‘Melody’ should be held to high standard

For years, when I was an editor at The Telegraph, I always circled Nov. 1 on my calendar.

That’s The Telegraph’s birthday: Nov. 1, 1826. It was a weekly newspaper when it started, and it’s 25 years older than The New York Times, I like to tell folks.

Each year when that date rolled around, I sent out a short note to the newsroom, giving a little history, explaining the significance of the day and tying the past to the present. I always quoted Myron Bartlett, the newspaper’s founder.

In that first issue, a copy of which hangs in the Reg Murphy Center for Collaborative Journalism office near Mercer University, Bartlett wrote a “prospectus” for the front page, telling readers what to expect and what he believed in. It always inspired me and made me proud to be a newspaperman.

It read in part: The Telegraph “shall not only disseminate useful information, but advocate fearlessly, THE RIGHTS OF THE PEOPLE!” (Yes, he put it in all caps.)

 Barlett added: “Warmly devoted to the cause of the people, his constant endeavor will be to promote their interests — his highest ambition to merit their confidence.” 

The challenges for The Telegraph (and all newspapers these days) are even greater, nearly 198 years later. The rise of digital media has cut deeply into advertising and circulation revenue. 

Most local papers are hanging on – if they haven’t closed already — with many of them shredded by absentee, cost-cutting overlords.

In Macon’s case, that would be the New Jersey-based hedge fund Chatham Asset Management, which bought the McClatchy Co. (which owned The Telegraph) in a bankruptcy sale nearly four years ago. Ownership matters, especially in the media universe.

Chatham is an investment company, “warmly devoted” to profit margins and extracting every penny of profit it can from its  properties. That’s what the finance world does. In its way of thinking, a newspaper is no more than a piece of commercial property or a shopping mall. 

If Chatham needs to cut newsroom resources to maximize returns for investors, that’s what it will do. If that means hundreds of layoffs, as well as newspaper closures, so be it. 

There’s a quaint idea, especially among old-timers like me, that a newspaper is not just a business. It has a civic role and responsibility — a noble purpose — beyond its economic existence.

A newspaper should help make a community better, stronger — and healthier. It should promote dialogue among its residents, even if they disagree. Its stories should praise accomplishments and address challenges — and shortcomings — with possible solutions whenever it can. 

It should be courageous and have a spirit about it that’s almost as important as the information it conveys.

To do so — to continue to exist — a newspaper also needs sufficient revenue to pay employees to achieve those objectives, even if that means the level of profitability might be sacrificed.

All of this leads me to the recent launch of The Macon Melody, a new source for news here. It’s a nonprofit, independent newspaper that will cover Bibb County. The print debut is out today. It’s another first edition, just like Myron’s.

You’ll learn about the Knight Foundation’s $5 million investment in creating the Georgia Trust for Local News.

This ambitious initiative, in partnership with Mercer’s Center for Collaborative Journalism, is made up of 19 newspapers around the state.

The Macon Melody is one of them. As such, it will be part of a statewide news network, built on local, community-minded content, with a newsroom leader who’s been here for years and knows this city.

Macon needs a newspaper it can count on to provide the real, relevant news of the day — good and bad, without fear or favor, as they say. Knight’s investment in this start-up is a big deal for our city.

I’ll be watching — and reading. I hope you will too.

Macon native Oby Brown is a proud graduate of Central High School and the University of Georgia’s Grady College of Journalism and Mass Communication. Before joining Historic Macon as director of communications, he spent most of his working life as a reporter and editor at The (Macon) Telegraph.