For Love Of The Daily Newspaper

The "Future of Newspapers" was a troubling topic for columnist Phillip Morris to discuss, and faithful readers to hear.

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The Friends of the Euclid Library invited the public and Phillip Morris, Plain Dealer columnist, to their Annual meeting on September 22nd. Readers know him as a resident whose twice weekly stories are often rooted in Euclid.

He told about his long time barber, a comment that caused the audience to laugh because Mr. Morris is as glossy and bald as a hermit. His barber was visiting his twin brother at the Cleveland Clinic when he suffered a sudden and massive stroke. Thankfully he was in the right place, only steps from the Clinic’s immediate, life-saving surgery. During the operation, a section of his skull was removed and would be replaced when the pressure on his brain subsided.

Sometime later, the barber told Mr. Morris that he was grateful to the Clinic. “But I don’t have the money, and they have my head”. Morris spoke with the PR folks at the Clinic who begged him to give them time before writing a column. The journalist said he was going ahead with the story, but promised to write a follow-up on the Clinic’s efforts to put the man back together. Two weeks later the patient was patched. Now every time Mr. Morris is at the shop, the barber proclaims to all: “This is the man who got my head back!”

Newspapers were part of his life since being a 9 year old carrying the Columbus Citizen Journal, a paper that no longer publishes. That pattern fits the newspaper production, “a modern day version of the old blacksmith, a once vital industry racing desperately to keep up”. The audience of about 100, a majority with grey hair, remembered three Cleveland newspapers in 1950. Mr. Morris added, those three are now reduced to one, “of which the Plain Dealer -- which as of this morning -- is still publishing”.

Newspapers still claim the loyalty of the majority of senior readers. “So there is a built-in market as long as papers can keep their older subscribers alive.” However, that’s not the future, nor the present. When he mentions his 17 year old daughter in a column, she realizes it only when a teacher mentions “your dad wrote about you today”.

The Economist described today’s print newspapers as a package of politics, sports and the like “to attract eyeballs”, that is measureable statistics that can influence sellers’ as a place to put their advertising dollars. However, this “package” actually works better on the internet – content which is more current, available, graphic, targeted to audience and easier to search. Younger viewers are no longer even turning to their computers, having already moved on to mobile devices and to social media sites such as Facebook. ”The march to mobile consumption is in full swing”.

There is no unifying voice of the era of Walter Cronkite. News is now found in multiple sources, sadly sought out in siloes bolstering one’s particular slant. If not the local press, who is then to dig in and ride herd on government and business? The PD once had 7 investigative reporters in Columbus covering State government – now two.

A handful of nameplates will likely survive as national print newspapers, and these may include a local section. Even now, the PD prints the regional New York Times and Wall Street Journal in the plant on Tiedemann Road.

The ad revenue and the readership have gone off to different places, abandoning the local newspapers. Mr. Morris worries about their future, “the march of machines killed John Henry, after all.”