The title of the workshop was "The Radio Journalist: An Endangered
Species." And I couldn't figure out whether the Society of Professional
Journalists planners had a stroke of genius or just slapped it together at
the last minute.
For there on the panel was Jeff Smulyan, president of Emmis Communications, surrounded by two public radio representatives. Smulyan's stations, with a few exceptions, are music intensive with minimal news. His presence was no doubt due to the fact that the Emmis Communications Empire is based in Indianapolis.
Smulyan toyed with his pen and looked distracted while Missouri University Journalism professor Ken Eich talked about the glut of students oriented towards television and the frustrations of radio positions that go unfilled.
But then it was Smulyan's turn to talk about the segmentation in the radio industry. "There will always be some news stations," he said, "but we have lots of research indicating most audiences don't have a great interest in news."
Ken Barcus, the Midwest Bureau Chief for National Public Radio, then responded by saying their research showed just the opposite. People are turning away from commercial radio and turning to NPR for local news.
Barcus talked about the golden opportunities to do journalism in public radio for young journalists. "If they want a place where they can really shape stories, there are still places to do it," he said.
Some times it takes awhile for young reporters to get established. "There's no short cut to not having a life for awhile, but you get better really fast. Then you get attention and move up. But we don't have enough people feeding into the bottom."
The new media may be drawing people away from radio, he suggested. And Eich added, "every community could use more stations that do local news."
Then Smulyan jumped back into the fray. "The marketplace determines what's available," he said. "NPR is a wonderful niche for about 1-2 percent of the population and serves them very well. But that's not large enough to be commercially viable."
Smulyan's newstalk station in Indianapolis, WIBC-AM, is the place most locals turn to for news, he suggested, but even they don't do in-depth NPR type coverage. His FM music stations do more lifestyle news.
"I've seen 100 surveys," he went on. "They all say I want to hear music. Don't give me a lot of information. I think it's the ultimate indictment of our society but it's reality."
Now it starts to get interesting. This is all about surveys. Surveys indicate what people want to hear on the radio. But who does the surveys and who asks the questions? Are the surveys written so broadcasters get the answers they want to hear?
A radio reporter from NPR's biggest affiliate, WMRC in New York City, is attending the SPJ convention to pick up an award for news coverage. She jumps in to say "our research shows public radio is the future of radio."
In New York City, she asserts, there's no news on commercial radio. There's a lot of frustration over job cuts and the lack of commercial radio news jobs. But when WMRC expanded its local news listenership grew from 800,000 to over one million.
"The decline in the quality of news in radio is frightening," Smulyan agreed. "I would love to see greater depth in commercial news. But what we do on the commercial side is market driven. America gets the (TV & radio) it deserves."
Then a question was raised, given the state of commercial radio, what responsibility does it have to shape public taste?
"It would be easy to an arbiter of public taste," Smulyan responded, "but when you tell them what this their taste should be it doesn't work."
As the parent of a 17-year old, he said he would like to see some changes. "But we cannot change what the public wants. We can only try to motivate the audience we reach to get into some kind of public service. We do have a responsibility to demonstrate that in our community activities."
Another public radio veteran in the audience agreed that it was expecting a lot of commercial radio, as it now stands, to lead the marketplace. He recalled the days when the FCC used to obligate licensees to do local news, and there were many good commercial radio news operations.
When the radio rules changed he expected those that did a poor job to drop their news but he was surprised that within just about two years almost all of the radio news jobs dried up, even at the stations that had been doing a good job at it. "Should we return to more regulation?" he wondered.
A very challenging discussion ended with some positive spin. Smulyan noted that even with all of the consolidation there are lots of great opportunities available. "Radio is the last great creative medium," he said. Eich agreed. "Telling stories visually over radio is an art form."
Nonetheless, some nagging questions remained. Is market driven radio giving news its due or is it so eager to trim its news expenses that it will use the excuse that (some) surveys show people don't want a lot of news. How much news is enough?
- SCRIBE editor Gordon Govier attended the 1999 Society of Professional Journalists National Convention as the president of the Madison (WI) SPJ chapter.