It’s a bit like motherhood. You can’t be against “localization”—the revolution in reporting that every second- and third-tier newspaper in the country is embracing as vital to its salvation. Like motherhood, “localization” is something you can dress up in pretty sentiment, fake, and do badly, or you can do it well by applying tenderness and toughness in equal measure.
The Star Tribune is currently being convulsed by the same “localization” mania that has stripped apart (excuse me—“right-sized”) the St. Paul Pioneer Press in the last few years. It is no coincidence that both papers have undergone substantial budget cuts, staff reductions and editorial redirection under the supervision of the same man, Par Ridder. Ridder, of course, is the scion of the famous publishing family who was the publisher of the Pioneer Press before sliding across the river to the Star Tribune.
General-purpose coverage of Ridder’s purges at both papers, like coverage of the newspaper business’s problems in general, has focused on the slump in advertising and the disappearing readership among young adults. Rarely, though, does superficial coverage in the Strib and Pioneer Press include the demands of the investors Ridder serves, or ask whether those demands for ever-increasing profit margins are realistic. Likewise, the question of whether the quality of the newspaper in question has anything to do with the decreasing readership and advertising never comes up. Nor is there any assessment of what (if anything) the Par Ridders of the world mean by “localization.”
In newspaper corporate speak, “localization” means stripping away any beat focused on any but the most parochial concerns: individual neighborhoods, city governments, and local sports. In practice, “localization” means “cheap” and “inoffensive.” The editorial focus of both newspapers has been redirected to the minutiae of second- and third-ring suburbs because that’s where higher-income families reside—people advertisers are most eager to reach—and where, silly as it sounds, school sports are a central pillar of the cultural edifice. Moreover, “reporting” on suburban land-use projects, council meetings, and high school football and basketball games has the twofer benefit of being both cheap and easy to do—any writer can read the minutes of a planning commission meeting, or watch a ball game and file a story about it.
Because the cheap part of localization is what gets published, cheap is easy enough to see. The inoffensive aspect of “localization” is another matter.
If “localization” meant the aggressive pursuit of stories of relevance to everyone in the metropolitan area, I’d have less of a problem with it. But that hasn’t been what’s happening.
Northwest Airlines will soon emerge from bankruptcy—after gutting pay and benefits packages for all of its employees—and has said it is projecting profits in excess of $4 billion through 2010. Yet the Metropolitan Airports Commission recently granted Northwest a $239 million subsidy in the form of lower airport fees. Do you know why Northwest deserves such a heavy subsidy? Does either the Star Tribune’s or the Pioneer Press’s coverage of this significant local business strike you as either aggressive or satisfying?
Or how about UnitedHealth? OK, the years prior to the emergence of Bill McGuire’s backdated options scandal were also prior to the reign of Ridder, but isn’t it remarkable how little journalistic sniffing was done around a company piling up Croesus-like wealth at the same time that crushing increases in health insurance premiums were landing on nearly every family in the state? With enhanced “localization” can we now expect as much persistent coverage of UnitedHealth as of Eden Prairie Senior High’s sports programs?
And what about localized polling? As of May 25, the Star Tribune will completely close The Minnesota Poll. (It had been moribund since pre-Ridder budget cutting.) If “localization” has any connection to relevance, enterprise, and community service, the regular polling of Minnesotans’ attitudes toward politicians, legislation, and even peripheral matters like ATV use of state lands has value, particularly to legislators trying to see through the fog exuded by lobbyists.
And don’t get me started on U.S. Attorney Rachel Paulose.
Every tuned antenna should pick up the reality that “localization” is empty marketing jargon being broadcast by impatient investors—none of whom are local, and all of whom are far more interested in localizing Twin Cities’ profits into their far-flung and silk-lined pockets.
Read Brian Lambert’s blog at www.rakemag.com/media; email lambert@rakemag.com