Fresh Ink: Behind the Scenes of a Major Metropolitan Newspaper - Hardcover

Gelsanliter, David

Hardcover

ISBN 10: 092939884X ISBN 13: 9780929398846

Publisher: University of North Texas Press, 1995

Synopsis

Futurists have called newspapers the last of the great smokestack industries—decrepit, dated, and destined to die. Fresh Ink offers proof that this need not be true. Newspapers are still a mass medium, able to gather a set of facts and create a sense of community each day—if they will.

Fresh Ink tells how Robert Decherd and Burl Osborne transformed a flawed paper with a checkered history into the leading newspaper in the southwest, winning seven Pulitzer Prizes along the way, one of them for graphics—the only newspaper to ever do so. The focus is on a week in the life of The Dallas Morning News, the death a month later of the competing Dallas Times Herald, and how the News has conducted itself since.

By offering an inside look at what is arguably the most successful newspaper in the country, this book makes an important contribution to the history of journalism.

About this title

About the Author

David Gelsanliter served as a diplomat in South America, West Africa and Washington, D.C. After eleven years with Knight-Ridder newspapers in Charlotte, Miami, and Philadelphia, he became general manager of the Philadelphia Inquirer and the Philadelphia Daily News . Now a writer living in New Mexico, his previous book was Jump Start: Japan Comes to the Heartland.

From the Back Cover

By offering an inside look at what is arguably the most successful newspaper in the country, this book makes an important contribution to the history of journalism. It answers such questions as: How do stories get selected for the front page? How does a newspaper balance the needs of its readers with those of its advertisers? How do the people being written about respond to the coverage? David Gelsanliter chose The Dallas Morning News because it was a family controlled newspaper which was quickly becoming the leading newspaper in the southwest, winning six Pulitzer Prizes along the way, one of them for graphics - the only newspaper ever to do so. The focus is on a week in the life of The Morning News, the death a month later of its rich and powerful rival the Dallas Times Herald and how The News has challenged some of the industry's conventional wisdoms.

Reviews

A veteran journalist and manager in the Knight-Ridder newspaper chain, Gelsanliter wanted a successful, independent operation for his week-in-the-life profile. The Dallas Morning News fit those requirements and was also facing a city with changing demographics and economics. Gelsanliter chronicles years of empire building in a rich study of the Dallas Morning News and how it put stakes down to become perhaps the South's most important newspaper. Here, editor Burl Osborne lives "each day as if it might be his last"; executive editor Ralph Langer and sports editor Dave Smith are giants who walk the Earth; publisher Robert Decherd (the great-grandson of founder G.B. Dealey) is a man looking to bring a dynasty back to power. Reporters get less "screen time" here, but the business of journalism may well be more important to News execs than journalism itself. By describing one week in the paper's routine, Gelsanliter explains not only how the business works, but why the News may fail in its minority coverage, how it tries to reach suburban dwellers and why certain articles appear where and how they do. When the News's competitor, the Times-Herald, folds, the reader feels like part of a grand and well-fought campaign and comes away with a new understanding of the Fourth Estate. A fascinating study in watching the Watchmen. Photos not seen by PW.
Copyright 1995 Reed Business Information, Inc.

Fresh Ink began as a portrait of a week, November 4 to 10, 1991, at the Dallas Morning News; broader issues intruded when, 4 weeks later, 18 years of "newspaper war" ended when the rival Dallas Times-Herald shut down, selling its assets to the News. Gelsanliter was general manager of the Philadelphia Inquirer and the Philadelphia Daily News during that city's news wars, which led to the defeat of the Philadelphia Bulletin. Given broad access to decision makers at the Morning News and A. H. Belo Corporation, the family-dominated company that owns the paper, Gelsanliter sketches "the players" and then moves through the week (including a hotly contested local election), highlighting the ways key news decisions are made and the techniques editors and executives use. Then he discusses the end of the Times-Herald, and the new demands the monopoly paper faced. The Morning News' owners earn full credit for their long-term view and nongimmicky approach to journalism, but their insistence on "positivism" and decorum, Gelsanliter suggests, may alienate segments of an increasingly diverse community. A lively, enlightening case study of newspaper journalism. Mary Carroll

Edition details

• Publisher: University of North Texas Press
• Publication date: 1995
• Language: English
• ISBN 10: 092939884X
• ISBN 13: 9780929398846
• Binding: Hardcover
• Edition number: 1
• Number of pages: 217