VOICES
What's So Crazy About A Board That Knows Journalism?
Should the board of directors of a newspaper company have anything to do with the journalism in the company’s newspapers? “God forbid,” seems to be the sentiment among some newspaper ceos. “Of course they should,” is the view of others. This split became evident recently when nine former newspaper editors (Hodding Carter, Bob Giles, Max King, Bill Kovach, Dave Lawrence, Jim Naughton, Gene Patterson, Gene Roberts, and I) sent a letter to chief executives and board members of the nation’s fourteen largest publicly owned newspaper companies. Our hope, as we wrote, was “to encourage a re-examination by newspaper companies of the degree to which they are sustaining their commitment to journalism.” We urged the executives and directors to consider several steps (see box) that seemed to us “in keeping with the unique, constitutionally protected, public-trust mission of your companies.” The recommendations were drawn primarily from Taking Stock: Journalism and the Publicly Traded Newspaper Company, by Gilbert Cranberg, Randall Bezanson, and John Soloski, and from a speech that Peter Goldmark, chief executive officer of the International Herald Tribune, gave at an Aspen Institute seminar a couple of years ago.
The letters carried assurances that we took this approach in a spirit of shared convictions and without fanfare, though we might want to encourage public discussion of these issues. We invited responses. Three ceos and the representative of a fourth wrote back. All these ceos are respected leaders of solid newspaper companies, yet their thoughts could hardly be more varied — raising thought-provoking questions about the role of newspaper company boards. (Some of the executives asked not to be identified, so the quotes are unattributed.)
One executive wrote that he shared our concerns, and that his company recognizes the importance of strong journalism and thus has several directors with journalism experience. Another said that, while our suggestions raised complex issues, his company “is aligned philosophically with a number of the ideas imbedded” in the suggestions and hopes our efforts “yield positive results.”
Then there were the other two: “Are you guys out of your minds?” wrote one good friend of journalism. Board members should play no role in journalistic policy, he said. “They tend to be financial, legal, technology or business experts who can help a company make business progress.” Another wrote that he felt his company would not be well served “by having anyone on our Board of Directors responsible for monitoring the quality of our journalism. The Board of this company knows very well that its mandate does not extend into journalism.”
If the latter two views are in any way representative, it seems that the old “wall” between the newsroom and the business offices has moved. Journalism must, in essence, be protected from the board. But wait. Business literature has some differing views. Here are some examples: Boards “govern the organization by broad policies and objectives — including to assign priorities and ensure the organization’s capacity to carry out programs”; boards “account to the public for the products and services of the organization”; a board “helps management develop business plans, policy objectives and business strategy.” Since the Enron collapse, concerns about corporate governance have only increased, and sentiments such as “a board’s top priority is the development and implementation of a balanced philosophy concerning the corporation’s constituencies” are gaining strength. The old notion that in a board’s eyes the only stakeholders that count are the stockholders is on the wane.
But what about newspaper companies? The executive who found us loony suggested we “take a look at who serves on such boards.” Indeed, board members do tend heavily toward financial expertise. But is that the only way to run the show? What if boards better reflected the value of the journalism to the public and indeed to democracy? What if they brought together First Amendment lawyers, political activists, civic leaders — and journalists? Mightn’t journalism’s place be strengthened among the companies’ broad policies, priorities, capacity to carry out programs, and implementation of a balanced philosophy — to borrow a few of those biz-school phrases?
Dan Sullivan, a University of Minnesota media economist, remarked at a recent gathering at the Poynter Institute that the tension in newspaper companies these days between journalists and business leaders is not a clash of values but “a disagreement about the business we’re in.” We have different ideas about who the customer is, he said. Journalists believe the citizen is the customer, but as long as the advertiser foots the bill, that is an illusion. The business is about serving advertisers. Certainly, the idea that the board should focus on anything but the journalism would seem to confirm that. A few family-controlled companies whose leaders have journalistic responsibility bred into them may be able to focus on public service (at least at their flagships) while keeping the board away from the journalism. But what about the rest — the majority — of the companies? Couldn’t making the health of the journalism one of the board’s focuses — and rewarding executives for journalistic as well as financial success — offer some hope for a greater emphasis on the newspapers’ responsibilities to their readers and to their communities? Dan Sullivan thinks that “the real alternative to the current situation is not a business that values profits and good journalism, but a business where good journalism is the business.”
Maybe Sullivan is right. It may be that not until the customer we seek to serve becomes the one who pays will we make journalism our primary business — and something to be invested in, rather than drawn down upon. But that is a big debate, and a long way out, if it ever it comes at all. Meanwhile, a board of directors that actually cares about the journalism, and is expected to shape policies that help the whole company care about it, seems not so crazy a notion to me.
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