A brief encounter with journalism’s past, present, and future

By Matt Haviland

Ted Gup – Emerson College’s current Journalism Chair – described it as “the second in an ongoing and informal forum of exploring journalism and the challenges it faces.” Dozens of wide-eyed journalism students witnessed something more: two seasoned newspaper veterans sitting down and saying, “Well, things look bad now, but we can only do the best we can and hope that newspapers still exist when you guys have degrees.”

The Boston Globe’s soon-to-be retired publisher, Stephen Ainsley, sat down with the Globe’s editor, Marty Baron, on November 19th, 2009 to answer questions about their newspaper’s hectic past year and the House of Usher-esque coming era for newspapers as a whole. The discussion, held in Emerson’s Semel Theater, was at first heavily driven by Gup, who read monologues and questions from a thick, well-prepared, and passionately written stack of pages. Ainsley and Baron’s attendance was not taken for granted, which Gup stressed repeatedly.

The three sat before Emerson’s aspiring journalists like old friends, laughing and sharing stories, not at all uptight about their profession or gloomy about declining sales. Having been described as ‘the romantic one,’ Marty Baron was surprisingly stiff compared to the jovial yet business-minded Stephen Ainsley. In what may have been the most interesting portion of their discussion, Ainsley told the students about how he originally wanted to be a reporter, and only out of necessity took a position selling ads for a small paper. From there, he scaled the marketing ranks. “I just kind of started down the path and never left it,” said Ainsley, who never did become a reporter. He seemed, nonetheless, satisfied.

Baron, who spoke with less comfort, described his journey from working on high school and college papers, interning as a journalist, and getting job offers right out of college. A more traditional success story, but an interesting example of where dedication and hard work can take one in their chosen field – especially considering how bleak the future of print journalism appears to be.

Even the recent past has been plagued with struggle. About their recent trials with newspaper sales, Ainsley outlined the many cuts and drawbacks The Boston Globe had to suffer in order to stay afloat. Baron grumbled about efficiency advisers employed to watch his staff. When the advisers finally left, they shook his hand and asked if there was anything else they could do for him. Baron tried his hardest not to say, “you can get the hell out of here.”

Clearly, there was tension between the Globe’s business side – which also forced Baron to make a tough phone call, telling his international office that the Globe could no longer support them – and its reporters, who tried their hardest to stay motivated amidst pay cuts and layoffs. Despite the inherent drama, there was no discernible unpleasantness between Ainsley and Baron, who both understood the widening gap between ideal circumstances and paying the bills.

When asked about what an effective future business model would look like, Ainsley chuckled and said, “If I knew that, I probably wouldn’t be retiring.” Both men talked about how, even though their core subscribers remain loyal, most of the Globe’s current audience is online. Gup brought up Boston.com’s staggering rate of five million unique monthly visitors, from all over the world. Their average time spent on the website totals 20 minutes a month. This is a foreign concept for what Ainsley described as an industry “proud of the fact” that making changes is like “turning a battleship.” Ideas were discussed about how to charge people for reading articles online without them simply going to a free site instead. One of the more interesting options was putting annoying ads on news websites that readers can disable by paying a small monthly fee, which will make news sites more money than advertising alone.

Ted Gup mentioned how optimistic – “effervescent” – Baron sounded over lunch. The editor seemed cautiously confident, imagining the ‘journalist of the future’ as “a person who embraces change and uncertainty” and “a bit of an entrepreneur.” This ideal journalist would work more independently, as opposed to starting with a small-town paper and paying dues until moving and becoming loyal to a larger paper.

“We both have missions that transcend pure commercialism; there’s a certain romance about what we do,” said Gup, comparing the business of private colleges to the journalism industry. He opened with this statement, but it echoed throughout the discussion. Not only relative to the Globe, one could imagine every newspaper in America undertaking similar measures and struggles to succeed in these internet-dominated times. As Ainsley said, “it’s hard to compete with free,” but the industry is trying their best. A new sales model may be just around the corner, and both guests seemed ready for whatever comes at them. If anything, this meeting must have been a boost to the spirit of every student who attended. These men are at the top, and if they haven’t given up, that’s enough of a reason to believe that someday the internet and the written news story can finally support each other.