The Newspaper Business

I've been reading A Flash of Green by John D. McDonald. I picked it up from Powell's back in January. I'm a little slow. The first half of the book was definitely slow going, talking about all the characters and their comfortable suburban life style, but the second half is starting to pick up. Or maybe I've just developed an interest in the story, not because of the first half, I only know the name of a couple of characters: Jimmy Wing, newspaper reporter, and Kat, works at a bank or something. Maybe something just changed in my head. Anyway, round about page 207, pursuant to a local political dispute over whether to dredge and fill the bay in order to build a new subdivision, Jimmy explains the newspaper business to Kat. I thought his explanation was spot on. Remember, this was back in the 1960s and local newspapers were still a thing.

"Kat, are you comfortable? Can you listen to a lecture?"

"I’m stretched out across my bed," she said, "but don't you

want to dry off?"

"I brought my towel along. Feet on my desk. Cigarettes

handy. Now listen carefully, dear. You're an intelligent woman. I

went into journalism out of a sort of idealism. I fell in love with

a glamorous gal called the newspaper game, and after I'd lived

with her a few years I found out she's a whore. She talks big,

sometimes, but she's bone-lazy, cynical, greedy and perfectly sat-

isfied with herself. Do I sound like a college sophomore?'

"Maybe . . . a little."

"So let's look at the facts. I think these figures are close. There

are seventeen hundred and sixty-one daily newspapers in this

country. Sixty-one of them are in cities with more than one

newspaper. The other seventeen hundred are monopoly- papers.

The Record Journal is a monopoly paper. Now here is the crazy

thing about a monopoly paper. It is the only form of monopoly

not subject to regulation. Regulation would be interference with

the freedom of the press. The A.N.P.A. would never let that hap-

pen. So, in seventeen hundred cities of America, including this

one, the publisher decides exactly what he will give the public.

We present the cheapest, dullest possible coverage of national and

international news, and all the bargain syndicate items. In con-

trast, our local news coverage is maybe a little better than average.

But the publishers—Ben Killian included—look on news as a

tiresome but necessary evil, and they resent the public for expect-

ing it. It's the only game in town, Kat, and its main, basic, pri-

many, unchangeable purpose is to sell advertising and make

money. Follow me?"

“Yes,” she said hesitantly.

“Actually this is a better paper than the average, because Ben

Kilhian doesn’t have any particularly strong opinions. Our politi-

cal stance is conservative Democrat on a local level, Republican

on national issues, which precisely reflects the point of view of

the advertisers. Suppose, as is true in many unhappy areas, Ben

Killian was a confirmed John Bircher, a witch-hunter, an Oppres-

sor of every variety of liberal thought and viewpoint. Then,

with no regulatory checkrein, no holds barred, he could make

happen here what has been happening in, for example, Boulder,

Colorado. He could have an outraged citizenship, indomitably

ignorant, purging their community of everything which did not

fit their standards of mediocrity. But Ben and Borklund have

merely the simple touching desire to make the maximum amount

of money with the minimum fuss. To do this, the paper must go

along with the viewpoints of the advertisers. So, if Ben showed

any sign of deviation, it is natural that the advertisers would ar-

range to move against him in the direct way of cutting their bud-

gets for newspaper advertising as much as they dare. Because they

can’t cut it completely and survive themselves, they move against

him in other ways, through the pressure they can generate

through their indirect control of the agencies of local govern-

ment. Clear?”

“It sounds so... cut and dried.”

The business about The John Birch Society in Boulder is a little curious, but Google found nothing. It could just be a stand-in for anytown where a firebrand got the local folks all fired up about something.

I quoted another passage in an earlier post.

Update June 2, 2025. In response to an inquiry I made, Caroline Woodiel, the Archive Manager of the Boulder Public Library sent me three clips from their archives. They don't really shed any light on the subject, other than you can see that the John Birch Society was active in Boulder back then. You can see them here.