Newspaper editors hopeful amid woes

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By Jennifer Harper

The news about newspapers is alarming but not hopeless - and there are actually a few good tidings, according to a report released Monday by the Project for Excellence in Journalism.

The key to the newspaper's ultimate survival is "a good business model and strong journalism," the report says.

"If we're going to succeed, we have got to drive with our brights on," says Dolph Simons, editor of the Lawrence Journal-World, a Kansas paper.

The Project for Excellence in Journalism, a nonpartisan research group funded by the Pew Charitable Trusts, based the report's findings on surveys of editors and top news executives at 259 daily papers across the nation.

First, the bad news: Fully 85 percent of the dailies with a circulation of more than 100,000 readers have cut their staffs in the past three years, primarily owing to financial pressures. More than half of the editors expect the cutbacks to continue.

Fifty-two percent of the smaller papers also report pared staffs, and a third of their editors expect more of the same in the near future.

The print-media massacre has a positive yield, though.

The survey found that despite the cuts, 56 percent of the editors overall "think their news product is better than it was three years earlier."

Specifically, the majority laud the quality of writing, the depth of reporting and the comprehensiveness of the coverage. Virtually all of the editors - 94 percent - say their papers are as accurate, or more accurate, than they had been three years ago.

"Through all that's happened, the quality of our work is among the best I've seen, and I've been here 31 years," says David Wilson, managing editor of the Miami Herald.