain costs? Will they turn it into an outlet for a narrow political viewpoint? I'll be carefully scrying the internet tea leaves for answers.