I've gone from subscribing to the paper seven days a week, to just the Friday/Saturday/Sunday package, to just the Sunday edition.  Here's why I'm going to finally let go of receiving a print edition altogether:

1. The print edition has been taken over by advertising. I understand that ads have long-been the bread and butter of a newspaper's business model, and I'm willing to tolerate some reasonable proportion of ads to content in order to get the content.  But when the roll of paper that shows up on my porch is seemingly made up of 95% advertising and 5% content, I can't justify it.  The resource usage is ridiculous given that I immediately recycle or throw away that 95%, and I just don't like the sense that I'm primarily paying to support a conduit for advertisers to influence me, instead of for something that's primarily a journalism product.  (For what it's worth, the online edition has also been taken over by advertising, but at least there I can automatically block out the ads with software.)
2. The local news coverage is understandably but unacceptably thin. With a shrinking staff of reporters and more pressure than ever before to produce headlines that sell papers, I find the coverage of local and regional issues and news to be lacking (at least according to the standard I put forth two years ago).  When they do cover local issues, it's rarely with a depth and perspective that challenges and engages me as a reader and citizen.  I believe the Pal-Item staff has great intentions and are working their butts off to cover as much as they can, but that doesn't mean the P-I is sufficiently living up to its role as the local newspaper.
3. The Palladium-Item hosts some of the most toxic public conversations happening in our community. If you read any given article on the Pal-Item website, there's usually at least one person (and sometimes many people) offering uninformed, insulting, immature or outright hateful comments.  The most egregious comment-makers are sometimes reprimanded or even banned, but it hasn't changed the tone of the general conversation.  When I talk to other people out in Richmond about the Pal-Item website, our conversation almost always turn to the harm being done by the online discussions happening at pal-item.com.  On principle, I don't want to help fund that conversation space any more.  It's only fair to note that the Pal-Item also facilitates some very helpful conversations too via their "PI Live!" online interview segments - more on that below.
4. It's not my job to support a struggling business for the sake of offering support alone. I'm sad about the decline of print journalism, and I'm especially sad that it's declined so far in my town, which sorely needs a good local paper.  But I don't think it's my job to keep funding a model that isn't working, just because I'm nostalgic.  I've stayed on with my subscription as long as I have somewhat out of guilt - "oh no, I don't want to contribute to the downfall of the newspaper industry" - but it's increasingly clear that that industry hasn't sufficiently regarded trends threatening its existing business models, and it's not my job to bail them out.
5. I can get the same information for free online. I'm Internet-connected to the point of lunacy, and so I can pull up the tidbits of Palladium-Item content that I'm interested in at a moment's notice on one of the glowing rectangles I surround myself with all day.  Sometimes I even learn that information sooner via social networking sites and other community resources.

So, with all of those things considered, I can't think of a reason to keep paying to have a roll of ads (with a sprinkle of articles thrown in) show up every week.

But make no mistake, I WILL give the Palladium-Item my money again - maybe even MORE money - if the conditions are right!  Some possible scenarios:

1. They find a way to bring in additional reporters or other staff to produce a more substantial and well-rounded news product.
2. They allow me to pay a slightly higher subscription fee in order to not receive all of the ads that come with the Sunday edition.
3. They make available an online edition that doesn't have advertising at all, or that at least implements it much less intrusively and much more tastefully.
4. They charge a small fee for live viewing of community events and interviews with community leaders (and then make a time-delayed version available a bit later).
5. They more fully embrace citizen journalism and crowd-sourced content, while avoiding ridiculous copyright/licensing policies.

Print journalism will either reinvent itself, or it will fade away.  The Palladium-Item will either reinvent itself, or it will fade away.  In the meantime, I'm done with supporting the in-between option - it doesn't work for me.

What about you?  If you've kept your subscription to a print newspaper, what factors support that?  If you canceled or never had one in the first place, why?

1. Watchdog journalism involves writing stories that hold public officials accountable for their actions or stories that help to right wrongs in the community, for example. In what ways could we improve in this area?

The Palladium-Item is to be commended for its consistent presence at government and institutional meetings, no matter how boring or routine they are.  That said, the paper often seems to be getting its stories out the door about important or controversial issues just as those items are reaching some sort of final decision point.

At some level I'm sure this is what many decision makers and news makers would prefer - their jobs are easier when there's less time for the public to be outraged before it's "too late."  And it's true that it's still the responsibility of the citizenry to make itself aware of what issues are before, say, Common Council, and not depend entirely on the paper to note items of possible interest.  But I would be pleased to see the Palladium-Item try to maintain even more context on community issues that are under discussion, before they've reached a point of ostensible "no return."

On the other side of the matter, there's the issue of accountability once a wrong or disservice has been committed.  The general "media strategy" practiced by most public figures in this community when they're involved in something controversial is "wait a few days and everyone will have moved on to something else." They're generally right that the collective memory of the community is subject to manipulation and distraction - hey, what's that shiny thing over THERE....oh wait, sorry - and so we do need the paper to look back at how decisions were made and hold the decision-makers accountable.  It can be tough sometimes when the mindset of the reporter understandably becomes "how many more stories can I do about disingenuous plotting by council members to de-fund the Human Rights Commission, we already DID that one?"   But know that nonetheless, I think there's a real thirst in this town for follow-up and perspective on those kinds of things, because they help us remember what we did wrong, and how we can do better next time.

And when election time rolls around, don't just print the candidates` answers to questionnaires and their prepared responses at a debate - show us their voting record, their public statements (or noticeable lack thereof) about important issues, their actual contributions to the community (instead of their provided list of affiliations).  Tell us their story in a way that fits into the larger narrative of the community, and don't take their word for it.

2. The Sunday edition of the Palladium-Item has, by far, our biggest single-day circulation. Past feedback tell us its the day our readers have the most time to spend with the paper. It's also an important day to our advertisers because of the bigger audience it enjoys. What could we do to make that edition special for you?

When I sit down to read the Sunday paper, I don't want to just read articles, I want to have an experience.  Yes, I want it to be like reading the New York Times.  I want there to be options, different subject mater, formats and voices.  I want to be challenged and amused and provoked, and then I want to sit back and think about that, and then I want to move on to another article or section and do it all over again.

The current experience of reading the Palladium-Item on Sunday is about a 10-15 minute process on average, and some of that is getting all of the advertising circulars separated out and thrown away so I can tell how much "real" content is left.  That's not even enough time to get me through a cup of coffee and breakfast, let alone a lazy Sunday morning.

Okay, I know that it's unlikely the Pal-Item is going to be able to ramp up content production to NYT Sunday levels.  And I know that short of a rich uncle depositing some bags of money in your laps, you're physically limited by the number of staff you can afford to have working on that edition.  But if you have resources to expend on making the Sunday edition "special," please make sure you focus on expanding your reporting and news analysis - that would feel very special to me.

3. We want our Web site to be viewed as a primary source for breaking news in our area. How can we make that happen? What would that look like on pal-item.com?

I'll tell you exactly what it looks like: collaboration with other sources of local news to display their headlines and links to their stories on your site.  Yes, I really said that and no, I'm not kidding.  With your current staff resources, you can't expect to always be the first news organization to break a story, and so you have to position yourself to still be the place where people come to read about breaking news, even if it's not your content. If they know that if they go to Kicks96/WHON and G101.3/WKBV and Twitter and the EDC site and the Chamber site and WayNet.org and so on to find stories and information you don't have yet, then pal-item.com will always just be one stop along the way for most users, not a primary source.  You need critical mass.

The nice thing is that the pieces are all almost in place for this to happen.  If you can collaborate with other news reporting / news breaking entities to insure that RSS feeds are readily available, you can build a "breaking news portal" with little technical effort.  Yes, they might build their own breaking news portal too, but that's okay.  Really, trust me.

Also, crowdsource it.  Find trusted local readers (even if they have conflicts of interest and affiliations and biases) and give them the power to post information directly on your breaking news pages (or via their own RSS feeds, Twitter streams, etc).  Don't moderate it, don't filter it, or if you do, let other readers do the filtering and moderating along with you.  Yes I really said that, no I'm not kidding.

4. Traditionally, newspapers have had a leadership role in their communities, and that's something we would like to continue here. How would you suggest we take a greater role in that?

As I think you and your colleagues know, being in a true leadership role is not something you can necessarily choose or create, it's something that's earned over time by consistent acts that bring something to the community with integrity and perspective.  The paper has one of the loudest voices in town when it comes to shaping the thoughts and conversations of our everyday lives.  If I were running the Pal-Item, I would ask every day, "does our news product and the work of our staff use our loud voice in a way that builds up the community, informs and challenges our readers with new and different perspectives they're not getting elsewhere, and helps create or promote a vision for a sustainable, enjoyable future that can be enjoyed by all?"  If there are times when the answer is "no," make changes and move on.  If there are times when the answer is "yes," then you're serving in an important leadership role, keep it up.

I know the values implied in this question are very different from the traditional journalistic imperatives that shaped a newspaper's role in a town for so long, but times they are a changin`.

5. What can we do to improve customer service?

I've never had a negative customer service experience with the Palladium-Item.  That said, one weird thing you could resolve is the way you ask people to submit information or letters to you through your website.  There's the filling out of a form and the cramming of text into a small text box, which is totally inconvenient if you're submitting a press release that's already been prepared as a PDF or Word DOC.  It's understood that the Pal-Item staff use e-mail (and sometimes you print their addresses in the paper), so why not provide direct e-mail as an alternative to the weird form?

Also, take the lead in getting this community to use QR Codes.  Please? Thanks.

...

Thanks to Jason for asking for reader/public input on the paper's operations and future.  If you have your own thoughts on what the local paper needs to do to stay relevant, engaging, and, ahem, solvent, feel free to share here or on Jason's blog post.

Richmond already has a number of issues with public perception when it comes to tourism and first impressions.  All discussions of religion and symbology aside, I think this new fixture probably doesn't help with that.  But the main question that came up in the casual discussions I've had with people about it is "how does such a thing go up without the community having any input on it?"  To answer that question I contacted Scott Zimmerman, who works as a City Planner with the City of Richmond.

Here's what he had to say:

Under our Zoning Code, R-1 One-Family Residence District allows as Principal
Permitted Uses Institutional uses including churches. That would include all
church uses unless specifically prohibited or further regulated somewhere in
code. Under our sign code, things like flags and monuments are not
considered signs. If this were part of a church building (steeple) it would
be regulated. This is also why the Ford dealership has a similarly large
flag pole which has no review through our office.

The only permit required was an Improvement Location Permit (ILP) verifying
setbacks and zoning.

So, there you have it.  My understanding is that the zoning code is changing soon in a way that might require a little more oversight from the City before such large items are put up, but I don't know the details of that.

What do you think about a symbol like this as an introduction to Richmond for travelers, visitors and residents?  Is it a good and appropriate use of $150,000?

The de-funding measure was proposed by Councilman J. Clayton Miller.  Every encounter I've had with Mr. Miller has been a positive one, and he seems to be a good person doing what he believes is right, which I appreciate.  I'm sure that his fellow supporters on Council who also voted in favor are also doing what they think is right.  But I question whether they have made this decision with full consideration for the needs of the whole community in mind.

Let's not kid ourselves: these five men are privileged white males who enjoy a fair amount of power and influence in this community.  It's unlikely that they have recent personal experiences of being discriminated against in Richmond based on their race, gender, or ethnicity.  I write this blog entry as a privileged white male in the community who is fortunate to have experienced minimal discrimination in my own efforts at employment, career-building and personal success.  Are the lot of us really in a position to confidently say that Richmond doesn't need a locally-based organization focused on defending the rights of people who are NOT coming from a place of privilege, and who ARE being discriminated against?

Before making such a decision, I hope the council members at least took the time to:

• Meet with the staff and board of the Human Rights Commission to listen closely to their input and suggestions about how closing down the agency would affect the community
• Meet with the people who have been affected by the Commission's work, especially citizens who have submitted claims or engaged in casework, and listen closely to how their case might have gone differently if the local Commission didn't exist
• Say, as Mr. Miller said he would in his campaign for his Council seat, "let's figure out how" we can make this agency work in a way that meets the needs of local citizens and balances budget constraints in the City government, and then really work with all parties involved to do so.
• If they can't figure it out, work with state agencies to insure that in the absence of a local commission, the same level of services can and will be provided to the citizens of Richmond who are being discriminated against.

If these Council members voting in favor of cutting this agency's funding didn't each personally engage in at least those activities, then I think they've been irresponsible in their actions and failed the people they are supposed to represent.

To be sure, the Human Rights Commission has had a checkered past in this community.  A former director was known for defending against some kinds of discrimination while actively engaging in others, politics and grandstanding often go along with any headlines about its work, and there are real questions to answer about the role it plays in the context of state agencies and other organizations with similar missions.

It seems clear from the initial reaction to last night's vote that these questions were far from answered, and that the Commission still plays a critical role in a community that does struggle with discrimination of all kinds.  The decision needs to be re-examined and better explained, and in the absence of a clear justification that goes beyond saving money to really look at the impact on all citizens (not just privileged white men in power), the decision should be reversed.

It's hard to know what to think about this trend.

It could be the work of a very disturbed individual, but the related rash of business robberies would seem to point to some larger phenomenon.  In tough economic times, it's normal for some individuals who were already at the edge of being able to survive to take new approaches, including crime.  I don't think there's a direct economic motivation to invade someone's home and assault them if you could "only" rob them instead, but if this is a general breakdown of some social contracts that we have with each other not to go ape-shit just because we can, that too could be tied back to tough economic times.

It's also hard to balance empathizing with the victims and experiencing the fear that hearing about these incidents creates with trying to still see the larger picture that these are isolated acts in an otherwise generally safe city.  But as we've seen with various national and local crises (e.g. "The D.C. Sniper", school shootings, etc.) it only takes one very vivid imagining of "that could have been me!" to cause us to change our behavior.

The police say that they're working on this, and we have to take their word for it.  It would be helpful if someone could offer a significant financial reward for information leading to the capture of anyone involved in the home invasions; if economics is a motivating force, then you can play along by offering an even stronger version of that motivating force.  But none of that will change the fact that there are people living among us who feel they can or need to commit robbery, sexual assault, or worse - this is a deeper problem that no police force can systematically address.

So, how does a community address this particular kind of trend?   Is it about community policing and neighborhood watches and more funding for law enforcement?

Or does it involve more interpersonal accountability, healthier families and neighborhoods, cultural shifts away from objectification of women, examining the media messages we consume and what they encourage, better education, and new models for how individuals can be valued and make a living?

I suspect that elements of all of the above are important, but all of them take time, and that won't help anyone sleep any better tonight.

The Quaker college has tried for decades to get a traffic signal at its entrance, an effort that began soon after Earlham student David Rantanen was killed crossing the highway in 1962. Since then, two more people have died and several more were hit and injured by vehicles on the four-lane highway near the school's main drive.

While the decision isn't official, the concession on the part of state highway planners that a signal is needed is a major one.  I cringe when I'm in a car or walking as a pedestrian in that area, as it really is a game of "look both ways about 10 times and then cross your fingers and run for it" for pedestrians.  And while I ascribe no general ill will toward Earlham students on the part of Richmond drivers, it does seem to be a section of road that highlights the inherent disdain that some drivers have for pedestrians in this town.  Sometimes they even speed up a little when students are crossing, instead of slowing down.

The usual criticisms are already resurfacing: why should taxpayers pay for a crossing between two parts of a private campus, why didn't Earlham just build a pedestrian bridge with its vast vaults of extra cash, etc.  (And as usual, critics are posting their demands for answers in the Pal-Item's online comment section instead of taking them to the people who can actually answer them, which in my mind means they don't really want an answer, they just want to complain.)

But I think we can generally address those concerns by remembering that all of us pay for infrastructure like roads, sidewalks, crossing signals, traffic lights, etc. that may or may not directly benefit our own daily commute - it's nothing new to ask the entities that are responsible for managing that infrastructure to build some new ones in places that are needed.  The lives of pedestrians are no less worth protecting as they cross a public road, just because there happens to be privately owned land on either side...that's pretty much how every residential street works.

Congratulations to Earlham for creatively staying on this and to the INDOT folks for (finally) taking heed.

The Co-op has always been associated with Earlham, from the time it was started by a group of students in the Runyan desk.

To the contrary, the Co-op was actually started inside of a storage bin. At some point when it got big enough, the organization moved into the largest available compartment of an end table, and then worked its way up to reside in a desk in Runyan Center, but not the desk we know today as Runyan Desk. These details are important.

In all seriousness and despite the misquote, the article touches on the key point that the future of the Co-op, currently located on Earlham's campus, is a bit uncertain right now. As we try to figure out what model is best (and sustainable) for the organization, the Earlham populations it serves, and the larger Richmond community, we invite feedback from others who are invested in the future of a locally owned food store that focuses on healthy, local, organic products and cooperative values.

It seems like QUITE an unfortunate juxtaposition to me to have this kind of announcement in that kind of setting.

Malls like the Richmond Square Mall certainly provide great shopping opportunities, but tend to be populated by businesses that are not locally owned and that give less back to the local economy and community over the long run than businesses that are locally owned. In most "buy local" campaigns across the country, one of the primary goals is to get shoppers to expand their notion of shopping opportunities beyond "the mall" to once again consider what small business districts and downtowns have to offer.

If Richmond residents think that buying local just means going to a shop within city limits, the potential impact of the buy-local message is diluted as their dollars leave the community for corporate headquarters elsewhere.

I asked the Chamber and Mayor's office to reconsider the venue - feel free to do the same if you're so inclined.

The problem is, McCain has done nothing to question the underlying thinking and assumptions that have fueled these fires. By passing them by he essentially reinforces the dangerous framing, and does little toward any truly just treatment of the issues that have come up.

Take the exchanges in this town hall meeting, for example. A man says he's scared of an Obama presidency, and McCain says that you wouldn't have to be scared of an Obama presidency, but doesn't say why, or why whatever there was to be scared of in the first place isn't really a legitimate concern.

A woman says she's worried because Obama is an Arab. McCain says no, he's a decent family man. So, according to McCain, being an Arab man is the opposite of being a decent family man? Not only is this a minimally effective request for respect toward Obama, it's essentially an endorsement of the racist premise of the remark.

No, the recent tempering of the tone doesn't seem to be much more than a shift in political strategy and perhaps a move that makes McCain himself feel a little better about getting up in the morning. But until some of the underlying awfulness that's driving things can be confronted, there will be only temporary peace without any sort of justice.

I know this practice is not at all constrained to Republican politicans, by the way. It's rare that a candidate of any political persuasion confronts a difficult or controversial issue head on at a level that really moves the conversation forward, so I know I shouldn't expect much here. But I do expect better than this.

I'll note too that it shouldn't be lost on anyone interested in framing that while all of that was going on, President Bush was cautioning in his speech about the financial crisis that "anxiety can feed anxiety." WOW - is it possible that an administration that has based much of its public relations around major policy decisions on feeding Americans with anxiety and fear could now be admitting that maybe this isn't always the most useful practice?

Is it possible that John McCain and George Bush are both realizing at the same time that when your citizens are so riled up with misinformation and doubt about their future, they don't ALWAYS decide to act exactly how you want them to? Let's see how well that works out for them.

UPDATED on 10/13/08 to add this great segment from On the Media: Smear Campaign.

Why do we watch this line so closely? Why do we so willingly and anxiously tie our happiness and sense of security and standing in the world to its altitude and slope?

Some veteran line watchers offer advice and comfort through an adage like "a watched pot never boils," meaning that you just shouldn't watch the line on a day to day basis lest you become frustrated with the time that positive change can take. But I am wary of this mindset, because the only acceptable outcome is still boiling, and so when the pot boils we are happy, and when the pot is not boiling, we lack happiness.

I wonder if there are other ways we can measure wealth? I wonder what it means to live in a world where we can be happy no matter where that line sits - perhaps even one where there is no line to watch at all?

"Naive!" some will say. "Foolish and unrealistic," will say others. And then they'll go back to watching the line, drumming fingers nervously, gut churning as fortunes rise and fall, hoping.

Looking at the above chart, I wonder what it meant to be happy in 1950 when the line was so "low." I wonder what it meant to be happy before the line got going at all. And of course, I wonder what's on the other side of the current peak, far to the right, off in the distance.

So, yes, though perhaps for different reasons and with a different notion of the boiling point, I'm watching the line too.