| An Insider's View of What We Have All Suspected (Athens, GA USA) March 29,... |
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Knightfall: Knight Ridder And How The Erosion Of Newspaper Journalism Is Putting Democracy At Risk Davis Merritt 
Rating: 4.5/5 Stars Rank: 1037 (Athens, GA USA) March 29, 2005 - 4.0/5 stars On first glance, I was not sure if a review of Knightfall: Knight Ridder and How The Erosion of Newspaper Journalism Is Putting Democracy At Risk, by Davis Merritt (242 pages, American Management Association, 2005) would fit in the context of what I normally write. But as I read the book on Saturday evening, I found that although there was not necessarily a direct correlation on its face, the whole underlying theme of segregation of duties/responsibility resonated with me. Why? Because like in the business environment, the break down of barriers in corporate owned newspapers is significantly eroding journalistic integrity, and according to Merritt, puts the notion of Democracy at risk. Right up front, Merritt admits his bias. As a former editor with Knight Ridder Newspapers, he was present at the beginning of this conglomerate. The merger between Knight, which focused on journalistic integrity, and Ridder, which focused on the bottom line, provides the backdrop for the perfect case study of what happens when two corporations with totally opposite core values and culture come together, and in this case how the bottom line becomes the driver when key mistakes are made in structuring the corporation. The book does not flow as easily as others I have recently read and at times Merritt unnecessarily repeats himself. but he does manage to weave a story that starts back in the 19th Century when the two companies were originally formed. He examines what was fundamentally different in the two families, one small, and one large with many sons who needed businesses. The story then evolves into one of corporate positioning and internal culture wars as the two organizations tried to meld. Much like the merger of Lotus Development Corporation and IBM, the culture wars left many casualties and bad feelings as the integration slowly moved through the years. It was during this time frame that Merritt went from being a journalist and editor focused on journalistic integrity to becoming a bean counter with orders to constantly cut costs. He uses a simple metric to show this decay: the number of Pulitzer Prizes won. What has happened over the past decade is that corporate owned newspapers with only one class of stock, and therefore beholden to Wall Street analysts and short term profit motives, have experienced a sharp decline in the number of Pulitzer Prizes as compared to newspapers such as the New York Times and the Washington Post. Another disturbing trend Merritt notes is the decline of ethics in journalism, citing not front page stories like Jayson Blair, but other cases he has personally been involved in with his own subordinates. In the examples he gives, stronger business controls would have detected and prevented the transgressions. But this is the rub. Like academia, journalists bristle at any kind of controls as being a violation of their first amendment rights. It also leads to very public embarrassments. So how does this all put democracy at risk? It happens, according to Merritt, by putting the bottom line above doing responsible, in-depth journalism which o other medium as the time of resources to do well. Blogs, he acknowledges have a place, but still are without traditional journalistic review standards for accuracy. Given limited budgets, newspapers no longer are able to cover issues of importance to the public and uncover important stories such as Watergate. The question is whether this is journalistic arrogance (and Merritt admits he has been called as such in his fight with the corporate world) or a very real truth worth reflecting on. If you are interested in reading an insider's view of this decay, this book may be worth a read. If you don't have the time to read it, just look at the newspapers produced by Knight-Ridder and decide if it is puff journalism or the real thing. And then ask yourselves if this is what you want from your newspapers, especially when even the worst ones make incredibly large profit margins. Scorecard: Par on an Average Par 4
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