On April 8, 2016, the day that the Gannett Company formally acquired the Milwaukee Journal Sentinel, the Shepherd Express became the largest locally owned and operated newspaper in the state of Wisconsin. This is both a great honor and a big responsibility, and we will continue to work very hard to take on this challenge. The staff at the Shepherd Express is a group of very bright, talented and committed professionals who put their heart and soul into the newspaper each week to create a great product that Milwaukee can be proud of. This is our 34th year serving the greater Milwaukee area. When other newspapers are losing their readership, the Shepherd, according to the Media Audit/International Demographics, continues to hold onto its readership and has more than 239,000 readers. In addition, each month tens of thousands of readers regularly turn to our website for unique content.
We at the Shepherd believe that Milwaukee is a great city—a forward-looking place whose biggest fault is that we listened too well to our mothers when they told us not to brag about ourselves. Milwaukee is built on the natural gifts of rivers and a Great Lake, and has a heritage of progressive values that provide wonderful public amenities for the average working families in our city. Among the many things we try to do at the Shepherd is highlight all of the good things in our community, such as world-class parks, a zoo that is known around the world, innovative museums and cultural venues for music and the arts and, of course, great restaurants that can hold their own with America’s best.
Why Local Ownership and Control are Important
Despite the honor of becoming the largest locally owned and operated newspaper, we had some mixed emotions as we saw the Journal Sentinel purchased for a second time in the past year by an out-of-state media conglomerate, the Gannett Company. Why does this out-of-state ownership matter and why should the readers and advertisers care? Studies upon studies have argued that, more than any other form of media, newspapers are vitally important in building a community and that a daily newspaper has a special role and responsibility.
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When a newspaper is locally owned and the owners live in the community, they are heavily involved in the place they call home and care deeply about their employees and readers. There is a different sense of commitment from a newspaper that is operated by a media conglomerate that owns more than 100 other newspapers. Large publicly traded corporations have a fiduciary responsibility to maximize the profits for their shareholders. When our economy went into recession in December 2007, corporate-owned newspapers slashed salaries, forced furloughs and laid off hardworking employees to meet their parent corporations’ profit goals no matter what the impact to the local newspapers and the communities they served.
As owner of a locally owned newspaper like the Shepherd Express, I could make the more humane decision to not lay off any employees or cut salaries even though it would cost me money. I personally knew every employee and their circumstances, whether they just bought their first home or had their first child. I felt that as long as they were giving the Shepherd 100%, I would subsidize the newspaper through the Great Recession.
‘Journal Sentinel’ Becomes Just Another Profit Center
Unfortunately, the role of the Journal Sentinel from Gannett’s point of view will be to serve as just another profit center that has to meet certain corporate profit goals any way it can. So we fear that there will be more layoffs and even less news covered as the Journal Sentinel is integrated into the Gannett chain and forced to fall in line with Gannett’s profit goals. There are some good people at the Journal Sentinel and we fear for their jobs.
We also fear for the quality of the news reporting in Milwaukee. A daily newspaper has a responsibility to cover all of the news in a balanced manner. While there is no real definition of “all the news” and perfect balance is a myth, the daily newspaper does have this responsibility and in return they get various benefits and subsidies. For example, in Wisconsin, only a daily newspaper can get paid for public notices according to state law. This is a lucrative subsidy. The Journal Sentinel and other dailies have fought hard to make sure the law doesn’t change, which prevents the public from having more choices; the law dampens competition and keeps costs to the public higher than they could be.
In return for this lucrative state subsidy, there is an unwritten agreement that the dailies try to cover all of the news in a fair manner. Before the recent retirement of its editor, Marty Kaiser, the Journal Sentinel made an effort to be fair. Many readers view his replacement as editor as a tea party favorite, and feel that the paper’s coverage and analysis has moved to the right. Now with Gannett in charge and the staff fearing for their jobs, there is a legitimate fear that the Journal Sentinel will move even further to the right, starting with their local “Politifact” that is commonly referred to as “Politifiction.”
Our Promises
As the largest locally owned newspaper in Wisconsin, we promise to continue our multiple layers of fact checking to ensure that the news we provide is accurate. We also promise to continue to be fearless as we speak truth to power no matter the consequences. Finally, we believe very strongly that more information and more points of view are important to a community and make our democracy stronger, so we also promise to continue to provide the Shepherd Express to you weekly for free from its more than 1,200 locations.
Sincerely,
Louis G. Fortis
Editor/Publisher
