THE NEIGHBORHOOD AS NICHE

Community Newspapers are on the rise. In a 2002 article for Publishers Auxiliary, entitled “The Future for Weeklies is Rosy Indeed,” newspaper consultant Ken Blum wrote: "The stats for dailies are sobering, even alarming. In 1970, according to the National Newspaper Association of America, 77.6 percent of adults more than 18 years of age read a daily newspaper over the course of a week. In 2000, that figure was down to 56.9 percent."

On the other hand, during the five years from 1998 to 2003, the circulation of paid weeklies is expected to increase by 3.1 percent.

The declining circulation of big city dailies has been big and bad news for many years now. Some dailies, like the San Jose Mercury News are fighting back by attempting to make their papers "more local, more useful and easier to navigate." However, the niche for local news is being filled more rapidly across the country by the kind of papers that are willing to run crime blotters, pictures of little league players and news about the infighting of neighborhood councils. And these weekly papers, unlike the alternative variety, have hit upon a circulation model that really works. Instead of being placed at distribution points, like stores, where readers have to make an effort to pick them up, these local weeklies are being delivered to homes — free of charge.

While, for some, having a small, local paper left on their doorstep is just one more thing to step over on their way to other pursuits, for most, the local news, delivered without cost or effort is a both a relief and a convenience.

At the Studio City Sun, Jim, Kelly and the rest of us, are betting on the future of these papers. Since we have all come of age in the alternative weekly world, we are well aware that the future financial success of what we’re doing will rely upon turning one paper into two, and two into four and four into an empire.

I would be willing to speculate that the reason people seem hungry for this type of paper, at least in Los Angeles, is that many are realizing that despite the vast geographic swaths that encompass the city, they don’t really leave their neighborhoods anyway, unless forced. In other words, after commuting for hours to work each day, they last thing people want to do is spend more time in their cars on the weekends driving to stores or cultural events. Sure, it’s worth making the trek to the Disney Concert Hall, or the beach, but most people would rather shop at a local store than travel across town to save $50 on a piece of furniture.

Second, in a world where the events of the day are leaving people feeling more powerless than ever, focusing on local issues provides a sense of power that doesn’t exist in other realms. The ability to influence one’s environment is a sorely lacking on the national, state or even city scale for most people. But while you might not be able to do anything about the war in Iraq, no matter how many MoveOn.org letters you send to your congressperson, you can attend the homeowners association meeting in your neighborhood and make a stink about pressing matters like litter, or the need for more signals at crosswalks.

Every neighborhood, or borough, it seems, is a small town. The more the community newspapers service those small towns — with their local coverage and local advertising — the more they will become indispensable. At least, we hope so.

For my part, I just want a job I don’t hate.

DEATH OF THE WEEKLY

By this time of year, mid-Summer, I’m usually working relatively steadily at Warner Bros. and not worrying too much about paying my bills. However, two months ago I was approached by some old friends about working for them, and decided to leave the sporadic-but-well-paying freelance-work-world behind — at least for the present.

Jim and Kelly, two people I’ve known since we were all snorting and toking kids in our twenties at the LA Weekly, asked if I would come to work on their community newspapers, the Studio City Sun and the Sherman Oaks Sun. After my stint in Highland Park, I had come to the conclusion that, community papers were not only viable, they were vital.

I live with a news junkie: someone who watches TV news for most of the day. Admittedly, it is part of her job to do this. Still, as I’ve gotten older I’ve seen the need for keeping on top of the news. As the mainstream media outlets become more biased, or spineless in their reporting — as they have all become willing to use newspeak to color perceptions — it is almost incumbent upon one to gather as much data as possible in order to determine what is actually happening in our country, or the rest of the world.

Jim, Kelly and I all came of age during the boom years of the alternative press. When I speak of alternative, I mean the leftish-entertainment weeklies that sprang up in just about every major town across the US during the 1980s and 1990s. Who knew that these papers, often outlets for the kind of local reporting that wasn’t being done elsewhere, would fall victim to the kind of corporatization that they had once eschewed? As conglomerates began to buy up the papers where we worked, local voices became less relevant to publishers as it became clear that costs could be kept in check through syndication and other methods of stamping out what was genuinely local. Though many of these papers, now almost all part of national chains, have kept some local flavor, in many ways they have become out-of-step with their communities.

Plus, who the hell needs another CD or movie review?

There was always a disconnect within the Association of Alternative Weeklies (AAN). For one thing, five minutes at an AAN convention made it clear that weeklies were primarily controlled by white men. Women and people of color were almost entirely absent from positions of authority — like the editor and publisher jobs. Sure women could run production departments, but content and business were controlled by men — men who thought that basing their economic model on running endless advertising for prostitutes was “freedom of speech,” and not exploitation.

But the era of the weekly is on the wane. Receipts are down. Interest is down. And not only are metropolitan dailies covering much of the ground that weeklies once held on to as their own—like quirky arts coverage — or publishing their own weeklies, internet sites have taken over the lefty politics. Enter the community paper.

Free of hooker advertising, free of useless national punditry and free of the hundredth movie review for an awful Michael Bay film that most would rather see on DVD anyway, community papers are filling a much needed niche.

After all, it’s all about niche markets now.

DESPERATION JOBS – Part III

Like most of us, me included, Patrick had a little trouble dealing with reality. Even after telling him I was leaving, he still kept behaving as if I was staying on. He tried to get me involved in future planning and other activities that made it seem like I was in for the long haul. I let him think what he wanted without much verbal resistance. I didn’t know how crazy he might get if I just stated the obvious. Some people don’t take kindly to having their fantasies revealed for what they are.

In actuality, I had agreed to stay to produce one more issue, which may have been a mistake on my part — but I both needed the money and hate to leave anyone dangling in the wind professionally. The first day I showed up to work on the new issue, he moved the deadline forward by a week to accommodate an event that he had previously ignored that had to be covered in the paper. In addition, the long-distance editor made it clear that he only had “weekends and nights to devote to the paper,” and couldn’t get anything done sooner. I immediately regretted staying.

The managing editor, Sam, was pretty stoical about all of this. She’d been there for months, and had seen it all before. I guess she needed the job to get her immigration status legitimized, because I couldn’t imagine why else she would put up with the nonsense. She was professional and a good writer. Still, it wasn’t until my last day there — again, working days after the print deadline — that she told me about her personal needs. Further, she told me that the reason the editor didn’t give much to the process, and the reason neither Patrick nor his wife held the guy’s feet to the fire about it, was that he was owed a year in back pay.

A year. Wow. That made me wonder what I was going to be up against when it came time to get my check. As long as Patrick had you in his office every day and had to face you, he was pretty good about paying — though he did frequently claim he “forgot” to write your check on payday. Still, he always came through within a semi-reasonable time frame. But knowing he hadn’t paid the editor for a year worried me.

Since he was in denial about my leaving, my plan was to finish the issue I’d promised to do and then show up one more day, present him with an invoice and get paid before I left. However, it was not to be. Instead I got a call from The WB and went in to work there for a week. On the one hand, it was a good thing because they always pay on time. On the other hand, e-mailing an invoice and relying on Patrick to post my check seemed like a bad idea. Particularly since he’d have to deal with the reality of my actual absence, and to him that was a betrayal. Since he bought lunch for everyone each day, he believed he was a nice guy who deserved undying loyalty. From my perspective, getting mediocre take-out every afternoon is less appealing that knowing how much time I have to spend at work, what days that work will need to be performed and, most importantly, when I will be paid. Not having someone treat my time with respect makes me regard him or her as less than nice. But that’s me.

In the end, it took over a month to get my money. I sent many electronic missives asking for the check, reminding him about the check and finally demanding the check. It was only when he needed a favor that he called me and acted like he’d had a check waiting for me the whole time and just “forgot” to put it in the mail. His new artist had planned to leave for a vacation and now he hoped I’d fill in for an issue. I took the opportunity to pretend I would consider his offer, and drove to his garage to get my pay and run.

The thing is, he was a nice guy in many respects. However, there is some kind of myopia that happens with certain kinds of entrepreneurs. They want to make their dreams a reality, and don’t take other people’s needs into consideration as part of the process. Maybe it’s not their job to do that. Still, I don’t see how one can be a success in life — not fully a success as a human being — without thinking about other people’s needs to some extent.

On the other hand, this is why I need to get back into Alanon. I think far too much about other people’s needs, and get involved too often with people who only think about their own.