COMMENTARY
MARK SCHUMANN
Reading Press-Journal community news editor Larry Reisman’s May 31 column, one might get the impression the newspaper outgrew its offices on US Highway One. The opposite, of course, is true.
To quote the publisher of the island weekly, the Press Journal’s offices, once the home of a thriving, successful community newspaper, had become “a Potempkin village.”
Looking at the accompanying video of Reisman standing in the Press Journal’s new closet-size offices, I could not help but wonder what the community “journalist” was getting at when he wrote, “But we’ve come a long way.”
Really?
While the population of Indian River County has continued to grow over the past 20 years, the Press Journal, under Scripps management, has steadily declined in circulation. The newspaper now has just a fraction of the news and advertising staff employed when Scripps took the reigns, and much of the paper is filled with stories and commentary from Saint Lucie and Martin Counties.
In his column, Reisman claimed the Press Journal has the second highest household penetration of any daily in the state, but he does not mention that the newspaper was once number one in Florida in market penetration. More importantly, Reisman failed to explain that, in real numbers, and as a percentage of households reached, the Press Journal’s circulation has come a long way – in the wrong direction.
It would seem Reisman has learned from his publisher’s wife, who handles “external affairs” for Florida Power & Light, how to put a positive spin on a most inconvenient truth.
Going forward, perhaps Reisman should decide whether he is going to be a journalist or a publicist.
Indian River Guardian 
It does not matter if Reisman is a journalist or a publicist – he is just trying to hang on to his job….I wonder if they have downsized his pay check every time they downsized his position. LOL
To be fair, the declining fortunes of our local newspaper are by no means unique but a local manifestation of a national trend — the collapse of print journalism in an age of cable TV snooze, media mergers, and free access to the Internet.
There was a time when journalism served the public interest as a fearless instrument for exposing corruption, injustice and public wrongdoing. Today, journalists are little more than producers of ratings, readership, and audience share; and their cowardice in the face of controversy consigns them to a position of irrelevance.
On this last point, the Press Journal deserves special opprobrium. In late April, TCPalm printed a paid advertisement in two consecutive issues on a highly controversial subject of national concern: Religious Freedom.
I contacted the editors of TCPalm with an offer to write a guest column. The Managing Editor referred me to the Opinion Editor who rebuffed my inquiry. Her excuse? Since a paid advertisement is not news, it does not merit a reply. My response: A incendiary advertisement on a highly controversial issue is a newsworthy event, and ‘balance’ is an ethical obligation of all journalists. Round One: “Too hot to handle; fahhgetaboutit!”
Since the advertiser is a religious leader in this community, I contacted the Community Editor, assuming an incendiary hit piece might qualify as community news. Undeterred, he suggested I purchase my own advertisement. Round Two: Cowardly journalism morphs into ‘mercenary’ journalism.
Again, I contacted the Opinion Editor who instructed me to submit a letter of 300 words or less for consideration. Round three: A token offer with no commitment. Nevertheless, I submitted the letter.
Weeks later, no letter appeared in print. Telephone calls went unanswered, but I did receive an apology via email that attributed the delay to a ‘lost-in-the-queue’ excuse. Days later, TCPalm published a letter but not the one on ‘Religious Freedom.’ Editor Non-Sequitur reprinted an old letter on another topic originally published months ago. Round four: A glitch serves as a ruse to ditch it.
Eventually, my long lost letter did see the light of day – stale dated by almost a month. Round five: Expired news is more desired news. Postscript: The guest column I originally wanted to write is posted here, A Loose Canon.
I am reminded of William Shirer’s account in The Rise and Fall of the Third Reich of how a non-stop stream of propaganda affects public judgment. Shirer found it hard to discount the sort of offal that his journalistic instincts told him must be false, mainly because it was coming through vital information channels. Amplification and bad argument from authority, in other words, worked together to create a toxic discursive bubble inside of which an entire nation was forced to live and breathe.
As a community, we deserve better.
My husband and I subscribed to the Press Journal for a couple of years before we moved to Indian River County. It was my means of getting the pluse of the community. I think that the experience served me well. However, over the years I have seen a trend of publishing articles from other news sources. (To be fair it is 32963 that is the worst offender in this regard.) Something is seriously wrong through when the editorial page is a piece published in other media. I find it hard to believe that the Press Journal does not employ people who can editorialize on a subject of interest to the community.
My most recent disappointment occurred about a week ago. I now live in a 55+ plus community and looked out on my balcony and had the unusual sight of seeing Sheriff’s office vehicles in the adjacent parking lot. So I walked around and spotted more Sheriff’s cars. I then spotted a guy with a long lens camera and assumed he was from the Press Journal. As I walked further the sirens of an approaching ambulance could be heard. At this point I saw one of the landscape contractors in the lake. He had been brought to shore by the residents and given CPR. I later learned he had been given CPR in the ambulance. This 30 year old guy was classified as dead due to drowning in two feel of water. I found the whole episode to be strange yet there was nothing published in the Press Journal. I guess that they have downsized so much that they no longer have someone with responsibility for liasion with the Sheriff’s office. Hopefully, the failure to report on the story is because the management of the Press Journal does not think that a local man who had planned to move into a new home on Saturday was not newsworthy. A hard working young man doing the right thing should get some recognization in Indian River County. .