My response to Newcity publisher Brian Hieggelke's ideas for fixing Chicago Sun-Times
Last week, Wrapports owner Michael Ferro became Tribune Publishing's largest shareholder. This prompted Brian Hieggelke, publisher of Newcity alternative newspaper, to write about how he would save Chicago Sun-Times is he had the chance. Because, like me, he believes Chicago benefits from having two newspapers instead of just one.
The article was a cover story of the issue of Newcity that came out on Wednesday, but even if it was just a simple blog post, it would have gotten a lot of people talking.
The striking cover design doesn't hurt
I like some of the ideas he outlined. Granted, some are no-brainers. I don't think anybody save perhaps Ferro and some Wrapports execs want Sun-Times Network around, and the awfulness of the paper's current website has long since become a punchline. Same thing for getting Ferro out of Wrapports because, even though he's not involved with Chicago Sun-Times anymore, the conflict of interest inherent in him owning anything in a still-related company is obvious (plus, the fact that he still has some say in what happens to Chicago Reader can't be good for the Reader). I agree that Sun-Times trying to appeal to the suburbs is pointless. Suburban coverage has never been its strength, while its city coverage very much has been. That's why Hieggelke rightfully argues that Sun-Times should build on its strengths - do more investigative reporting, nourish its distinctive voices. And while I'm not sure I would go as far as suggesting that the paper would go as left as the Reader (which isn't as far left as, say, Lumpen, but still more left than the Bright One), but I believe the paper works best when it remembers its liberal roots.
Other ideas I'm more ambivalent about. Making the paper free (while still charging for subscriptions) has its pluses and minuses, as does sticking to the current model. His proposal to merge Sun-Times and the Reader... Well, my first reaction is to roll my eyes, because (as Hieggelke himself pointed out at the very beginning of the article) it's hard not to when a guy is basically suggesting that Wrapports eliminate his paper's one competitor. There is also the fact that both Sun-Times and the Reader fill unique niches within the Chicago media landscape, and I'm not convinced putting them together would benefit either. But I'm not prepared to dismiss the suggestion completely out of hand. It may be something worth mulling over.
There are, however, some things where... it's not necessarily that he's completely wrong. It's that he's missing some pretty significant factors.
While the idea that a print newspaper shouldn't try to be the one-stop source for all news, but should focus on the kind of news it does best, isn't, in itself, a bad one. But I am troubled by what he writes next.
The more boutique nature of print in the future makes it a medium well-suited for the intellectual elite, for opinion and community leaders. With a well-educated and affluent contour, the more selective print audience is increasingly attractive for the marketers who support it.
Because Sun-Times has never been the paper of intellectual elites. It always aimed for a more working class audience. When I take public transit, I don't see nearly as many people reading newspapers as I used to, but when I look at the ones that do, the more well-dressed types tend to read the New York Times, Wall Street Journal, Crain's Chicago Business and Chicago Tribune. The hipster-looking types and older vaguelly hippy-ish types read the Reader and Newcity. But it is the people who dress in more practical, more worn clothes who tend to read Chicago Sun-Times.
Also - I've written it before, but it's worth reiterating here. Writing for Austin Weekly News really drove home that decent chunks of Chicago's poorer residents don't have access to fast, reliable Internet. And while we got to the point where you don't have earn that much to a smartphone, tablets are still not something a lot of people can get.
Hieggelke is not entirely wrong in saying that people who want print tend to be the ones who value in the aesthetic reasons. But there are also valued by people for whom it's still a practical way to get news.
Hieggelke also advocated getting rid of Sunday Sun-Times, which strikes me as dubious for a very simple reason - it has higher circulation than the Monday-Friday version. Saturday issues have less circulation than the weekday paper. I'm personally fond of Saturday issues (they have TV listings for the entire week), but if you are going to cut something, it would make more sense to cut that.
In fairness, Hieggelke doesn't say that he would want a Saturday paper so much as that he would want a weekend paper that happened to come out on Saturday. A Weekend Sun-Times, if you will. And there is actually precedent for this sort of thing in the Chicagoland media market. North Shore Weekend newspaper has been publishing on (as the name suggests) weekends from the get-go, and that seems to be working for it. But I'm not sure it's a good comparison. North Shore Weekend is a free weekly newspaper that caters to readers in some of Chicagoland's most upscale suburbs. Its parent company specializes in publishing lifestyle magazines catering to these same suburbs. Sunday Sun-Times is a paid weekly newspaper that, like Chicago Sun-Times, caters to the city that's not quite as uniformly well-off, and whose more well-off residents tend to prefer the Tribune.
If nothing else, I'm glad Hieggelke wrote the article. Even if one doesn't agree with some (or all) of his ideas, it's a discussion worth having. Maybe then, some ideas that would actually work will emerge.
Because, like he said - Chicago's scrappy second newspaper, which had far too many close calls in it's almost 80-year history, shouldn't go down without a fight.
The article was a cover story of the issue of Newcity that came out on Wednesday, but even if it was just a simple blog post, it would have gotten a lot of people talking.
The striking cover design doesn't hurt
I like some of the ideas he outlined. Granted, some are no-brainers. I don't think anybody save perhaps Ferro and some Wrapports execs want Sun-Times Network around, and the awfulness of the paper's current website has long since become a punchline. Same thing for getting Ferro out of Wrapports because, even though he's not involved with Chicago Sun-Times anymore, the conflict of interest inherent in him owning anything in a still-related company is obvious (plus, the fact that he still has some say in what happens to Chicago Reader can't be good for the Reader). I agree that Sun-Times trying to appeal to the suburbs is pointless. Suburban coverage has never been its strength, while its city coverage very much has been. That's why Hieggelke rightfully argues that Sun-Times should build on its strengths - do more investigative reporting, nourish its distinctive voices. And while I'm not sure I would go as far as suggesting that the paper would go as left as the Reader (which isn't as far left as, say, Lumpen, but still more left than the Bright One), but I believe the paper works best when it remembers its liberal roots.
Other ideas I'm more ambivalent about. Making the paper free (while still charging for subscriptions) has its pluses and minuses, as does sticking to the current model. His proposal to merge Sun-Times and the Reader... Well, my first reaction is to roll my eyes, because (as Hieggelke himself pointed out at the very beginning of the article) it's hard not to when a guy is basically suggesting that Wrapports eliminate his paper's one competitor. There is also the fact that both Sun-Times and the Reader fill unique niches within the Chicago media landscape, and I'm not convinced putting them together would benefit either. But I'm not prepared to dismiss the suggestion completely out of hand. It may be something worth mulling over.
There are, however, some things where... it's not necessarily that he's completely wrong. It's that he's missing some pretty significant factors.
While the idea that a print newspaper shouldn't try to be the one-stop source for all news, but should focus on the kind of news it does best, isn't, in itself, a bad one. But I am troubled by what he writes next.
The more boutique nature of print in the future makes it a medium well-suited for the intellectual elite, for opinion and community leaders. With a well-educated and affluent contour, the more selective print audience is increasingly attractive for the marketers who support it.
Because Sun-Times has never been the paper of intellectual elites. It always aimed for a more working class audience. When I take public transit, I don't see nearly as many people reading newspapers as I used to, but when I look at the ones that do, the more well-dressed types tend to read the New York Times, Wall Street Journal, Crain's Chicago Business and Chicago Tribune. The hipster-looking types and older vaguelly hippy-ish types read the Reader and Newcity. But it is the people who dress in more practical, more worn clothes who tend to read Chicago Sun-Times.
Also - I've written it before, but it's worth reiterating here. Writing for Austin Weekly News really drove home that decent chunks of Chicago's poorer residents don't have access to fast, reliable Internet. And while we got to the point where you don't have earn that much to a smartphone, tablets are still not something a lot of people can get.
Hieggelke is not entirely wrong in saying that people who want print tend to be the ones who value in the aesthetic reasons. But there are also valued by people for whom it's still a practical way to get news.
Hieggelke also advocated getting rid of Sunday Sun-Times, which strikes me as dubious for a very simple reason - it has higher circulation than the Monday-Friday version. Saturday issues have less circulation than the weekday paper. I'm personally fond of Saturday issues (they have TV listings for the entire week), but if you are going to cut something, it would make more sense to cut that.
In fairness, Hieggelke doesn't say that he would want a Saturday paper so much as that he would want a weekend paper that happened to come out on Saturday. A Weekend Sun-Times, if you will. And there is actually precedent for this sort of thing in the Chicagoland media market. North Shore Weekend newspaper has been publishing on (as the name suggests) weekends from the get-go, and that seems to be working for it. But I'm not sure it's a good comparison. North Shore Weekend is a free weekly newspaper that caters to readers in some of Chicagoland's most upscale suburbs. Its parent company specializes in publishing lifestyle magazines catering to these same suburbs. Sunday Sun-Times is a paid weekly newspaper that, like Chicago Sun-Times, caters to the city that's not quite as uniformly well-off, and whose more well-off residents tend to prefer the Tribune.
If nothing else, I'm glad Hieggelke wrote the article. Even if one doesn't agree with some (or all) of his ideas, it's a discussion worth having. Maybe then, some ideas that would actually work will emerge.
Because, like he said - Chicago's scrappy second newspaper, which had far too many close calls in it's almost 80-year history, shouldn't go down without a fight.