by dan pine
staff writer
|
When veteran journalist Don Harrison bought the San Diego Jewish Press-Heritage in 2001, he wanted to keep a local tradition alive. Since its inception in 1913, the paper strived to cover the local Jewish community, for better and for worse.
It got worse.
Despite circulation topping 18,000, the Press-Heritage went belly up in 2003, a victim of declining ad income and soaring expenses.
“We didn’t drown without calling for help,” says Harrison. “We said we’re in deep trouble. A whole group wanted to save this 90-year-old paper. But we couldn’t stay in business.”
Then, just before Passover this year, San Diego’s Jewish community suffered another shock when the other local Jewish newspaper, the Jewish Times, folded as well. The region’s 80,000 Jews found themselves without a Jewish weekly. That leaves the San Diego Jewish Journal, a monthly magazine, to serve the community.
“It’s not right that San Diego should be left without a news source,” says Harrison. “I didn’t like the idea of giving up the independence of a newspaper. It’s important that the Jewish community have outside voices which can cover our institutions objectively.”
These are treacherous times for newspapers in America. Plummeting subscriptions, declining numbers of advertisers and the rise of the Internet have all contributed to vanishing profits and massive layoffs at daily papers. Some have gone under.
Last October, the San Jose Mercury News dismissed 8.5 percent of its workforce, with plans to cut another 40 employees this week. The San Francisco Chronicle recently pink-slipped 25 percent of its editorial staff after reporting a $61 million loss last year. The paper continues to lose $1 million a week. Even titans like the New York Times and Los Angeles Times have suffered unprecedented annual revenue losses.
Though dissimilar in many ways from dailies, the American Jewish press finds itself at a crossroads of its own. Subscriptions are down, in part because younger Jews, steeped in Playstation, YouTube and Facebook, don’t read “dead tree” editions of newspapers. Meanwhile, printing and mailing costs have skyrocketed.
Yet, determined to reinvigorate the Jewish press in America, many papers have begun responding to these challenges. To optimistic observers, the Kiddush cup remains half full.
According to Brandeis University professor Jonathan Sarna, these are the best of times for Jewish journalism in America. “We really do have some first-class Jewish papers that have set a new standard for Jewish journalism,” he says. “There are significant stories that broke in the Jewish press because it was doing its job of probing Jewish organizational life.”
On the other hand, says the foremost historian of the American Jewish press, these are the worst of times.
“I have a sense the mood is not good in the field,” adds Sarna. “Within Jewish journalism, we haven’t seen models that have truly captured young Jews. The question is whether Jewish newspapers will be able to survive.”
With long-term survival at the top of the agenda, the American Jewish Press Association will gather in San Francisco next week for its annual conference. Founded in 1944, the AJPA represents nearly 250 Jewish newspapers, magazines, journalists, wire services (like the venerable Jewish Telegraphic Agency) and affiliated organizations throughout North America.
It’s usually an upbeat conclave.
Nominated AJPA president and Cleveland Jewish News CEO Rob Certner is the organization’s biggest booster. “The AJPA has a terrific opportunity to assist its membership in creating better products and stronger businesses,” he says. “We don’t compete with each other. How many times do you sit down with someone in the same business who doesn’t compete with you and is generous enough to share everything they know about it?”
When AJPA members meet next week, they will have serious questions on their minds. How vulnerable are Jewish newspapers to the economic and social forces buffeting daily papers? Does having a reliable niche audience shield the Jewish press from ruin? Might Jewish papers fade in this age of Google and blogs?
Says Vicki Samuels, the advertising manager for Houston’s Jewish Herald-Voice, “I’m confident there will always be a need for a community paper. The Jewish newspaper is the glue that holds the community together.”
To make sure the glue sticks for good, Jewish papers have been experimenting with various strategies to help them remain fiscally and journalistically vital.
The plan for one big-city paper: Reduce the cover price to zero. The Jewish Journal of Greater Los Angeles became the first Jewish newspaper of its size to go “free.” Each week, more than 50,000 copies hit the streets, given away in Southern California delis, car washes, museums and bagel shops.
Says editor in chief Rob Eshman, “It forces us to bridge the different Jewish communities and to create copy so that everybody feels there will be something for them. We’ll be there on the street next to the Spanish-language giveaway. It brought Jewish life into the open.”
The “free” model would not work for all papers, but it seems to be the ticket for L.A., with its 600,000-strong Jewish community and distinctly Jewish neighborhoods. Eshman hopes to have 80,000 to 90,000 papers in weekly circulation by the end of 2008.
Of all the challenges facing the Jewish press today, the Internet may be the most pressing. In his research, Sarna has examined the impact of the Internet on the Jewish press and predicts newspapers will ramp up their online presence, as paper-and-ink models prove less viable financially.
“The biggest expense is printing and mailing,” says Sarna. “If you can eliminate those you may be able to have a good model. The hope is that the Jewish paper can once again become what it was: a surrogate for community itself.”
Some papers may seek to develop “hybrids,” or adjunct online editions with content exclusive to the Web. Blogs, video, reader-comment features and hyperlinks all lend distinction to these hybrids (the New York Times and Washington Post are perhaps the most highly visible examples).
But a fancy Web site alone isn’t enough. No Jewish newspapers have yet found a way to earn profits from the Internet, and online-ad revenue alone hasn’t come close to covering overhead or permit papers to switch to a Web-based entity.
That hasn’t stopped San Diego’s Don Harrison from trying. On May 1 he launched a newspaper that was all news and no paper: the San Diego Jewish World. The Internet journal was created “with sweat and love equity,” he says.
The Jewish World (www.sdjewishworld.com) changes daily –– sometimes hourly –– as local, national and international news breaks. How has Harrison gotten the word out?
“We’re contacting all the Jewish institutions and letting them know we’re here,” he says. “We have reporters covering events, and as they do, word is spreading. We average 2,600 visitors a day on the site. It’s a good beginning.”
The venture has a leg up on newspapers because print and mailing costs have been eliminated, he says. As for a leg down, Harrison admits that older readers –– who make up the majority of Jewish newspaper subscribers –– may not have ready access to the Web.
In Philadelphia, the Jewish Exponent — marking its 120th year in continuous publication — serves a Jewish population topping 250,000, with a circulation of 50,000. Sounds great until one checks the figures from a few years ago, when subscriptions hovered around 70,000.
“The Internet has certainly eroded paid subscribership,” says General Manager David Alpher. “People can find your content online at no charge. Therefore there is not as much impetus to buy the paper.”
On the bright side, he says, “In the case of weekly newspapers and especially niche papers like ours, we don’t see the massive disintegration of ad revenue that then translates into staff reductions.”
That doesn’t mean the paper can let up on reaching out to new readers.
“We’re tagging on to things like concerts at the Kimmel Center,” he says, referring to Philadelphia’s performing arts center. “We did a gallery night where they opened up the galleries in Old City. And we’ve done singles events.”
New readers, new advertisers: Jewish newspapers need both. Some papers, especially in large markets, routinely score ads from automakers, department stores, real estate brokers and other mainstream advertisers.
At the Heritage, a small, independently owned Jewish paper in Orlando, Fla., the principal source of ad revenue is not the local Jewish Community Center or the federation. It’s the friendly, neighborhood attorney-at-law.
“We make most of our money in legal notices from law firms,” says Heritage editor Lyn Payne. “We run notices of someone’s estate, divorce or foreclosure. They like us because we give them a very good rate. It helps us keep the paper running.”
The Heritage has a circulation of around 4,500, in contrast to the L.A. Jewish Journal’s 50,000. But large or small, all Jewish newspapers attempt to balance their twin roles of community watchdog and cheerleader.
Sometimes those roles conflict, with papers occasionally running articles that trigger hurt feelings or community outrage. But most editors believe it is vital for the Jewish press to cover even the dirtiest laundry.
“Who else is going to tell the Jewish story?” asks Payne. “Anything that happens in a Jewish community is part of an ongoing chain of the Jewish experience in America. My first duty is not to defend. My first duty as a journalist is to tell the truth and to be fair and accurate. By doing that I’m contributing to the long-term continuity of the community.”
Earlier this year, the Baltimore Jewish Times ran a series of reports on Rabbi Ephraim Shapiro, an Orthodox Yeshiva principal accused of molesting hundreds of boys. Shapiro died in 1989, and some in Baltimore’s Jewish community considered it a shanda to accuse the rabbi when he was not alive to defend himself.
Others pointed out that Shapiro’s victims were still very much alive and deserved validation of their trauma.
The Baltimore paper is an independent, family-owned enterprise, which publisher Andrew Buerger says allows for greater journalistic and financial leeway than a federation house organ. “It makes a big difference to have a family paper,” he says. “It’s a better model. In the secular press, you don’t see a lot of foundations or nonprofits owning papers. The for-profit model is important.”
Seeking those profits, the paper’s parent company, Alter Communications, expanded five years ago to become a broader media enterprise. Alter also publishes mainstream secular publications like Style, a Baltimore city magazine. Such horizontal growth helps bolster the Jewish Times during lean years. Though facing declining subscriptions, the Baltimore Jewish Times is holding its own, thanks in part to the city’s tight-knit and geographically concentrated Jewish population.
Houston’s Jewish Herald-Voice, another family-owned paper, is also holding steady. Founded in 1908, the Herald-Voice was bought 34 years ago by Vicki Samuels’ parents, Jean and Joe Samuels. The paper has 5,800 paid subscribers (in a region with a Jewish population of 48,000), and serves the Texas Gulf coast all the way to Galveston.
The paper has experienced a dip in subscribers and profits since 2003 (due in part to the Enron collapse and fallout from Hurricane Katrina). It, too, has looked outside the Jewish community for advertising. In Houston, that means asking the all-important question: “Who’s hungry?”
“We have a greater number of restaurant advertisers,” says Samuels. “People are willing to drive away from their homes to go to a restaurant they read about in the paper. Outside of restaurants, most of our advertisers are Jewish.”
In Detroit, the Jewish News lands ads from big businesses, from Neiman-Marcus to Lexus. How do they do it? As in Baltimore, the Detroit Jewish community is geographically concentrated. That’s good news for the newspaper’s bottom line.
According to publisher Arthur Horwitz, out of approximately 30,000 Jewish households in Detroit, his paper touches “almost 24,000 with some degree of frequency.” That’s based on a paid circulation of some 16,000 (down from an early-1990s peak of 18,000). But factor in the muscular purchasing power of the community, and the Jews of Detroit remain highly attractive to advertisers.
Horwitz runs Jewish Renaissance Media, the parent company of the Detroit Jewish News and the Atlanta Jewish Times, as well as several secular magazines. His horizontal strategy echoes that of Buerger’s Baltimore model, and, though generally successful, Horwitz, too, faces hurdles.
“We have a demographic challenge,” he says. “Detroit is not a growing Jewish community. It is an aging Jewish community. However, the integration of print and online has provided new avenues of opportunity. Currently we have more eyeballs looking at our content than ever before in our 65-year history.”
Nominated AJPA President Rob Certner is the first to admit his Cleveland Jewish News is a bit behind the curve when it comes the Internet. “We put our site up a number of years ago, tweaked it here and there to make it look nicer, but we basically put up an informational Web site. We need to sharpen it up.”
Despite that shortcoming, with 13,000 paid subscribers the Cleveland Jewish News is safely in the black largely because, like the Baltimore and Detroit papers, it diversified.
“We realized five years ago we needed to develop some glossy publications,” says Certner. “That’s what advertisers wanted: something where ads stood out, where color popped. So two years ago we developed a custom-publishing division. We create special pieces for Jewish organizations, programs for fundraisers.”
Some papers rely on the local Jewish community federation for safe financial harbor. Though independent, j. relies heavily on federation support. Both the S.F.-based Jewish Community Federation and the Jewish Community Federation of the Greater East Bay buy complimentary subscriptions to j. for their donors.
In the greater Bay Area, the Jewish Federation of Silicon Valley publishes the Jewish Community News, which comes out six times a year. The Jewish Federation of the Sacramento Region publishes the monthly Jewish Voice, with a circulation of 5,000 households.
The Bay Area is home to one of America’s most diverse Jewish communities. Boasting the third-largest Jewish population in the country, the region contrasts sharply with its counterparts elsewhere.
“We’re one of the largest Jewish communities spread over one of the largest areas,” says j. Associate Publisher Nora Contini. “We distribute to more than 220 zip codes, whereas papers on the East Coast typically distribute to a few dozen zip codes.”
And the diversity extends beyond the geographical. “It’s spread out religiously and politically, as well,” Contini says. “You have religious Jews, secular Jews, gay, straight, right, left and everything in between. We try to have a publication that’s of interest to all those people. As long as the complaints are coming from all sides, we’re doing all right.”
Now in its 112th year, j. (formerly the Jewish Bulletin) has made it a priority to lure younger readers. In 1995, the Bulletin was the first Jewish paper in the country to put its entire weekly content online, and in 2003 the paper instituted a radical graphic design and name change in pursuit of its goal.
Today j.’s subscriptions –– around 19,000 –– remain steady, despite a wobbly local economy and a media-induced form of attention deficit disorder.
“People face so many options for receiving information,” notes j. editor and publisher Marc Klein. “There’s a plethora of newspapers, magazines, Web sites, cable TV, streaming video. The one thing we offer that no one else does is information about the local Jewish community. That’s our strong suit.”
The near future will bring progressive changes for j. “Before the end of the year, we will revamp our Web site to include more interactivity, blogs and reader commentary on every story,” Klein says. “We hope and expect this will draw more readers and more advertisers.”
Jewish newspapers will continue to seek a stronger financial and journalistic foothold in an ever-changing world.
Will they make it? That depends on who’s talking.
“Anyone who feels the Jewish press in America is safe is grossly misinformed,” says Detroit’s Horwitz. “While Jewish publications constitute a niche, and while niche publications tend to be less vulnerable to the broader trends impacting the industry, anyone who feels they’re immune from those trends is going to find themselves without a community to serve.”
Yet there remains room for optimism.
Says Cleveland’s Certner, “We do something nobody else does and nobody else is likely to be interested in doing. [The dailies] are not going to do the local coverage that we do. As such they will miss large pieces of information relevant to our community.”
Cover and cover photo by Cathleen Maclearie
CopyrightJ, the Jewish news weekly of Northern California