By Larry Gordon
Some of the best journalism and most interesting reading come our way when the media take a look inward. It might be in the form of criticism or compliment, but the important thing–especially in these partisan days–is that TV, radio, and newspapers demonstrate the ability to step back and not just analyze what they are covering but how they cover it.
Even more interesting for many of us is when we can objectively and, yes, even critically, explore the world of Jewish journalism–in our case and for our purposes today, journalism that covers the Orthodox Jewish world. There is not too much of that kind of writing out there. I’ve made attempts in the past to review the state of Jewish media, but because it is so complicated I have not addressed the subject in several years.
As far as the Five Towns Jewish Times is concerned–and this is where most of my expertise is focused–I have never seen and still do not see the point of covering stories that reflect poorly on our community when those stories are already overrepresented in the general media. When someone in a leadership capacity in the community–especially the frum community–does something stupid and embarrassing, you can rest assured that in addition to the daily papers in New York, the story will also receive extensive coverage in both the Forward and The Jewish Week.
This week, however, I would like to discuss the physical dimension of newspapers as opposed to their editorial content. About a year ago, a salesperson for the New York Daily News printing division called our offices offering their services for our publication and requesting a meeting. They promised quality, efficiency, and a lower price. That’s an offer that is difficult to resist, so we scheduled a meeting.
The hitch to what seemed like a good idea was that the paper had to shrink in size. The way the Daily News presses operate, the newspaper would have to be redesigned, ad sizes would be smaller, and overall the paper would have a new, smaller look to it. Since both the News and the Post have experienced significant decline in readership, they are saving money and simply resizing the paper down.
One of the newspapers that immediately made the switch when the option became available was The Jewish Week. The paper arrived in the mail on Wednesday or Thursday morning as it usually does. The first impression was that the paper was a shadow of its former self–seemingly a concession that business was not what it was once upon a time and austerity options had to be considered. The smaller size might be economically prudent, but I did not like the look or the feel of the paper that way.
Then, shortly thereafter, I learned that Hamodia was also planning to shift over to the smaller size. I thought that was really an interesting move, considering that to this point Hamodia was the closest thing to the old Sunday New York Times–huge, massive, with section after section that just keeps coming at you.
Reading the Hamodia at its new size took some adjustment of perspective. A few months down the road, I have gotten used to the new shrunken format. In some ways, it is more readable and manageable, especially after the weekend when tasked with disposing all those papers and magazines collected for Shabbos.
Then the Forward went small, after years of being a broadsheet, and that was surprising. The Forward has been around for a long time in English and over 100 years in Yiddish, and it never really attracted serious advertising dollars. My hypothesis is that their focus on highlighting scandal and everything that can be perceived as wrong in the Jewish community does not, in the long run, resonate well with the reading public.
And my guess is that The Jewish Week seems to have a proclivity for reporting scandalous behavior. Now, don’t misunderstand; I’m not suggesting that those stories not be covered. Sure, media coverage and the pressure of being reported about in the papers should and does hopefully add some incentive for staying away from doing irresponsible and illegal things. But that does not always do the trick. I have long viewed these matters as involving the proverbial catch-22. If a person is going to do something stupid or illegal, it often enough might be attributable to some kind of psychological imbalance. Had they not had that kind of problem, they wouldn’t have done whatever it was. The fact that they did it means that they most likely have some kind of problem. In the cases of these two Jewish newspapers, I think the coverage of scandals is overdone.
Here in the Five Towns,we have a paper that at its inauguration was hoping to be like that too, but it just did not work out exactly that way. When my old friends at the Nassau Herald wanted to compete with the 5TJT about ten years ago–five years after we began publishing–the objective was to cut us off at the pass and emulate other papers in New York like The Jewish Week and the Forward by trying to be the Jewish community’s version of the Daily News and the New York Post. Not only is there not a market for that, it looks like people take umbrage and even object to those types of attempts.
Now all these year later, that paper, The Jewish Star, features some excellent journalism but is thin–rarely more than 20 pages. The Star is currently running an ad that has a copy of the Five Towns Jewish Times featured in it with a tagline that essentially says, “Bigger does not mean better.” That might be true in general, but in this instance the reference is misplaced and even comical. If you publish a paper and it doesn’t find its place, draws no critical acclaim, and is consistently small, don’t try to delude readers into thinking that being small has been your strategy all along. Sometimes bigger is both bigger and better.
Even funnier now are my good friends at the FJJ–The Flatbush Jewish Journal–another wonderful publication inspired by the 5TJT. Now the FJJ has decided to go small like the Hamodia, The Jewish Week, and the Forward. I sense by their publicity on the subject that they are not comfortable with the move. When you are a media entity, you want to project as big an image as possible. Shrinking the size of your product does not do the job–it achieves the opposite. But if you think that because you are a source of information that whatever you offer up is going to be easily absorbed by the public, you are underestimating the intelligence of your readers. The FJJ, which has great coverage of Brooklyn yeshiva events, sent out an e-mail blast that I received (please don’t take me off the list) that says, “Smaller, Bigger, Better.” The gist of the message is that the paper is getting bigger by shrinking in size. And then it says, “Big things come in small packages.” But the reality is that really big things usually come in really big packages, as they should. In reality, this switch is not about serving the reader–it is about saving money.
By my estimation and based on my meeting with The Daily News, they will be saving about $2,000 per week. Sure, it’s smart to save money, and I’m not saying I’m never going to do that. But if we do make the switch in size, I’m not going to write here that I’m doing it only for you. Please give me a break.
For now, the 5TJT has decided not to switch. There are problems at The Daily News. They are about half a billion dollars in debt and in the process of being sold. What the new management’s position on all this outside printing will be is presently unknown. For now, we have to keep an eye out for fluctuations in the printing market.
In the meantime, big papers continue to make a big impression.
Comments for Larry Gordon are welcome at editor@5tjt.com.
