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nightmarish days combatting denial-of-service and other constantly evolving attacks. Returning to print media, Farhi warns, “The long, grinding hollowing out of newspapers has led to discussions about ‘news deserts,’ areas in which there is little or no media coverage at all.” Well, our readers know what that’s like. They’ve been wandering in a news desert for decades, searching for fair media reports on the Middle East and stories about their lives and struggles in this country. Community papers were the first to go. They’ve been purchased by Alden Global Capital, Gannett or Digital First Media, to name just a few. They’re usually controlled by a hedge fund, which “strip-mines its newspapers, drastically cutting newsroom staffs and squeezing profit from these operations with no apparent regard for journalism or their future viability,” according to The Washington Post’s media columnist Margaret Sullivan. A study published in the American Prospect magazine found the absentee owner often drives a paper into the ground. “By the time the paper is a hollow shell, the private equity company can exit and move on, having more than made back its investment.” Skilled, experienced, dedicated editors, reporters and photographers who have spent their careers watching how the government spends our tax dollars are left unemployed. Steve Cavendish, a former editor of the Nashville Scene and Washington City Paper, wrote, “In Tennessee, we’ve been watching the slow-motion destruction of our news institutions under Gannett for a few decades now, and the idea that things are about to get even worse is appalling. As badly as the country needs strong coverage of national news these days, the local news landscape is important, too. And what happened here mirrors what’s already happened in city after city.” Gannett bought up many of the small papers around Nashville and minimized or eliminated them, then eliminated redundancy and now stories go unreported, Cavendish concludes. The Washington Report is watching all these changes in news reporting with increasing concern. We don’t even know how to categorize our publication. Are we ethnic, local or global? A Jeffrey Bezos never tried to purchase the magazine— and who would sell it? Our readers are all co-owners. MARCH/APRIL 2019
BOOKSTORES ALSO GETTING SQUEEZED OUT
The same forces upending media, are shuttering local news shops and independent bookstores across the country. A big box bookstore comes to town or Amazon undercuts the prices of books and—poof— that bookstore where you used to browse for hours is out of business. Now Barnes & Noble bookstores has “delisted” the Washington Report on Middle East Affairs without saying why. This means the bookstore with the largest number of retail outlets in the U.S.—which sold 80 percent of our newsstand copies—will no longer carry this magazine in their stores. So a bookstore is putting the squeeze on a publication! That impact is devastating. As a direct result of Barnes & Noble’s decision, our long-time North American distributor stopped all their sales and marketing of the Washington Report to other bookstores. So there you have it. Consider this a report to our co-owners and a call for another insurrection. The Washington Report needs your help to survive the attacks coming from all directions and to continue to grow. These are some things you can do: 1. Please contact your Barnes & Noble and tell them you miss finding the Washington Report on their newsstands. While it’s great they’re carrying fashion and movie magazines, how about beefing up their current events shelves? 2. Advise young people in your orbit to
intern or volunteer for the magazine and bookstore. A semester with us in DC can be life-changing. We meet so many students whose parents so completely assimilated into America that they forgot to teach their kids Arabic or how to cook healthy, rich, Middle Eastern cuisine. They’re discovering their rich heritage in our bookstore. They’re buying cookbooks and learning Arabic (with the help of our books), and reading fabulous Arabic literature. Some of them are learning to be journalists (uh-oh) by writing for our magazine. 3. Come all ye out-of-work journalists and editors. We could use more experienced staff at this publication. We also need a publisher, a retired diplomat or business person, or—why not—a journalist! You could travel the country speaking at events or become a regular on the talk show circuit. 4. Our bookstore is ready for its next life as a bookstore/coffee shop. It’s already a neighborhood hub, book club meeting place, venue for book signings and film screenings. Help us pull in even more students from nearby universities by selling coffee and snacks as well as fabulous books. All we need is a little extra help from our co-owners to turn things around and make the most of a fabulous bookstore, magazine and constituency. Our angels came through in 2018 (see p. 72), and we hope you will again in 2019 because “together we can make a difference.” ■
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A Project of Middle East Children’s Alliance
WASHINGTON REPORT ON MIDDLE EAST AFFAIRS
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