MoveOn discloses email exchange with Tribune Co. CEO on cutbacks

In advocacy and education
MoveOn discloses email exchange with Tribune Co. CEO on cutbacks
By Bill Densmore
Dec 23, 2005, 17:45

MoveOn Media Action, a spinoff of the progressive political-action group, made public Dec. 23 an email exchange with Tribune Co. CEO Dennis FitzSimons concerning layoffs by the newspaper and television media giant. In his comments, the Tribune CEO does not mention the company's operating margins or respond to MoveOn calls to reduce them in order to step up investment in newsrooms.

In his email (as made public by MoveOn), FitzSimons says he disagrees with MoveOn's conclusions about the effect of layoffs on Tribune's news operations, adding, "We will continue to invest in great journalism that will best serve our communities, our customers and our nation." FitzSimons says "most of the positions impacted by the recent staff reductions at our newspapers were outside the newsroom."

FitzSimons says Tribune Co. has invested in a state-of-the-art converged-media newsroom in Washington, D.C. and has an unchanged commitment to quality journalism and serving readers and advertisers. The company must remain financially string to continue to do so, FitzSimons says.

MoveOn has formed a spinoff group -- MoveOn Media Action -- that is pioneering a new tactic for media reformers -- on Dec. 6 presented a set of petitions to FitzSimons, CEO of newspaper and broadcast giant Tribune Co., asking the company to stop newsroom layoffs in light of what MoveOn sees as significant operating margins. In a 30-minute audio interview with the Media Giraffe Project's Bill Densmore, a MoveOn operative talks about the group's aim to rekindle demand for watchdog journalism.

Tribune Co. did not respond to an email request from the Media Giraffe Project for comment, but has now replied to MoveOn.

MoveOn.org, the web-savvy, progressive political-action operation begun to defend Bill Clinton and then back Howard Dean’s 2004 presidential bid, has a new initiative – pushing for more watchdog journalism. It’s formed a spinoff group – MoveOn Media Action – to pioneer a new tactic for media reformers – consumer petitioning of newspaper chains.

“We are going to create a market for watchdog journalism,” MoveOn Media Action spokesman Adam Green says in a 30-minute audio interview with The Media Giraffe Project. “There are people out there who are not buying newspapers specifically because they feel they are getting dumbed-down news, fluff journalism and things that are not relevant to their lives.”

(DOWNLOAD AND PLAY 30-MINUTE MP3 AUDIO INTERVIEW)

Green and Noah T. Winer, a MoveOn.org veteran, were in New York City on Dec. 6 at a financial analysts’ briefing by Tribune Co.’s CEO, Dennis FitzSimons. During a Q&A period, Winer arose to ask FitzSimons if he would accept a petition with 45,000 names of individuals which MoveOn said had been collected over the Internet in eight of the markets where Tribune Co. owns daily papers. The petition asks the company to reverse what MoveOn described as plans to layoff a tally of 667 staff, in light of the company’s significant operating margins, forcing the newspapers “to abandon [their] responsibility to deliver strong watchdog journalism to the public.”

In a New York/Newsday account of the meeting, FitzSimons was characterized as “rejecting charges that cutting newsroom jobs at Newsday and other Tribune newspapers is undermining news coverage, saying the company remains committed to producing quality journalism.”

Green says MoveOn Media Action gathered 25,000 online signatures in 24 hours for the Tribune Co. effort, and a total of 45,000 signatures in 48 hours. He says this is the beginning of a long-term effort to promote citizen lobbying over a perceived decline in the nation’s news reporting quality. The MoveOn Media Action online petition tactic is seen as controversial by some commentators (see the MetaFilter blog).

In the audio interview, MoveOn Media Action’s Green, a lawyer and former Democratic National Committee organizer, says his group sees a relationship between declining newspaper circulation and the decline of watchdog journalism. And he says their aim is to mobilize readers, ex-readers and potential readers to say so and demand improvements.

Readers are tuning out newspapers and other major media, Green says, “because they feel they are being duped. They feel like they are not getting the real deal or stories that really affect their lives . . . what’s missing from the media landscape is the understanding that strong, watchdog journalism equals high profits, equals high readership, equals large viewerships.”

Green says MoveOn’s aim in mobilizing readers to lobby for more aggressive reporting is not to boycott, withhold subscriptions or viewership from organizations, which don’t respond. That would be counterproductive, he said. Rather, MoveOn’s aim is to demonstrate that there are non-readers and non-viewers who will return if the media reinvest in watchdog journalism.

“Hurricane Katrina showed the public will tune in and is interested in getting strong, watchdog journalism – journalists who don’t just take what those in power give them and recite it for their readers, but people challenging authority, asking tough questions, getting to the real bottom of the stories and delivering the truth to the public,” Green says.

Both Newsday and The Los Angeles Times (also owned by Tribune Co.) have covered the MoveOn petition drive. On Dec. 3, the Times carried a story as the petition drive was underway in its market, which quoted Tom Rosenstiel, director of the Project for Excellence in Journalism and a former Los Angeles Times reporter, as saying outside support of newsroom operations should be welcome for beleaguered journalists.

"One of the greatest debates in journalism right now is who is there to advocate on behalf of journalism inside of publicly traded corporations, where the fiduciary responsibility focuses on shareholders and earnings," Rosenstiel said in the Times account.

MoveOn Media Action, a project of 501(c)(4)MoveOn.org Civic Action, says it empowers regular people to reform the media and fight back when news organizations abandon their journalistic duty to be a vigilant watchdog for the public. It was formed, Green says, because MoveOn.org members felt this was an important priority for the organization.

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