Newspapers on the block: Does anybody care?

Two venerable Connecticut daily newspapers are on death row, not because of their own sins, but because they became prey to the most miserable bunch of absentee journalistic bloodsuckers of the age. The Journal Register Corp. of  Yardley, Pa., now in its own economic death throes, has chosen to sacrifice the Bristol Press and New Britain Herald and has decreed that they will go out of existence Jan. 1 unless, through some miracle, buyers are found for them.

The newspaper industry has challenges enough adjusting to the Internet and other electronic media without this sort of affliction. It is a sad and disheartening example of how some newspapers are being exploited by pirate-assassins within their own midst, who claim the mantle and title of publishers but would be just as much in character peddling sub-prime mortgages or kiting Enron stock.                                                   

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It began with the operations of Ralph Ingersoll II, onetime Lakeville resident not to be confused with his father, a respected publisher and manager. Starting with a small group of papers, primarily in New Jersey, inherited from his father, Ralph Ingersoll II became known for buying independent papers and sacking half their staffs. In association with Pincus-Warburg on Wall Street he used junk bonds to acquire a substantial chain that became the nucleus for the Journal Register enterprise.

Using the same techniques of reducing staffs and consolidating and combining printing operations, Journal Register acquired various groups around the country, notably near St. Louis. It operated five dailies and 22 weeklies in Connecticut along with other groups in nearby New York state. These included the Bristol Press and the New Britain Herald, each with a  distinguished past.

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     E. Bartlett Barnes, the longtime publisher of the Bristol Press, was the man most associated with freedom of information in Connecticut. He worked closely with Gov. Ella Grasso to craft and enact the 1975 Freedom of Information Act. For many years afterward he was active as a member of the Freedom of Information Commission. When he and his family sold the Press to Loren Ghiglione of the Southbridge Evening News in Massachussetts, it was with the expectation that the Press would be strengthened as an independent operation.

The New Britain Herald was long a respected independent paper under family ownership with Judith Brown as its editor and publisher. Its editorial voice carried weight and conviction.

Such papers were part of the heart and soul of the communities they served. Not only did they cover the people and the doings, they also asked the tough questions, suggested solutions and served as a public conscience. It is hard to envisage these functions being provided satisfactorily by anonymous electronic comments or blogs for which no one is legally responsible.

 Even under ultimate Journal Register ownership, the diminished staffs of the acquired publications strived to do a good job with the resources they had. Bill Sarno, the longtime editor of the Bristol Press, was managing editor of The Lakeville Journal in the mid-1980s, and I feel a personal loss in the predicament he faces.                                     

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So what can be done? Despite the good will expressed by Governor Rell and leaders of the Connecticut General Assembly, I cannot see much utility in governmental intervention at this point and I think newspapers should shun a governmental subsidy. Just conceivably community fundraising could play a meaningful role in rescuing one or another of the papers from oblivion. The impetus ought to be local.

For the longer range I foresee the possibility of some sort of tax revision that could enable newspapers that wished to do so to become nonprofit corporations operating in the public interest. But that status is unlikely for papers still owned by absentee corporations that continue to regard them as cash cows.

I wish I could be optimistic about a situation that has a direct relationship to the workings of the democratic process, especially at the local level. It is time for creative people with legal knowledge, who are interested in what newspapers can mean to a community, to put their collective heads together to suggest solutions. The problem is a very deep and real one for those of us concerned that there continue to be watchdogs of the democratic process.

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Almost every good thing that can be said about Zenas Block of Salisbury has been said by others who worked with him more intimately than I did — how as a longtime member of the Board of Finance, member of various boards and commissions, he served the community and its institutions for many years. I took particular interest in his work with Sharon Hospital — how he as constructive critic helped put together the structure that protected the long-term interests of the area while facilitating purchase by Essent when there was no promising alternative. Mostly I admired his great good sense.

Such a man is indeed a rare treasure.