BYU NewsNet - The spectrum of a paper

"Not one bit! Gannett is behind the First Amendment. Whoever doesn't believe that way, they'll can 'em! If we compromise that we've lost the very thing we sell to people."

Brent Low, president and publisher of The Spectrum, uttered these not-so-subtle words in response to a question about what he thought of large media chains hindering local in-depth investigative reporting. The Spectrum is the only daily newspaper based in St. George and the only daily newspaper in Utah owned by the giant media corporation known as Gannett, which owns 95 daily papers in the United States as well as several other non-domestic papers.

Some experts in journalism claim that large-scale newspaper group ownership entities, such as Gannett, inhibit the newsgathering process and that impersonal ownership from a distant corporation impedes local investigative reporting.

As far as The Spectrum is concerned, Gannett has done too much to benefit the paper to even be considered a menace to in-depth journalism (at least much more than the last owner). Employees of The Spectrum praise Gannett as doing much to improve the journalistic quality of the paper, despite the fact that recent examples of the paper show that it relies heavily on wire services and soft feature stories.

Such judgment also comes in context of the fact that Gannett ownership of the paper is actually a recent acquisition. Prior to July 2000, another large media chain, the Thomson Corporation, had owned The Spectrum since 1984.

"Things have changed quite a bit frankly," said Kevin Jenkins, The Spectrum copy desk chief, and one staff member who has been there long enough to remember times under Thomson. "Gannett is more willing to invest than Thomson was. There's more money available. They spend more time out here. Gannett is interested in good, solid papers."

"With Thomson, reporters couldn't even use the Internet," said Todd Seifert, the current managing editor of The Spectrum.

Seifert has actually been a Gannett employee since before he began his tenure at The Spectrum. Before St. George, he worked at the St. Cloud Times and the Kansas City Star as well as other papers in Missouri and Kansas.

"One misconception of Gannett is that Gannett doesn't force employees to go to certain locations. There was a position and I applied," Seifert said. "They do make changes if leadership isn't there."

Seifert came to The Spectrum shortly after Gannett began a large upscaling of the paper. Among other things Gannett provided a new computer system and the addition of three more positions.

This reporter was not able to get specific figures on the difference in funding between Thomson and Gannett. When asked of the effects of Gannett's ownership on the paper the assistant to Brent Low, Marie Bowcut, said very simply, "It makes our pockets deeper."

So since the middle of 2000, The Spectrum has enjoyed a slight boom in wealth and technology. Their news reporting, however, could be held in greater criticism. The Spectrum edition of Thursday, May 23 of this year contained 98 stories. Of the 98, local PR wrote two and 79 were provided by wire services while Spectrum staff wrote only 17. Just over 17 percent of the stories came from the local staff. When advertisements - which take up about 66 percent of the average paper - are included, local copy took up roughly only 51/2 percent of the newspaper itself. Some of these stories included simple things such as the "Local News in Brief" which is just a listing of small blurbs of local events. Research of the paper on the dates of Tuesday, May 21 and Sunday, May 26 yielded semi-low results as well (24 percent and 28 percent). Such results makes one wonder how easy it would be to earn money starting a paper filled with nothing but advertisements and wire service copy from the Associated Press.

Research was also done on these three Spectrum editions in the form of a "milquetoast scale." Each story that appeared in the paper on those days (with the exception of the sports section of Sunday, May 26 because of lack of availability) was judged on a journalistic scale of 10. The milquetoast test breaks down as follows:

1- Stories strictly advertisement based

2- Stories originating from a public relations source

3- Canned or syndicated columns

4- Soft news stories including features and general sports event coverage

5- General objective news; usually the standard for wire service copy

6- Stories with interpretation, analysis or background; often these are based on old stories but bring a new angle into the picture.

7- Stories dealing with enterprise reporting, advanced reporting, mild muckraking, public affairs and in-depth reporting

8- Stories dealing with investigative reporting where the reporter depends on someone else's work such as government documents

9- Stories using the techniques of a social scientist (precision reporting)

10- Investigative in-depth stories which reveal secret and significant happenings.

On the three days examined by this writer, The Spectrum stories received a score above 5 on only six occasions out of 269. This percentage comes to just under 2 percent of all total stories and about .6 percent of the entire paper when ads once again included. Also, local reporters didn't write all of the above-average stories.

Seifert came to the defense of The Spectrum in regards to the research results. "That just happened to be a week where some people were gone. When you have a small staff like that you feel the crunch pretty bad," he said.

Seifert's ensemble of reporters makes the staff at The Universe, the campus paper for Brigham Young University, look like an army. The editorial staff is just about two-dozen. Seven reporters report to the city editor - three of which work outside of St. George more specifically for the Daily News, a paper for the rest of southern Utah which runs out of the Spectrum's office. The rest of the staff consists of an editorial assistant, two photographers, a graphic artist, four copy editors, four sports reporters (with one based in Cedar City), three features reporters and the various desk editors.

"Our reporters write about eight stories a week," said Seifert. "We have about 56 local stories a week."

Of the 17 percent figure Seifert said, "We usually get about 35 to 45 percent local reporter copy a week - probably closer to 35 percent." Seifert explained that under the Thomson regime the amount of local stories seemed to be much less.

Seifert also said that Wednesday, May 22 (a day sandwiched between two of the researched editions of The Spectrum), Kristin Millis, the Spectrum's city editor left the paper to move to California. This left Seifert with the city editor task as well as his usual managing editor duties. The paper still has not hired a replacement for Millis.

Although the days investigated yielded few stories scoring above the objective 5 - such stories included looks at a murder conviction, an out-of-state murder suspect and a glimpse at the rising cost of health insurance with regards to growth in southern Utah - Low again said that The Spectrum emphasizes investigative journalism in their work.

When emphasizing that Gannett's effects have been pretty positive, Low at one point chimed of the Spectrum reporters, "If they're not doing their job, they're looking for a new job - and that includes depth of story."

Seifert also said that the reporters at The Spectrum are expected to do in-depth work apart from the usual event coverage they do. "Those eight stories [that the Spectrum reporters write in a given week] are typically done in four days. We try to give one day where if they're working on a project, that's their time to do that," Seifert said.

According to Seifert, each month at The Spectrum is designated with a specific topic having to do with growth in southern Utah, which the reporters need to cover in addition to their usual beats. "We're looking at how growth has impacted different facets of life," Seifert said. "Last month was health care." Seifert said that such pieces begin on a Sunday and are two or three day packages.

The May 21 edition of The Spectrum included an example of The Spectrum's story package on health. A story appeared complete with a mini "GROWTH in So. Utah" graphic by Spectrum writer Jennifer Weaver under the headline "Health insurance a costly necessity." The story dealt with the rise in premiums of health insurance and seemed to go beyond the average event news story despite quoting from such second-hand sources as The New York Times.

"Last month we did a pretty in-depth piece on Yucca Mountain," Seifert said. "We worked with the Energy Department to get a tour of how it is right now. It was a big Sunday enterprise for us."

Seifert said that The Spectrum's upcoming June enterprise on growth in southern Utah would deal specifically with education. "Health is a school board issue because of growth in the area, so the two go hand in hand," Seifert said.

Of the paper's special in-depth stories Seifert does admit that The Spectrum is under handicap. "The dynamics are a lot different because you don't have the people," he said. "At the Deseret News and other papers you have general assignment reporters that can fill the gaps.

The Spectrum isn't just limited to investigative stories on health and education. The paper ran a three-part story over three weeks in May on homosexuality in the area. The reporter, Amie Rose, has only been working for The Spectrum since 1999. She graduated from Brigham Young University and spent a year working at a paper in New Mexico before her current job.

Her three-parter began on Mother's Day with a story on lesbian mothers and mothers with homosexual children. The next Sunday's story dealt with what prominent churches of the area - including The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints- had to say concerning the issue. The final story had to do with what programs homosexuals and their families can be a part of for support.

According to Rose, the paper initially received a lot of negative feedback from their readership concerning the story after the first one ran. "But we ran the remaining two stories," she said.

The May 26 opinion page of The Spectrum included an example of the feedback by the community in the form of a letter to the editor. "The Spectrum goofed badly by publishing an article about lesbian mothers on Mother's Day," stated Thella Brock of St. George. "This oxymoron causes the usual groans, cheers and yawns from the public for we humans are not created equal." Brock went on to quote scripture.

The editorial page during the month of May was full of negative commentary on the subject based on the pages from May 21, 23 and 26. Other angry letters included one from a pastor from the Living Word Christian Fellowship.

Low used Rose's example of journalism to show that Gannett doesn't interfere with The Spectrum's investigative agenda. "They encourage us to print the truth even if there is risk or cost," he said. "The homosexual story lost us subscribers."

Rose received heat from the conservative community but claims to have no regrets writing it. "The first week I only received negative comments, but in the end it was more positive," she said.

The Spectrum does have the luxury of being the only daily in the St. George area, but Rose said that the paper is not exempt from competition. "The Deseret News and the Salt Lake Tribune have people working down here. They've been doing more lately," she said. "[But] they don't cover everything. We don't find ourselves scooped."

The Deseret News correspondent, Nancy Perkins would not comment on The Spectrum. According to the people at the Deseret News, Perkins (another graduate of Brigham Young University) used to work for The Spectrum.

The correspondent from the Salt Lake Tribune could not be reached.

Although The Spectrum has enough reporters to compete with state juggernauts Deseret News and Salt Lake Tribune on their own turf, their numbers still seem pretty small. Seven reporters report to Seifert as acting city editor, but only four of them work from the St. George office. "We do our best to serve those folks [in Cedar City]," Seifert said.

Rose, Patrice St. Germain, Angie Parkinson and Jane Zhou make up the entire city reporting staff for St. George, yet their responsibilities even go outside the city. St. Germain for example, usually covers the small satellite towns surrounding St. George.

Of the relatively small size of The Spectrum's editorial staff, Seifert said, "There are only six dailies in the entire state and we are approximately the same size as the others." The low-circulation Herald-Journal out of Logan for example, has eight city reporters.

According to Kim Hafen, the controller for The Spectrum, the paper itself has 122 full-time employees as of the end of May. The editorial staff accounts for about two dozen while about 100 other employees are split up between production, advertising, administration, delivery, customer service and other publications. "Our reporting staff has gown as stories have grown," said Hafen. "Hurricane, for instance, didn't always have its own reporter."

When asked about the amount of reporters increasing or decreasing since 1984, when The Spectrum first came under ownership of Thomson, Hafen replied, "I don't have numbers that go back that far, but I'm sure we've had an increase in all areas."

Gannett has made other contributions to benefit the staff besides generalized funding. "We have a person in Washington D.C. who covers our congressmen," Seifert said. This person checks in every Monday and writes approximately one or two stories for The Spectrum per week, besides periodically checking the Supreme Court docket.

The correspondent also checks on the congressmen of two other papers out of California. This gives The Spectrum the disadvantage of appearing overly generalized by having Gannett services posted on bylines for a reporter who caters heavily to the paper despite not being a part of the actual staff. The Spectrum has the advantage of having the Washington correspondent, while other papers, such as the Salt Lake Tribune, recently released their own Washington correspondent.

Seifert said there are still other ways Gannett improves the paper. "Once a year we get readership quality review," he said. "They'll have a team who will critique - 'Are you doing well? Did you go as far as you possibly could have?'"

The review isn't the only time Gannett visits. "We have a regional vice-president who visits once a quarter and stays as long as a week," Seifert said. "Gannett is serious about it - about each local paper."

Seifert also mentioned Gannett's motivation for investigative journalism through their yearly awards. "One is for investigative reporting - that's the big prize," he said.

Despite Gannett's apparent interventions, neither Seifert nor Low said they feel that Gannett presses them editorially. "No editorial decisions were made from afar - they were all made in St. George," said Low. "It depends on me and Seifert."

Jenkins also had nothing but glowing things to say of Gannett. "They're very much hands off. We're not being bossed around. They do have issues as far as quality, but hopefully they're issues that make us better and wouldn't be negatives."

It may be fitting that The Spectrum's in-depth coverage usually has to do with the growth of St. George. Currently The Spectrum is going through quite a change itself. "We're working on a few different projects," Jenkins said. "Our most immediate goal within the next week will be overhauling the features section. That's been in progress for a few months now."

"Here we're keeping up with the growth of St. George area," Seifert said. "If the people don't read it and don't like it that's it for us."

"We're self-critical - that's important," Jenkins said. "We make mistakes. We don't want mistakes people will be complaining about, but readers will complain whether they're legit or not."