The Writing on the Wall

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The Pew Research Center released its State of the News Media 2013 report yesterday.

For someone like me, who worked for newspapers and a trade magazine for many years — in fact, I earned my master's degree while working full time for a newspaper — and now teaches journalism in the Dallas community college system, there is much to read and absorb.

And, since we are on spring break this week, I may spend a lot of my time doing precisely that.

But I've been doing some reading already, and there are a few initial conclusions I can reach.

On the one hand, I am heartened — somewhat — by Pew's conclusion that "[f]or the first time since the deep recession that began in 2007, newspaper organizations have grounds for a modicum of optimism."

I have to say "somewhat" because, more than five years later, newspapers are not healthy, and Pew is clear on that point. Each encouraging development in the newspaper business that Pew observes is "mostly promise rather than performance. The most basic indicators have not turned around. The industry is little more than half the size it once was. Considerable dangers persist."

Good — if not long overdue — adjustments are being made in the newspaper business, and I deeply hope they will herald a revival. But so far the promise still far exceeds the performance.

I am cautiously optimistic that will change even though Pew pulls no punches when it comes to the challenges still facing the print news industry.

Advertising continues to be a major problem. For six straight years now, print advertising revenue have dropped, and digital advertising seems to be leveling off, which, as Pew notes, "suggest[s] that corporations are shifting their advertising dollars to other platforms."

That is important, given the business' "historic over–dependence on advertising." To be sure, there are many more options for advertisers than there were when I graduated from college, and it makes sense that newspapers would lose a portion of that advertising revenue on which they have depended for so long.

It also makes sense that, in order to survive, newspapers would look for new ways to compensate for that loss. Unfortunately, many have resorted to the same old strategy, providing fresh examples of the truth of the old Einstein adage that the definition of insanity is doing the same thing over and over again and expecting different results.

As is typical when times are hard, many newspapers have tried to make up for that lost revenue by trimming their payrolls — "Estimates for newspaper newsroom cutbacks in 2012 put the industry down 30% since its peak in 2000," Pew writes in its overview of the industry, "and below 40,000 full–time professional employees for the first time since 1978."

In most instances, journalists have been no different than anyone else who was affected by the recession. Their careers were interrupted through no fault of their own, and I am hopeful that, ultimately, print journalism will survive — albeit in a different form.

Their absence has been noticed. In Pew's words, "Nearly a third of U.S. adults, 31%, have stopped turning to a news outlet because it no longer provided them with the news they were accustomed to getting."

The product will have to improve, but it can only do so when newspapers have an adequate number of people on their payrolls to get the job done. I am cautiously optimistic that this can be achieved.

On the other hand, I am dismayed (but not really surprised) by Pew's confirmation of the many problems I see within broadcasting. Since many Americans simply do not read anymore, broadcasting is where most get their news, and that places a special burden on broadcasters.

Unfortunately, they are not meeting it. Instead, they pander to the lowest common denominator.

"In local TV," Pew writes, "sports, weather and traffic now account on average for 40% of the content produced on the newscasts studied while story lengths shrink."

Pew says it sees "a news industry that is more undermanned and unprepared to uncover stories, dig deep into emerging ones or to question information put into its hands."

That contributes to a general impression of bias in the media, an accusation that most often seems to be aimed at Fox News.

I am not an admirer of bias of any kind in the media, and I am quick to criticize the bias I have seen coming from Fox News (the most frequent target of such criticism) — but Fox isn't the only culprit, and Pew does not spare the others. MSNBC was far more biased in its reporting than either Fox or CNN, Pew reported, but all three were guilty of bias.

Bias is never justified in news coverage. It is acceptable in opinion pieces but only marginally. The thing that I believe is important to remember is that journalists, whether they report the news or comment on it, are guaranteed the same First Amendment rights American journalists have always been guaranteed.

I tell my news writing students to be like flies on the wall when they report the news. The reader, I tell them, should not be aware of their presence. That cannot be done in opinion writing. Thus, it is important that newspapers clearly label opinion columns and editorials as such, but it is also important for writers to use language that is appropriate for the kind of articles they write.

In recent semesters, I have been adding a segment to my news writing course on opinion writing, but I emphasize to my students that there is a huge difference between reporting the news and commenting on it, and I encourage them to respect that difference.

That doesn't mean that readers always recognize that difference.

At the community college where I teach, one student recently wrote a column that was critical of the Obama administration. This set off a virtual tidal wave of responses on the faculty email system that demonstrated all too clearly that supposedly educated adults, not students, didn't understand the difference between news reporting and opinion writing ...

Even though the column was clearly labeled "OPINION."

One respondent, who wrote a letter to the editor (which was published), erroneously called the column an "editorial," which is an opinion piece, but the terms editorial and opinion column are not interchangeable.

Since there apparently are people out there who do not know (or will not acknowledge) the difference between them, here it is in a nutshell. An editorial is typically published without a byline and purportedly speaks for the entire staff (hence, the use of the editorial we) whereas an opinion column speaks only for the person whose byline runs with it.

Both opinion writers and editorial writers are entitled to the same First Amendment protection as reporters.

There is much work to be done to repair the damage the recession has done to journalism, but it must be done if freedom is to be preserved, and it will take the best efforts of those who have dedicated their lives to the profession to accomplish it.

If that does not happen, the writing truly will be on the wall.

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Nothing Can Go Wrong ... Go Wrong ... Go Wrong

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Big Tex in happier times.

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Back when I was in high school, I attended a weeklong journalism workshop on the SMU campus. Several non–journalism activities (more of a social nature) were scheduled that week as well, including the showing of the movie "Westworld" after the workshop concluded.

I was reminded of that movie when I first saw video footage of Big Tex in flames at the Texas State Fair — or, to be more precise, I was reminded of Yul Brynner, the evil robotic gunslinger, and "Westworld"'s tagline — "Westworld — where nothing can go wrong ... go wrong ... go wrong."

These days, I teach journalism in the Dallas community college system, which includes advising the students on the newspaper staff.

The paper is published weekly, and each edition is completed on Friday. (The paper is then distributed the following Tuesday.) The advisers have to be there until the last page is done, which is actually a lot of fun for me. It reminds me of the days when I used to work on newspaper copy desks.

It also reminds me of what working for a newspaper is like, the nightly challenge of playing beat the clock. There are things you expect — like deadline pressure — and things you don't expect — namely, the news.

Well, of course you expect news! It's your business, after all. But it is often a reactive sort of business. Sometimes you do know what to expect, albeit in a general sort of way, like when a trial is scheduled at the courthouse or a big game is about to be played at the high school. You don't know what the outcome will be, but you know the trial — or the game or whatever — is coming up.

Much of the time, though, you cannot anticipate what the news will be. You simply react to whatever happens.

Which brings me to yesterday.

I was driving to the campus Friday when I heard on the radio that Big Tex, the iconic figure from the Texas State Fair, had burned.

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I didn't grow up here, but I know many people who did, and I knew Big Tex was special to them. He's been greeting visitors to the Texas State Fair with his robust "Howdy, folks!" since 1952.

Any journalist in this area — and, for that matter, in neighboring areas — ought to know that. And I was pleased to find out, when I walked into the newsroom, that the student newspaper staff was on top of it. A photographer was on the scene (and came back with some great photos), and one of the reporters was trying to reach a professor on the faculty who is something of a Texas State Fair historian (and has written a book or two on the subject — or so I am told).

The professor couldn't be located, but the reporter uncovered some interesting facts that I didn't know.

I didn't know, for example, that Big Tex started as Santa Claus in a town southeast of here called Kerens.

And then a mayor of Dallas, R.L. Thornton — whose name adorns a stretch of road here that is always jammed. It is always mentioned whenever the TV or radio stations report about traffic problems — purchased Big Tex, and he's been greeting visitors to the fair ever since.

The folks at the fair swear he will be back next year, presumably with a more current wardrobe and some new boots, but it didn't look too promising when he left Fair Park in what looked an awful lot like a body bag.

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As the afternoon wore on, I felt more and more like Murray, the news writer on the Mary Tyler Moore Show who kept coming up with sick jokes about a colleague at the TV station, known only as Chuckles the Clown, who had been killed at a circus parade when he dressed as a character named Peter Peanut and a rogue elephant shelled him to death.

(When Lou Grant observed that it was a good thing more people weren't hurt, Murray agreed and said, "You know how hard it is to stop after just one peanut.")

Since I first saw that episode back in the '70s, I've discovered that there was a lot of truth in it. I spent many years working in newsrooms, and they are breeding grounds for gallows humor. Virtually nothing is sacred.

And I've lived in Texas long enough to know that Big Tex is sacred — or, at least, semi—sacred — to many.

But I really had no idea just how sacred he was until yesterday.

In the reporter's article, there was a quote from a girl who said she had been to the fair just a week ago and shot some video footage of Big Tex for a project on which she was working in school. "And now he's gone," she said to the reporter.

As I read it, I could imagine her eyes welling up with tears.

Then, as I was driving home from the campus around 8 p.m., I heard someone on one of the radio stations doing a tribute program to Big Tex.

"We've lost a friend today," the host said somberly as the song "My Heart Will Go On" (from "Titanic") played in the background.

Maybe it was all done tongue in cheek, but it sounded deadly serious to me.

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Operating Without a Net

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I realize it is foolhardy to make blanket assertions, but I feel relatively safe in saying that most Americans have probably been to a circus at some point in their lives — or at least they have seen video clips of a circus on television.

There are all kinds of attractions at a circus. Some are relatively benign, but some of the most enduringly thrilling acts ever seen involve tightrope walkers and trapeze artists. Over the years, the phrase "death defying" has become something of a hackneyed cliche, I guess, but when you see those performers doing their acts high in the air, it's really the only phrase that seems adequate.

Of course, most of them never have really been defying death. Most of the time, there has been a safety net in place to catch them if they fall.

It isn't an absence of faith in their abilities. It is recognition that, well, we all make mistakes.

That's kind of how I have always felt about newspaper copy desks. I have devoted a large chunk of my adult life to both the practice of copy editing and teaching it in college classrooms. I know there were many times when I personally prevented embarrassing errors from slipping into print.

A copy desk is a newspaper's safety net. More than two years ago, I wrote about the value of proofreading, and errors that have found their way into print in the last few months alone — on both sides of the political spectrum — tell me it isn't just journalists who need that safety net.

(Sad to say, though, many journalists are losing that safety net. When economic conditions are bad, one of the first cost–cutting measures at many newspapers is to cut back on the copy desk. Reporters aren't really conditioned to monitor themselves, but they are told they must now do that very thing. Maybe some will, but, in my experience, most will not so whatever their weaknesses are — spelling, punctuation, fact checking — rapidly become the newspaper's weaknesses, too.

(As a result, the newspaper's reputation suffers, producing a domino effect — lost circulation followed by lost advertising revenue ... followed by more staff cuts — or, perhaps, reductions in publication dates. Maybe both.)

Earlier this year, the White House announced via a press release that the vice president would attend a campaign event in Road Island. That mistake was widely reported by the wire services.

(I spoke to several people at the time who observed that anyone who aspires to be president — especially someone who is president — should know how to spell the names of the states. You could point out to them that Barack Obama went to college and almost certainly does know how to spell the names of all 50 states — even though he once said there were 57 of them, not 50 — maybe he was thinking about the steak sauce? — and that it was almost certainly someone who worked for him who made that mistake.

(But the point is that the mistake was made on his behalf. And it could not be excused as what the Nixon administration used to call misspeaking yourself. It was in print.)

And then, last week, Republican presumptive presidential nominee Mitt Romney's new campaign app misspelled America.

Likewise, I guess, anyone who aspires to be president — or already is the president — should know how to spell the name of the country he wants to lead.

Of course, Romney didn't input any of the words in the app's text any more than Obama was personally responsible for mistyping the name of Rhode Island on that press release. But they're the guys at the top. The ones whose names are on the letterhead.

Spelling doesn't matter if only one person — a narrator, for example — is going to read what you write. It may even be helpful to write everything phonetically to make sure the narrator's pronunciation is right and there aren't any awkward gaps in the narration — because that is all that really counts in TV or radio script writing.

But in a newspaper or a magazine — or a web site or a press release — or anything else that many people will read, spelling counts.

I know it doesn't count for some people. I see some truly alarming mistakes in posts on the internet — and in papers that are turned in to me in the writing classes I teach. Some people clearly don't know any better — or, worse, don't care.

But when you write something that many people will read, there will be some who will recognize a spelling error when they see it — even if most who read it do not. And there will be some who do care.

I guess politicians on the lowest rung of the political ladder can get away with spelling mistakes or typographical errors. The text of any speeches they give probably will not be archived anywhere, and few local officials tend to put out press releases or anything else in print.

But Mitt Romney and Barack Obama really should see to it that they have at least one competent copy editor on their staffs (the more the better) — especially in the digital age, when you can be sure that virtually anything presidents or would–be presidents have said in the past can be found somewhere on the internet.

Romney especially should be cognizant of that. About two months ago, he told the American Society of Newspaper Editors convention that "in some of the new media, I find myself missing the presence of editors to exercise quality control."

Based on that new campaign app, Romney could use some "quality control."

But so could the White House. Two years ago, the following appeared on the White House web site prior to the G–20 meeting in Toronto. (What follows was copied and pasted directly from the White House web site in the summer of 2010. All spellings and spacings are as they appeared. I intended to use it in my news writing classes, but I haven't done so yet ...):

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Dear G-20 Colleagues:
When we met in London in April of2009, we were facing the worst worldwide economic financial crisis since the 1930s. We acted with unprecedented speed and aggressive action to boost demand and repair our financial systems. It worked.
In Pittsburgh, with recovery beginning to take hold, we agreed to work together to achieve a more balanced pattem of global growth and financial reforms to strengthen our financial system and protect our economies from instability.
In Toronto, we meet at a time of renewed challenge to the global economy. We must act together to strengthen the recovery. We need to commit to restore sustainable public finances in the medium term. And we should complete the work of financial repair and reform. Our highest priority in Toronto must be to safeguard a)ld strengthen the recovery. We worked exceptionally hard to restore growth; we cannot let it falter or lose strength now. This means
that we should reaffirm our unity of purpose to provide the policy support necessary to keep economic growth strong. It is essential that we have a self-sustaining recovery that creates the good jobs that our people need. In fact, should confidence in the strength of our recoveries diminish, we should be prepared to respond again as quickly and as forcefully as needed to aveli a slowdown in economic activity.
A strong and sustainable global recovery needs to be built on balanced global demand. Significant weaknesses exist across G-20 economies. I am concemed by weak private sector demand and continued heavy reliance on expolis by some countries with already large external surpluses. Our ability to achieve a durable global recovery depends on our ability to achieve a pattern of global demand growth that avoids the imbalances ofthe past. In Pittsburgh, we agreed that countries with extemal surpluses would need to strengthen domestic sources of
growth. Leaders and governments will need to decide for themselves how to achieve that objective. In some countries, strengthening social safety nets would help boost low levels of consumption. In others, product and labor market reforms could strengthen both consumption and investment. I also want to underscore that market-determined exchange rates are essential to global economic vitality. The signals that flexible exchange rates send are necessary to support a strong and balanced global economy.
We need to commit to fiscal adjustments that stabilize debt-to-GDP ratios at appropriate levels over the medium tenn. I am committed to the restoration of fiscal sustainability in the United States and believe that all G-20 countries should put in place credible and growthfriendly plans to restore sustainable public finances. But it is critical that the timing and pace of consolidation in each economy suit the needs of the global economy, the momentum of private sector demand, and national circumstances. We must be flexible in adjusting the pace of
consolidation and learn from the consequential mistakes of the past when stimulus was too quickly withdrawn and resulted in renewed economic hardships and recession. For our part, we will pursue measures to SUppOit the recovery in private demand and return the unemployed to work. At the same time, we recognize the impoltance of setting a credible medium-term fiscal path: that is why my Administration will cut the budget deficit we inherited in halfby FY 2013 and work to reduce our fiscal deficit to 3 percent ofGDP by FY 2015, which will stabilize the
debt-to-GDP ratio at an acceptable level in that year.
To support the recovery and strengthen the ability of our financial systems to deliver needed credit, we must maintain the momentum of financial repair. Resolving ongoing uncertainty about the transparency of bank balance sheets and the adequacy of bank capital, patticularly in Europe, will help reduce financial market volatility and the cost of borrowing. We should SUppOlt efforts to enhance transparency and increase disclosure by our large financial institutions and to act, where necessary, to strengthen the capital position of our banks. Our ability to grow
without the excesses that that put our economies at risk two years ago requires that we accelerate our efforts to bring needed financial refolIDs to completion. In the U.S., both houses of Congress have passed comprehensive financial regulatory refOlID bills. We must reiterate our commitment in Toronto to a common framework for reforms that provide:
0. more stringent capital and liquidity requirements: We want our negotiators to reach agreement on a new capital framework we can endorse in Seoul that will include higher common equity requirements, tighter definitions of capital, a simple mandatory leverage ratio, and appropriate liquidity requirements. While we consider reasonable transition measures, we must not lose sight ofthe need to make sure our financial institutions have the capital needed to withstand future stresses;
0. stronger oversight of derivatives markets: We want our negotiators to reach agreement to put in place across the major financial markets a consistent framework for oversight of derivatives markets. We should subject all dealers and all major participants in the derivatives markets to supervision and regulation, including conservative capital and margin requirements, disclosure and reporting requirements, and strong business conduct standards to mitigate the potential for systemic risk and market abuse.
0. more transparency and disclosure to promote market integrity and reduce market manipulation; and
0. more effective ji'Qlllework for winding down large global firms, along with principles for thefillallcial sector to make afair and substantial contribution towards payingfor allY burdens it creates in a way that protects taxpayers, creates a level playing field, and reduces risks to our economies.
In Toronto, I also look forward to working on our action agendas on issues ranging from energy and development, to governance reform of intemational financial institutions.
Together, we designated the G-20 as the premier forum for intemational economic cooperation. It is important that the G-20 demonstrates its continued determination to work collectively to address the renewed challenges facing the global economy. I look fOlward to seeing you in Toronto and reaffhming our unity of purpose and resolve.

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Whew!

Clearly, Obama and Romney need copy editors.

But, like so many others, they are working without one.

National politics, like high–wire acts, is a high risk–reward proposition.

It doesn't make sense to operate without a net.

Even considering the potential rewards, the risks simply are too great.

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The Quest for the Bottom Line

I guess it is no secret that newspapers are struggling financially these days.

The reasons are complex, but one reason seems clear to me. As I wrote a couple of months ago, most newspapers failed to recognize the internet for the threat it posed back in the days when the internet was still emerging and was not yet a fixture in American homes.

In fact, I recall a day back in the 1990s. Newspapers still seemed to be healthy, although circulation, as always, was down. I never worked in advertising, either classified or display, so I don't know if a downward trend was noticeable in that department. As far as I knew at the time, there was no warning sign that the horizon was not sunny for newspapers.

I was teaching journalism to undergraduates, and one of my students came to me with a question that seems positively prophetic in hindsight. He wanted to know what I thought would happen to newspapers in the digital age (which hadn't even begun to blossom yet).

I'm almost ashamed to admit now that my answer must have revealed a certain naivete on my part. It certainly must have shown a lack of vision.

Sometimes I wonder if that young man remembers that exchange. With some newspapers going under and others slashing their staffs dramatically to remain afloat a little while longer, I can't see how he wouldn't think back on it. If he does, I wish I could assure him that I'm not as naive now as I must seem when I am seen in one's rearview mirror.

Admittedly, peering into the future is not an easy thing for anyone to do. That doesn't prevent many people from trying to anticipate future events, anyway, though, and, by the time this student asked me that particular question, I had heard plenty of gloom–and–doom predictions from others that never came to pass.

And my inclination at that time was to dismiss the idea that the existence of newspapers was, in any way, threatened. So I told my student that I believed newspapers and the internet would find a way to co–exist.

I still believe that will happen eventually, but many newspapers have already paid the price for management's failings and many more almost certainly will in the next few years. The number of newspapers that will survive these turbulent times and establish a mutually profitable relationship with the internet will be far smaller than I — or, I dare say, anyone else — ever dreamed.

Let me ask you a personal question here.

At one time or another, everyone loses something or temporarily misplaces something. On those occasions, have you ever found yourself searching the same locations over and over?

You might search new locations as well, but did you gravitate back to the same locations, too?

Perhaps you did that because you genuinely forgot that you searched a location before (and, if that is the case, you may have a different set of issues to resolve).

But perhaps you did that because you just knew that what you were looking for had to be in that location, and each time you searched it, you did so believing you had overlooked something that was obvious.

I'm getting the impression that newspaper management operates by the latter approach. I make specific reference to the New York Times.

And it sort of proves what Albert Einstein said. He said that the definition of insanity was doing the same thing over and over and expecting a different result.

Well, the Times is about to do something that it tried to do before, but it didn't work.

MarketWatch reports that the Times will start charging for online content in January.

Doug Mataconis mirrors my own thoughts at Outside the Beltway when he points out that the Times tried something like this a few years ago and failed.

The Times introduced something it called Times Select, in which users were charged for access to Times content, but it was dropped after awhile. I've never been privy to Times business strategy sessions, but I assumed that they discovered what I predicted at the time:

With all the free sources for news and information on the internet, most non–New Yorkers simply weren't interested in paying to read the Times four or five years ago. I suspect that even fewer will be willing to do so in today's economy.

Consequently, I predict that this pay–per–view strategy also will fail.

I understand the impatience of Times management to try to recoup its losses. I understand how frustrating it must be for the Times' publishers — not to mention its writers and editors — to think of all those people out there in Internetland who read their articles for free.

But the time to get in on the ground floor of the internet — and collect some of that seemingly endlessly easy money that was circulating in the so–called "dot–com" period — was 14 or 15 years ago. That ship has sailed. Some would say it sank.

Anyway, this is a different era. Newspapers — well, not all of them, but some of them — still can prosper in the digital age. But they're going to have to dedicate themselves to long–term goals. There are no get–rich–quick scenarios for newspapers, even if they resolve their business model issues — which shouldn't be a surprise to anyone who has been in the business for awhile.

After all, unless a publisher already has a fortune that was made elsewhere, he can't reasonably expect to make his fortune from newspaper ownership. There are too many expenses and too little revenue from a product that typically sells for 25 cents or 50 cents an issue.

But the next best thing, it seems to me, is to make the publication indispensable — and achieving that may require some publishers and their publications to take even more of a loss for awhile than they've had to absorb recently.

If they are wise, they will look at it as an investment in the future.

There is no shortage these days of online news organizations that are willing to sacrifice everything else, including accuracy, to be the first to report something. Often, it turns out that what is reported is little more than gossip and speculation, and much of the time, it is wrong, but it is followed — often, at best — by a terse article acknowledging an error.

Some of these organizations ignore their mistakes entirely — in those cases, I guess it goes without saying that the errors go without saying. Sometimes, the readers are never told that they were given false information. The organizations don't acknowledge their own complicity in its perpetuation — and, if their deception is revealed, it is hard to regain the readers' trust.

Trust. Now, that is what I'm talking about.

In these days of be first even if you're wrong journalism, I believe the news organizations that build reputations on providing reliable information, even if it isn't first, will make themselves indispensable.

And it is when a news organization is seen as indispensable that its users will pay to continue receiving it.

Generations ago, the New York Times was known as the "newspaper of record." If you saw it in the New York Times, you knew it was true.

I don't live in New York. I read the Times online. I don't know if it still advertises itself as the newspaper of record, but, if it does, that is just one more mistake the modern Times makes. I often see errors in the Times — some are small, some are not so small. It may have a cracker–jack copy desk, but if the Times calls itself the newspaper of record, it is living on its past glories — while it is being pigeonholed by modern readers as little more than a mouthpiece for leftist columnists.

Building a reputation for reliability takes time, and it takes the efforts of talented copy editors to make it happen. I hear people complain all the time about the declining quality of print journalism, yet newspaper management continues to respond to tough economies in a time–honored way — cut the copy desk first.

These days, it is fashionable to talk of how efficient online journalism can be, allowing the reporter in the field to write his/her article on the spot and post it directly to the internet.

And it certainly would be an efficient method — if writers performed all the functions of the copy desk (and copy editors do a lot more than simply make sure a writer didn't write y–o–u–r when he/she should have written y–o–u–'–r–e).

But most of them don't. Most reporters don't worry about the details.

If the New York Times — and other news organizations, both online and offline — builds a reputation for worrying about the details, I think it will enhance its value to a public that wants to know it can rely on what it is being told.

But it can't be achieved overnight.

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The Challenges of Revolution

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The word "revolution" seems to be tossed about rather carelessly by some people.

Well, it seems that way to me, anyway.

I don't mean to say that it is a careless concept. Far from it. A revolution is serious business — by definition, according to Random House, "a sudden, complete or marked change in something."

Clearly, that wasn't an idle question the Beatles asked some 40 years ago, and it was asked at a time when revolution was almost literally in the air.

In fact (if you will pardon just one more musical reference), I have often thought that, when history has had enough time to absorb the revolutionary changes that were wrought in national thoughts and attitudes by the 1960s, the best song — if not the only song — a filmmaker could use as the backdrop for images of that time would be Carole King's "I Feel the Earth Move."

That's a song about the awakening of love and sexual desire, but it is also descriptive of the helpless feeling that can overwhelm a person when something that has been virtually an article of faith is being proven false — or, at least, inoperative.

Anyway, it seems to me the word revolution has been used somewhat frivolously since the days when the guidelines governing just about all of our social relationships — age, gender, race, religious, sexual — were (and, in some cases, remain) under a very public assault. It hasn't always been that way.

Eighty years ago on Friday, Gandhi launched his campaign of non–cooperation and non–violence against British rule of India with the Salt March to the village of Dandi — a truly dramatic and, yes, revolutionary moment in human history.

I've heard many things described as revolutions, whether they actually were revolutions or not. But the bar is set sorta high for genuine revolutions.

Other than an actual armed revolt, the only other kind of revolution that could have as wrenching and far–reaching influence on people as the social unrest of the 1960s or Gandhi's campaign that was ultimately successful in liberating India would be economic upheaval.

And that certainly seems to be what we are experiencing today.

At the moment, it is far from certain which side will emerge victorious. But a few basic facts are known. The most important, it seems to me, is that millions of Americans have lost their jobs since the recession began in December 2007.

Some of those jobs may return as the economy rebounds, but most probably will not. To date, few, if any, actually have.

Some of those jobs were shipped overseas, where workers do the same tasks Americans did but for a lot less. In some cases, their efficiency might be limited by their linguistic skills — but not always. In those situations where productivity has been hindered by language barriers, I suppose CEOs have simply looked at the balance sheet and seen that they were still saving money.

And some of those jobs were eliminated by emerging technology. From management's perspective, I guess, the best possible solution is to make a one–time investment in a machine that can do what one person (or more) did in the past. A machine will work nonstop and will not charge overtime. It just requires routine maintenance.

It's not the best solution for an unemployed American with a family to feed, but that isn't management's problem, is it?

That doesn't make it less of a problem, though, does it?

There isn't a day that goes by that there isn't a story in your newspaper, on your TV, on the internet about the impact that the economy is having on people's lives. The other day, for example, I saw a video on CNN.com about an auto worker in Wisconsin whose plant closed down. Rather than accept a severance package, he took a job at a company plant in Texas — and began making a "1,000–mile commute" to work instead of selling his home for a loss in a bad economy.

In the end, though, the pressure of being away from his family for five days (sometimes six days) each week was too much, and the family joined him in Texas, vowing that their hearts would stay in Wisconsin and they would one day return. Well, they're young. There's still plenty of time (probably) for them to regain control of their lives and move back to the land they love.

It's becoming more of an impossible dream for older displaced workers.

There must be some way for these workers to remain a vibrant part of the economy. After all, the point behind revolution is to make things better for all, not to leave some behind so others may prosper, isn't it?

Maybe there is a lesson to be found in history that can be applied to the 21st century. It was on this day in 1794 that Eli Whitney received his patent for the cotton gin.

The cotton gin, a deceptively simple device that automated the tedious process of separating cotton seeds from cotton fibers, is considered one of the crucial inventions of the Industrial Revolution.

As anyone who has studied American history can tell you, the Industrial Revolution brought many changes to American life. The cotton gin came on its cusp, when patent laws were still emerging, and the ramifications of technological advancements were not always readily apparent, but, in hindsight, it can be said that the cotton gin rejuvenated slavery. Because slave labor could be devoted almost entirely to planting, maintaining and harvesting the crop, plantation owners could grow larger crops and reap greater profits, making slave ownership more sustainable.

In fact, in the half century after Whitney's invention, the slave population more than quadrupled in the South. Without the invention of the cotton gin, the costs of housing and clothing and feeding slaves might well have been impractical for many, and other choices might have been made.

It's possible, therefore, that America might have been spared the agony of the Civil War and, perhaps, the anguish of dysfunctional racial relations, particularly in the South, in the century after the war ended.

But, without the cotton gin, the Industrial Revolution might have been delayed — or, worse, might never have happened at all. America might never have become the economic power it became — and the story of human development would have been entirely different.

It may seem odd, then, that, while many plantation owners became rich thanks to Whitney's invention, Whitney himself and his business partner, Phineas Miller, did not.

Theirs is a cautionary tale. And it is one that I think is applicable to the field to which I have always gravitated, journalism.

Whitney and Miller were visionaries in their development of a solution to a production problem, and, consequently, they appear to have had one foot in the future — but they clearly had the other foot planted in the past. Their plan was not to sell cotton gins; apparently, it was to monopolize the market to a certain extent, by contracting with farmers to clean their cotton for them, in much the same way that sawmills cut lumber into boards for loggers.

Cotton growers resented this, especially once they discovered how simple the gin really was, and other cotton gins, based on the original design, began to pop up. Whitney and Miller tried to stem the tide by filing patent infringement lawsuits, but, ultimately, this devoured their profits because of the primitive state of patent law. Eventually, they went out of business.

So what relationship does this have to the newspaper industry?

Well, I have observed over the years that newspaper management responds to economic adversity in a predictable way — by cutting its payroll.

Even when the complaint is a decline in editorial quality.

Frankly, I have never understood how cutting the number of copy editors — the ones who are charged with checking facts and correcting spelling, grammar and punctuation errors — can possibly address that kind of issue. The only issue it seems to address is the bottom line, but never to the extent that it can solve the economic problems faced by a publication. It is a temporary solution at best.

It seems like even less of a viable strategy in today's economic climate. But that hasn't prevented newspapers from falling back on it, just as they always have.

Maybe their mistake was not realizing that this recession, coming after a decade of zero job growth, is different from the ones that came before.

The real problem, as I have written before, goes back many years — to a time when the internet was not the pervasive presence in American households it has become. Newspaper management's great failing was not anticipating the kinds of changes that the internet would force upon them and taking steps that would allow them to co–exist — perhaps, even, to thrive.

No one has a crystal ball, of course, but, even though I have no training in business administration, that seems like an obvious thing.

And here is something else that seems equally obvious to me.

These are times that require creative, innovative solutions — even if they are temporary — that will put people back to work. Hundreds of thousands of people who would prefer to be bringing home a paycheck rather than receiving unemployment assistance are, nevertheless, losing their benefits every week.

The times cry out for leadership like Franklin Roosevelt provided in the 1930s. Within days of becoming president, Roosevelt was addressing problems that had brought America's economy to its knees. When something didn't work, FDR tried something else. He never shifted his focus from his primary mission. His attention was unwavering.

That is the kind of leadership that America needs today — not the kind that gives momentary lip service to pressing problems while pledging to focus like a laser on them and then, at the first opportunity, turns its attention elsewhere.

That is the challenge of revolutionary times.

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