October 06, 2004

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Palo Alto Online

On Deadline: Journalism in Palo Alto -- a quarter century of change and consistency

by Jay Thorwaldson

Bill Johnson first came to my notice as a recent Stanford grad who was handling press relations in the 1970s for then-Congressman Pete McCloskey.

As a then-reporter for the Palo Alto Times, covering Palo Alto community issues, I had limited contact with him, but knew that he was highly regarded by our political writer, John Stanton, as a source of reliable information. I was thus surprised when Johnson invited me to lunch two or three weeks after I retired from the paper in July 1979 (after covering Palo Alto for 13 turbulent and interesting years) -- soon after it became the now-defunct Peninsula Times Tribune. I was astounded when he rolled out a set of spreadsheets showing five years of month-by-month financial projections for a new weekly paper he planned to launch that fall. "This guy is going to succeed," was my first thought. I later learned he'd called it nearly to the month when the Weekly would move from the red into the black. We briefly discussed an editor position, but the salary was not sufficient on which to raise three sons in a time of double-digit inflation. It was an honor some 20 years later to be invited to apply for the editorship, in the spring of 2000. Yet our 1979 luncheon was the start of a continuing friendship that included my inviting Bill to visit a communications class I was teaching as a lecturer at Stanford in 1980. I introduced both him and his vision of what a community newspaper could and should be. I predicted his paper would be a model of locally owned, intelligent, responsible and constructively critical journalism -- at a time when non-journalist corporate ownership of large media was just emerging nationally. That vision, remarkably, has not changed. Bill's commitment as publisher remains dedicated to honest, analytical and vigorous coverage of the community at both the level of surface controversies and in its deeper economic, social, neighborhood and environmental trends. Johnson told me he'd thought about founding a weekly paper in the Palo Alto area for a least two years prior to the launch year, but the Palo Alto Times had a hammerlock on local readership. Its paid circulation penetrated about 80 percent of all Palo Alto households -- considered blanket coverage. Percentages declined in neighboring communities but were still high. But thousands of readers were alienated by the loss of "Palo Alto" from the newspaper's name. Changes in design, coverage styles (with the Jonestown Massacre and Moscone/Milk slayings coming close together soon after the merger) and an inopportune newsprint shortage that required "tightening the news hole" angered residents. The same name-loss reaction happened with the Redwood City Tribune, the other half of the Peninsula Times Tribune. A series of unfortunate choices for editors and poor management decisions caused the circulation to spiral downward year by year from an initial 68,000 to the 50s, later dropping into the 40s. Supporting numerous news "zones" plus launching a weak Sunday edition into a market dominated by two of the best Sunday papers on the West Coast -- the Mercury News and former Sunday Chronicle/Examiner -- exhausted the heroic staff and siphoned energies from the strong local coverage for which the predecessor papers had been known. Earlier production deadlines meant far fewer "today" stories in the afternoon paper. But the Weekly thrived, capturing the readership and respect of many residents. As I watched from the sidelines of the Palo Alto Medical Foundation public affairs office -- with close contacts and friendships with several staff members and editors -- the Weekly picked up the Times' mantel of responsible local news coverage. In addition to strong news, arts, real estate, education and sports coverage, the Weekly's huge strength was, and is, its in-depth stories. Some are light, entertaining, interesting; others dig into hard local issues, ranging from the stifling "Palo Alto Process" to the city's long-term economic trends and well-being. The Weekly has covered adolescent stress and academic pressures from the 1980s on. It has covered 25 years of the environmental movement, both land-use battles and differences within the green movement. It has covered the explosion of real estate prices and the dot-com bust of 2001, as well as the local impacts of 9/11. It has explored needs of the elderly, of children, of families, of individuals. The paper could have done better on reporting the technological revolution in communications surfacing around it -- although it did become in 1994 the first paper in the nation (perhaps world) to put all its content on the Web. It has been inconsistent in covering the local health care issues. The staff is especially proud of the fact that for the past five years the Weekly has won three first places and two second places for overall general excellence among large non-dailies statewide. Awards included four firsts in a row for best editorial pages -- plus numerous other top awards in various categories, many for outstanding photography and design. The Weekly launched a community Web site -- www.PaloAltoOnline.com -- in 1996. In recent years it has added daily online news postings, an e-bulletin service for breaking news (such as visiting mountain lions) and a Master Community Calendar -- an immense undertaking. Nearly 2,200 persons read the online posting on last week's earthquake near Parkfield within the first 2 1/2 hours of its being posted. Over the years, no paper I know of has had a stronger commitment to straightforward reporting, accuracy and depth than the Weekly -- now echoed in its sister papers: the Almanac in south San Mateo County, the Mountain View Voice, the Pleasanton Weekly (founded in 2000) and last month the Pacific Sun in Marin County. The Weekly staff has faced some extra challenges and opportunities. One was the addition of the Weekend Edition on Fridays in 1993, coinciding with the closure of the Times Tribune. Two years later, the Weekly was confronted by the 1995 launch of the Palo Alto Daily News, an unusual free daily newspaper that seemed bent more on running stories to attract attention and advertising that providing insightful coverage of the community. But the Weekly opted (correctly, I believe) to stick with its original focus and not attempt to emulate the Daily's idea of local journalism. Weekly writers and editors continue to focus on depth coverage, emphasizing relevance, usefulness, interest and compelling writing. Last year we modified our editorial mission statement to add "aggressively pursue" to re-emphasize how we go after stories -- both in timeliness and in a zeal to get at the deeper aspects of stories. Through it all, we maintain a commitment to local journalism that both Bill and I sharedeeply, along with the editors and reporters on the front lines of local coverage -- and which I carry from my earliest years at the Palo Alto Times in the mid-1960s. That consistent commitment is to strive to develop stories in a way that shows a clear understanding of the issues and facts, and to operate in an ethical and fair manner. We can be sharply critical editorially when that is called for, yet show compassionate sensitivity in our coverage of people's lives. We realize it takes far more effort to build a better community than to attack and criticize the efforts of others, and we strive to report both the criticisms and the long-term positive work of the many hundreds individuals who together comprise our community.

Weekly Editor Jay Thorwaldson can be e-mailed at jthorwaldson@paweekly.com.

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