The Future of News Is All That Is Left

The future of the news industry is made up of unions and liberal media experts. At least, that was how “The Future of News Industry Jobs” was presented at one of the nation’s foremost journalism schools. When it came to discussing the business of news, the panel was packed with everything from a former Democratic gubernatorial candidate to anti-corporate think tankers and the founding CEO of Air America.

The one-day news conference was co-sponsored by the Communication Workers of America, part of the AFL-CIO, and the University of Maryland’s Phillip Merrill School of Journalism. Two union executives were featured on panels and several newspaper guild members were in attendance. But the real peek at how journalists see their own future came with the final session. It wasn’t what the panel discussed so much as who was chosen to talk.

The panel’s six experts were asked about “Economics and the Future” for the industry. They included two left-wing think tank representatives, a former Maryland Democratic gubernatorial candidate, a former member of boards at both Air America and NewYorkTimes.com and a former publisher who now works with prominent left-wing billionaire Ron Burkle.

Only one member of the panel seemed to have no obvious political leaning – Jane Scholz of McClatchy-Tribune Information Services. There were no representatives from any conservative media.

The first panelist to speak was Jeff Johnson, the former publisher of the Los Angeles Times. Johnson was fired last year “after publicly refusing to make job cuts requested by his corporate bosses,” according to the Oct. 6, 2006, New York Times.

Johnson now is an operating partner with Yucaipa Companies, LLC which is run by Burkle. Yucaipa has been “deeply involved in the past several years with news employee attempts to buyout major metropolitan newspapers.” Burkle surfaced as a possible candidate to purchase The Wall Street Journal earlier in 2007. Johnson highlighted Burkle’s “level of trust” with organized labor as a major positive.

He was followed by Chairman and CEO of Corridor Media Inc. Ted Venetoulis. A former Democratic County Executive in Maryland who lost in his bid to win the governor’s job, Venetoulis has now assembled a local team to try and buy the Baltimore Sun. Those businessmen, he said, are committed to editorial independence and would not say “look, you’ve got to fire that reporter” – “not that they won’t try to do that,” he joked.

The think tank representatives were a dead giveaway about the nature of the panel. The first was Mark Cooper, director of Research for the Consumer Federation of America, a group that lobbies against businesses, against gun ownership and for increased regulation. Cooper’s latest book was “The Case Against Media Consolidation” and he strongly urged media outlets to sue firms like Google for using their content.

Cooper stressed that he viewed industry problems as being the fault of management. “The first thing you have to change is management” for journalism to survive, he argued.

Former Air America CEO Mark Walsh rounded out the panel and bemoaned his time at The New York Times where, he said, board meetings were sharply divided about the future of that company’s online effort.

While the union participation was prominent during the sessions, mention of it was buried at the bottom of the conference handout.