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| Jerry Ceppos, Manship School of Mass Communication at Louisiana State University |
At 5:30 on a typical spring morning, I'm in our front yard with a cup of coffee, inhaling the moist darkness before loading my arms with newspapers that our reliable carrier has placed against the garage door. My load was very light one day this week. The New York Times was just 48 pages. The Wall Street Journal, 30 pages. The Austin American-Statesman, 30 pages.
The reason: little advertising. Print advertising began declining 10-15% annually after the arrival of the Internet. In the 1980s, there was so much advertising that the joke was that a publisher could be simultaneously successful and brain dead. (Of course, my last publisher, Mike Laosa, was the brilliant exception.)
And then coronavirus.
In March, advertising really tanked across the nation as most businesses shuttered. We retreated into our homes, ordering online.
Is this pandemic the coup de grace for newspapers?
It could be for their print versions, depending on how long the pandemic lasts. Digital is the present and the future. The Washington Post and New York Times have made the leap successfully. The Times could prosper on digital alone. Digital revenue is flat or even declining slightly for most local newspapers.
Meanwhile, just bad news. The Charlotte Observer and Miami Herald ended Saturday editions. The Austin Chronicle today published this week's edition online only, trimming back print editions from weekly to twice-a-month. The Chronicle now asks readers for donations. The Tampa Bay Times cut staff pay 10%. The Los Angeles Times is doing buyouts two years after its purchase by a billionaire.
I take no pleasure in this. The Austin American-Statesman is doing a good job on local coverage of COVID-19, and I'm glad to see that. Many of the editors and writers who are the face of the Austin American-Statesman were young staffers when I was editor. I wish them well.
The other day I swapped email with a friend, Jerry Ceppos, who was editor of the San Jose Mercury-News and dean of the Manship School of Mass Communications at Louisiana State University. Now teaching, he is an insightful thinker about newspapers.
"What concerns me about the financial impact of the virus is that it could wipe out news organizations that understand where they should have been headed—to online publication—but now won't have the time to make a transition."
Why should you care? Isn't every business or institution—including yours—poleaxed by this pandemic?
"The only people celebrating are crooked politicians, who suddenly can steal with impunity because fewer local news organizations are around to shine a light on them. One irony is that there will be more to steal because the federal money that will pour in to help end the pandemic," says Ceppos.
He's right. Congress is wrapping up work on a $2 trillion bailout. There's never been one close to that in size. Who will get that money and why?
That's where newspapers come in. If they don't earn their keep now, digital-only news sites will replace them.
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(Paxton Smith/Instagram)
Paxton Smith’s 2021 valedictory speech at Lake Highlands High School in Dallas wasn’t the same speech she had previously shared with school administrators. She dropped the approved speech and made a case for women’s reproductive rights after lawmakers passed the Texas "Heartbeat Bill.”
Her advocacy made news on NPR, YouTubeTV and in The Guardian. Just over a year later, the “war on (women’s) rights” she forewarned has come to a head as the U.S. Supreme Court voted Friday morning to overturn Roe v. Wade, ending constitutional protection for abortion access.
“It is up to the people to show up and show the courts and the politicians that we won’t sit back and let this happen,” Smith told Austonia Friday morning. “We will show up, we will fight back. Before, we were scared of them, now they should be scared of us.”
Now a University of Texas sophomore and abortion rights activist, 19-year-old Smith said she wanted to give the same speech in the “the most public way possible” to reach “as many people as possible who don't agree that I deserve this right.”
However, she says the response was “actually overwhelmingly positive” and supportive of her cause. According to a recent UT poll, 78% of Texas voters support abortion access in most cases.
The speech opened up further opportunities for activism: she advocated for reproductive rights at the International Forum on Human Rights in Geneva, interviewed with Variety magazine and spoke to tens of thousands at Austin’s Bans Off Our Bodies protest at the Texas Capitol in May.
Smith also serves on the board of directors for the Women’s Reproductive Rights Assistance Project, a national nonprofit organization that helps fund abortions or medication abortion—like Plan C pills—in all 50 states. Most recently, Smith has been attending protests in Washington, D.C. leading up to the ruling.
“This is land of the free. This is where you get to choose how you live your life,” Smith said. “Overturning Roe v. Wade violates everything that we have come to believe about what it means to live in this country. I think a lot of people aren't willing to accept that this is a human right that is most likely just going to be gone for over half of the country within the next couple of weeks.”
Bracing for the next steps, Smith gave some tips for supporters:
- Find a protest to attend.
- “I would say invite somebody to go to those protests with you, invite a couple of friends, invite people into the movement,” Smith said.
- Talk about the issue on social media—use the platform you have.
- “Have these kinds of conversations where people can just talk about their fears and then find ways to go and advocate for yourself,” Smith said.
- Volunteer at a nonprofit near you.
“I feel like a lot of the reason things have gotten as bad as they have within the abortion rights world is that people are not making a scene, not protesting, not putting the effort into ensuring that the government doesn't take away this right,” Smith said. “I want to emphasize that if you're not doing anything, don't expect the best scenario, expect the worst because that's the direction that we're going in.”
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(Council Member Chito Vela/Twitter)
The U.S. Supreme Court overturned Roe v. Wade, the landmark ruling that guaranteed a constitutional right to an abortion, Friday morning. Moments later, Austin City Council set a special meeting for next month to pass a resolution aimed at decriminalizing abortion.
The GRACE Act, which stands for guarding the right to abortion care for everyone, is a twofold plan submitted by council member Jose “Chito” Vela. It recommends that city funds shouldn’t be used to surveil, catalog, report or investigate abortions. It also recommends that police make investigating abortion their lowest priority.
Council Member Vanessa Fuentes, who co-sponsored the resolution along with council members Paige Ellis, Kathie Tovo and Mayor Steve Adler, said the importance of the GRACE Act cannot be overstated.
“By introducing this resolution during a special session, City Council is doubling down on fighting back for reproductive health,” Fuentes said. “Items like the GRACE Act will promote essential healthcare while enabling individuals to exercise their bodily freedom.”
The act takes an approach similar to when former council member Greg Casar moved to decriminalize the possession of small amounts of marijuana. Ultimately, state law doesn't allow city officials to order police chiefs to adopt specific enforcement policies so the resolution would be a request to Police Chief Joe Chacon. In May, Politico reported that Vela is having "ongoing conversations" with Chacon about the proposal.
Austonia contacted Attorney General Ken Paxton for comment on the GRACE Act but did not hear back by time of publication. On Friday, Paxton celebrated the overturning of Roe and announced an annual office holiday on June 24 in recognition of the high court's decision.
In a press release, Vela said the Texas state government has a history of overturning municipal protections of human rights. Thirty days after the Supreme Court’s ruling, Texas will ban all abortions, with exceptions only to save the life of a pregnant patient or prevent “substantial impairment of major bodily function.”
Still, Vela expressed hope for the GRACE Act’s longevity. Council’s special meeting on it is set for the week of July 18.
“We know this resolution is legally sound, and Austin is not alone in this fight,” Vela said. “We are working with several other cities who are equally horrified by the prospect of an abortion ban and want to do everything they can to protect their residents.”
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