Another Newspaper Makes Its Inability to Turn a Profit an Asset

I was recently asked my opinion on the announcement of the Salt Lake Tribune being granted approval to become a nonprofit by the IRS. Specifically, the question was "What do you think of this model for newspapers?"

My quick answer:

For newspapers it is a lost cause—like all you can drink water for someone drowning in a river. Newspapers are a dead medium. Journalism is potentially a different story.

This is an old idea as indicated in the story. I think Tampa [Bay Times] went this route about 10 years ago. The Poynter Institute has advocated this for longer than that. On the one hand I like it from the standpoint of independence; however, I don’t think pragmatically it can be sustainable. It is just too expensive to fund journalism without advertising. And it doesn’t sound like they have any intention of giving up advertising.

On the other hand I don’t like it because I don’t think we should have a tax system that plays favorites (non-profit versus for-profit).

Here is a little more coverage from Nieman Lab. Unlike previous versions, this move to non-profit status is somehow more completely nonprofit. I am not quite clear if there is a material difference. I do find the appeal for charitable donations interesting in a kinda gross sort of way. Remember that every time you grant one entity tax-favored status, you increase the burden on all other tax-paying entities. Undoubtedly, many find this to be just fine.

In the religion of journalism, newspapers are a metaphorical holy land. There is a great sense that without them we cannot have credible news. Within this belief is a zealotry proclaiming local newspapers as the glue binding local society together. This like so many things in religion is not based on fact.

Our access to vacuous gossip and shallow conjecture is greater now than ever--we just don't have to pay so dearly for it and wait for it to be hand delivered to our doorstep. Newspapers like most of "professional" journalism have always delivered an array of facts that deserve more scrutiny and a biased narrative. That bias comes in one of three varieties: intentional slant to protect a powerful interest, unintentional slant repeating mistaken conventional wisdom, or simple ignorance introducing the ailment knowing enough to be dangerous.

I'm not saying non-professional journalism is better in any of these regards. I'm just pointing out that the only difference by and large is that being a professional really just meant you could (in some cases still can) get paid for it.

On The Cusp

In my experience some of the greatest happiness is found on the cusp of new plateaus. 

These are pictures of my kids in the Lufthansa lounge of Houston International Airport from our vacation in the summer of 2018. We were on our way to New York City and Washington, D.C. This was their first time in an airport luxury lounge. 

I’m glad my kids don’t feel entitled to that treatment. And I am glad they aren’t so used to that luxury that they can’t find the enjoyment in it. They felt like they were, at least for that moment, “big time”. 

One way to help others feel loved and important is simply to find ways to give them the feeling of being "big time". I am thinking in particular people who are in a position to really appreciate it meaning it, whatever "it" may be, is out of the ordinary for them. 

It's hard to appreciate what we see every day. I want to do more to feel and appreciate the amazement of the world around me. I want to be amazed and I want to help other people be amazed. The downside of progress is that a world more beautiful than the one we just left eventually becomes banal. There is an ever-present tension between reaching new heights and the last ratchet up not being enough. Once luxury becomes ordinary, there is much less if any room for more excitement--the thrill is gone. One way to recapture the thrill is to increase the luxury. But I’m not sure that’s the best choice. 

The best choice from the moral or ethical consideration might rather be to bring that same luxury to someone else. Rather than try to capture the joy all to myself, I should find joy in seeing someone else experience the same first thrill that I had experienced. And of course this is more of a gift when it is not one's own kids who are receiving the new-found joys--this is just my example. This is the virtue and the selfish pleasure in sharing, and I’m sure I don't do enough of it. I am not entirely to blame because the world is not quite effectively set up to enable that sharing. There are too many institutions and norms and attitudes that serve as obstacles to the sharing I describe. 

A new goal for myself is to try to do more to increase my sharing. This is not limited to sharing stuff, although that is usually easiest, but it also includes experiences. Some of this will be charity, but a larger portion will just be finding ways to expand opportunities and extend courtesies. And make no mistake; this is all apart from the very important question of how to add meaning to peoples' lives. Generally I think the answer here is simply to get out of their way. Help them by not helping. Let them do as they want as long as it is peaceful. If there is something for you to do, discover it with them not for them. Trust and respect their decisions.

What Do Weddings and College Football Have in Common?

Besides not going together as in: do not schedule your wedding in conflict with an OU football game and expect me to attend (the wedding).

Weddings, sporting events, and so much more are all subject to alternatives for the audience. And that competition is demanding that average is over.

Consider weddings first. They have to be getting more and more expensive and outlandish just to keep up--not just with each other but with the opportunity costs for the guests. The explicit cost of attending a wedding is time, travel, and gift. Since there is no admission fee to reduce, the only way a wedding can become more attractive is along the quality dimension (differentiation). In the extreme think about trying to get people to attend a Manhattan wedding. Of course it would have to be fabulous! The opportunity cost for guests would simply be too high to allow otherwise.

Now consider sporting events. They face opportunity costs from far substitutes (other leisure and non-leisure activities) and near substitutes (watching the game at home or a friend's house on a giant high-definition TV with no traffic, weather, cheaper food and drink, etc.). Sporting events do have admission fees which means these competitive forces are at work making college football et al. choose a strategy of differentiation (high quality, value-added experiences for select audiences) or low price (mass market to fill enormous venues). Over the long-term the latter strategy probably is suboptimal if not outright unfeasible given competitive pressures and expense demands. It might all become various first-class seating only at the highest levels of various sports.

Thinking back to weddings, people don't need the superficial opportunity to stay in touch that weddings once offered. Social media now provides this. With sports feeling like you are there and a part of it can be closely simulated through viewing on TV, interacting with others via social media or texting, and all the other media/internet follow up.

This goes a long way to explaining the wedding-industrial complex I pondered previously.

Like A Boss: Universal Rules For Looking The Part

Robin Hanson & Kevin Simler may understand this... 

Borrowing heavily from my memory of an article I believe I read in Fortune ("acting like a CEO" or something) about 15+ years ago. You can take this as advice, observation, criticism, or any way you like. I am not singling anyone out in particular, but if the shoe fits...

1. Laughter is poor form. Shows a lack of control. At best smirk with a "hmph", which could be mistaken for a throat clear. If a slight chortle escapes, shake your head as if to deny the appropriateness of it. Any accidental laughter should leave witnesses unsure if you thought it humorous or thought it humorous that one would think it to be humorous. Never, NEVER giggle.
2. Avoid any hint of sarcasm and give no indication of any appreciation or even perception for it. 
3. Refrain from eating sweets in front of others. Act as if to show the slightest attraction to a dessert is to yield to all childish pleasures and reveal a total lack of control. 
4. Your enthusiasm is just matter-of-fact support for those things self-evidently worthy of praise. You are a charter member of Team Winners. If "they" fail to succeed, it is simply due to some lack of confidence they shamefully did not possess--a concern you had all along. 
5. In circumstances when normal humans are overcome with visible worry or anxiousness, you are overcome with calm. Emotions are for the weak. You are a stoic. 
6. If asked to give a solution to a hypothetical problem, instead of a direct answer just reflect poignantly on how you would build a process for avoiding such dilemmas from the start. If asked to give advice, challenge the presumptions behind the question. Never waste an opportunity to obfuscate and go meta.
7. Never bring your own copies of materials to a meeting. If it is important enough for you to need it, it is important enough that someone will provide it. 
8. Play dumb if you can use that to your advantage to put an adversary or underling on edge. 

An Idea Ahead of Its Time Is a Bad Idea

Is Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez (AOC) simply way ahead of her time? 

If someone came back from the future to tell us that in her time (our future) fossil fuels had been successfully banned (first nationally and then worldwide), this would have to be taken as exceptionally good news. 

At the same time if we were to implement a first national and then worldwide ban on fossil fuels today, it would be colossally bad news.  

It is overwhelmingly likely that a ban on fossil fuels sometime in the future can only happen in a remarkably wealthy world. Ironically it will be built on the back of the use of fossil fuels that we will be wealthy enough to eventually ban them.

Religious leaders like AOC don't understand the subtle yet critical difference between our legitimate aspirations and our binding realities.

Politicians follow rather than lead. Perhaps we should be grateful for this when it holds true.

It Ain't What You Know . . .

Partial list of conventional wisdom that is completely false yet very hard to change closed minds on:

• Plastic bags are bad for the environment and reusable bags are a good alternative (the trend of using paper straws is another stupid step in this direction). But maybe I shouldn't be so pessimistic?
• Public companies are too short term focused and private companies have the ability to take a greater long-term view. 
• The younger generations are significantly worse with respect to (fill in the blank) than prior generations.
• (Perpetually) the upcoming election is the most important one in our lifetime. 
• You shouldn't end a sentence with a preposition (like I did at the start of this post).
• The critical problem in education is a lack of funding, and more money would have a meaningful impact on improvement. 

How Good Will Trump Turn Out To Be?

Is the Trump presidency?

• A bad aberration
• A good aberration
• An extreme version of the norm
• Just the norm

Be careful how you answer. The is no individually complete and correct answer, and all of the answers have their own negative implications for the U.S. presidency.

Consider the list below an incomplete treatment of the effective progress report. By this I mean what is the practical result rather than how should Trump (and presidency) be rated.

• His best accomplishments are greatly overshadowed by his bad policies leaving them largely unblemished by the Trump stain. Namely: deregulation (he might be the best deregulator since Carter), tax reform, criminal-justice reform, and court appointments (SCOTUS et al.; these various appointees will soon enough stand on their own records, and I believe they are largely good to very good). 
• He is moving the Overton Window on questioning those in power while demystifying and deglorifying public office and the presidency in particular. 
• He is tarnishing if not absolutely destroying the political positions of protectionism, strict immigration restriction, and general intolerance for others. Perhaps once he is done, the mere appearance of being against free trade, immigration, etc. will be political poison for fear of being branded another Trump. Obviously, this is an optimistic take.
• He has been only as bad if not better than Obama and certainly better than Bush Jr. on war and conflict. 
• On the other hand . . .
• He is morally ugly, hateful, and gross.
• His behavior is embarrassing and insulting.
• He seems to inspire our lesser selves.
• He is dangerous in different ways than the recent and possible alternatives--understand this to be far-left tail risk very much including war along many dimensions.
• He risks giving free-market capitalism and traditional American (aspirational) values a lasting, negative connotation. 

Thinking about The Big Five, here is how I would rate the Trump presidency:

1. Drug Prohibition - 1.75 out of 4 stars (this improves to 2.75 stars if he legalizes marijuana)
2. Education - 2.5 out of 4 stars
3. Immigration - 0 out of 4 stars
4. Taxation - 3 out of 4 stars
5. War - 2.25 out of 4 stars 

For a very good related post, check out Fake Nous.