Going Mainstream? p.

By: George Garneau

Going Mainstream? p.
Alternative newspapers beef up association for PR, lobbying
STOP THE PRESSES. The alternative press is going mainstream. Sort of.
The alternatives, the anti-establishment weeklies that have grown for 25 years by tweaking the "mainstream" dailies, are plucky as ever.
It is their association, the Association of Alternative Newsweeklies, that is going legit ? at least to the extent it can and still represent papers that stake their turf outside the mainstream.
Its first 16 years were spent as a "floating, ragtag operation" that moved every two years as its presidents changed. But the AAN has reconstituted itself in the image of, pardon the expression, a mainstream trade association.
From the gray and balding veterans whose papers have matured into multimillion-dollar weekly groups to the greener hands still struggling to grow young papers, AAN members at their annual convention, in Austin, Texas, unanimously approved a long-range plan designed "to raise AAN to a new level of recognition and professionalism."
Over the next two years, the plan calls for AAN to establish a permanent headquarters, double the staff by hiring a full-time executive director, start a journalism contest to boost the alternative press's image and visibility, and get involved in lobbying on issues that affect their growing business.
"Everyone really has the feeling that this is an industry whose time has come," said incoming AAN president Scott Spear, publisher of the Phoenix New Times and executive vice president of New Times Inc., a four-paper group. "We want to step up to the plate and be part of the national media scene."
Unless the alternatives move to confront the regulatory and competitive challenges posed by big business and big government, Spear told members, "we face the possibility of becoming a footnote in American media history."
The alternatives got a major plug from luncheon speaker Molly Ivins, the author and Fort Worth Star-Telegram columnist who has worked in both the mainstream and alternative press.
After existing mainly to put on an annual convention and publish a quarterly newsletter, AAN also approved its first mission statement. The group exists to promote editorial excellence, exchange information as a means of increasing professionalism and sales, provide advertising and marketing support, boost the image of the alternative press, and advocate its interests.
With a higher profile, AAN is staking a claim to what it acknowledges is a tiny piece of the more than $40 billion North American newspaper pie, most of which is hogged up by daily papers, the papers the alternatives love to hate.
Spear said a full-time, permanent staff would help focus the alternatives' "muddled" image and counter the perception that they lack credibility.
Nobody disputes that the alternatives have come a long way since a dozen or so counterculture papers got together informally 16 years ago.
Today, AAN's 85 member papers boast a combined circulation, mostly free, of five million a week and annual revenues estimated at $200 million.
Despite the advertising recession of the last few years, new alternatives and wannabes continue to sprout up to speak to younger readers about their culture, to serve smaller advertisers, and often to hound their local daily. They are finding niches in ever-smaller cities ? new AAN members include papers in Jacksonville and Knoxville, while papers in Boise and Pasadena were rejected?and even in big cities that already have alternatives, such as New York, Los Angeles and San Francisco.
While the sputtering economy has slowed growth, it has not caused anything close to the wrenching retrenchment experienced by many large dailies since 1989.
"This business is booming," Spear said. "The last five years have been banner years for the alternative newsweeklies."
AAN is growing with its members. One indication is the 20 papers, well above normal, that applied for membership this year. Only five made the grade of the exclusive club. Rules require members to do more than music reviews. New members must provide enough general-interest news and "a positive alternative to mainstream journalism" to pass a vote by current members. Requirements were tightened last year to exclude weeklies owned by dailies.
Plans call for a headquarters, probably in New York, Washington or Chicago, by 1994. An $80,000-a-year executive director, yet to be named, would be added to the group's current position of business manager.
The plan will raise AAN's budget to $280,000, from $180,000. New funds will come from a dues increase for larger papers, the journalism contest and a phone service marketed in remnant ad space.
In contrast, the Newspaper Association of America represents over 1,400 mostly daily papers and spends $35 million a year, including $600,000 for a chief executive officer.
Besides seeking respect, AAN wants to protect its business interests. That means advocating positions on postal, telecommunications and tax issues.
The stakes came into dramatic focus in 1991 when AAN's California members got a "wake-up call" from state tax collectors. AAN members, who had earlier relied on the state newspaper publishers association to fight the pending sales tax, and other free weeklies were hit by a tax on production costs, while paid papers suffered a milder tax on circulation sales.
"We got screwed," said Dan Pulcrano, editor and publisher of the San Jose Metro, which was handed a $60,000 annual tax bill. The weeklies mounted a furious lobbying campaign and the state rescinded the tax, averting the "most serious threat our industry ever faced," Pulcrano said.
Pulcrano, who was elected AAN vice president, said he hates the idea of lobbying ? and promised that AAN will not hire hookers to lobby politicians ? but said, "We better keep an eye on them and make sure somebody doesn't put us out of business."
Another threat lies in telecommunications, where many alternatives make money selling phone access to personal ads and see opportunities in selling access to their music, film and restaurant reviews.
For example, Cox Enterprises of Atlanta won exclusive rights to a 511 number in Georgia that gives customers easier access to its services, and US West is threatening to shut down its 976 service, which alternatives use for voice services.
AAN envisions entering the regulatory fray, at least nationally, by hiring lobbying firms, not by lobbying directly through its executive director.
The publishers of the alternative papers reject the notion that advocating their business through a trade association is at odds with their editorial image as outsiders, critics of the status quo.
"If we don't get into the process and get to the table when the deals are cut, we are going to be left out in the cold," said Spear. "We have to move to a position where we get our voice heard."
Alternatives are definitely taking business more seriously, said outgoing AAN president Ray Hartmann, publisher of the River Front Times in St. Louis, "but we are still unified in being the kind of publications that are feisty and question authority. We have no ambition of being boring mainstream dailies."
Bruce Brugmann, publisher of the San Francisco Bay Guardian and one of the founders and first presidents of AAN, said plans for a higher-profile AAN were the next step in the organization's "down-home approach to a trade association."
Brugmann said that the group would retain the entrepreneurial spirit of its members because "The moment you join the big daily, you become obsolete."
That message was emphasized at AAN's annual First Amendment Lunch, where Fort Worth Star-Telegram columnist Molly Ivins blasted the mainstream press for increasingly practicing "the journalism of celebrities" and losing touch with "the problems of real people."
With the consolidation of media in the hands of fewer corporations, increasing profit pressure, and constraints of style and objectivity on mainstream reporters, "the need for alternative newspapers is clearer and clearer," she said.
Despite AAN's newfound, traditional trappings, AAN members not only deny joining the mainstream but suggest that the mainstream may be joining them.
"If we can elect a dope-smoking, draft-dodging president, then something has changed," said Jeff von Kaenel, publisher of the Sacramento News & Review.