Roberts Heads Group to Save 2 Journalism Reviews

By: Joe Strupp Journalism legend Gene Roberts is heading a group of some of the nation's most powerful media leaders in an effort to save the industry's two top journalism reviews through an unprecedented circulation and fundraising drive.

"If they didn't do what they are doing, it would be difficult to keep going," Mike Hoyt, executive editor of Columbia Journalism Review, said about the group's efforts. CJR plans to lay off one staffer this summer. American Journalism Review cut its frequency from 10 to six times annually last year.

Roberts, best known for shepherding The Philadelphia Inquirer through its Pulitzer Prize run of the 1970s and 80s, told E&P the new committee had already raised more than $350,000 and signed up some 4,000 new subscriptions to AJR, published by the Philip Merrill College of Journalism at the University of Maryland in College Park, and CJR, published by the Columbia University Graduate School of Journalism in New York.

"We've just begun," said Roberts, who teaches at the University of Maryland. "We've increased circulation mainly by getting interested people, foundations and institutions to underwrite subscriptions for students in specific journalism schools."

Roberts said the group of 22 media leaders -- which include the likes of former Associated Press President and CEO Louis Boccardi, Ottaway Newspaper's James Ottaway, Time Inc. Editor-in-Chief Norman Pearlstine, and Bloomberg News Editor-in-Chief Matt Winkler -- first discussed the idea informally in late 2003. The first official meeting occurred two months ago at the Century Club in New York, where the committee agreed to seek funding and subscriptions through both corporate sponsors and foundation grants.

"I think they do some awfully good stuff," Pearlstine said about the magazines, adding that they "provide value to the industry."

Since March, committee members have obtained funding from several foundations and three corporations -- which Roberts declined to name -- for subscriptions to both magazines for students at 11 journalism schools: the University of Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania State University, Temple University, the University of Kansas, Kansas State University, the University of Missouri, the University of Nebraska, the University of Nebraska-Omaha, Columbia University, the University of Maryland, and the University of Notre Dame.

In addition, the fundraising has resulted in $350,000 in non-subscription aide to both journals, Roberts said. "We have a goal spread over five years of raising $5 million," he added. "We also want to get 8,000 subscriptions (to each magazine) by the end of this year."

AJR's circulation is about 25,000 and CJR is in the 22,000 range, according to the editors. They said costs and revenue were the real problems.

"Journalism reviews aren't exactly cash cows," said Rem Rieder, editor and senior vice president of AJR. "We have always been supported by a mix of paid advertising, paid circulation and fundraising."

AJR operates with a budget of about $1 million, with just $650,000 in annual revenue, Rieder said. He said the magazine cut its publication schedule back to six issues per year last summer, in part to save money but also to stop competing directly with CJR, which publishes six times a year. The two journals now publish in alternating months.

Hoyt said he also has had to cut costs, but declined to say by how much. His eight-person staff will be reduced by one this summer. "The need is there," he said about the Roberts' committee's contribution. "I am grateful and inspired."