We realize it is not very fashionable to say positive or encouraging things about media these days, unless you’re discussing the profits of youthful social media visionaries, but in many ways 2013 was an amazing year for St. Louis media – and, for what seems like the first time in decades, we mean amazingly good.
We have our own story to tell about our new investment in our readers and our community, but perhaps the most amazing local media development in 2013 was the integration of The Beacon with St. Louis Public Radio. We regard The Beacon as an essential news source in St. Louis and quite often the best source available on the major events and issues of the day. However, it’s no secret that the online publication has enjoyed more talent than readers and, in the absence of any print publication or broadcast outlet, it has needed help in calling daily attention to the efforts of it staff. The merger with St. Louis Public Radio promises to do just that.
It’s an amazing leap, particularly since it involved a staff of journalists becoming employees of a state university, the University of Missouri. The Beacon’s own report on the merger included expert claims that this daring, innovative experiment already has attracted attention all over the country, and this is a fact. We commend the leaders of these institutions, and their many enabling partners, for attempting this amazing and promising experiment. We will be watching – and listening – very closely.
Our interest and belief in St. Louis is so deep and well established, we trust that people realize we want this experiment to succeed so this region has more penetrating, fair and balanced coverage of itself in all its complexity and diversity. But we also benefit from this collaboration. We have a collegial relationship with The Beacon, where we are permitted to adopt their stories (while editing them for length) with no payment other than readership and attribution. With our small, but dedicated, newsroom, we find access to The Beacon’s reporting essential to maintaining our own high standards for The American. We are grateful for this relationship, and on behalf of our readers we give thanks for our being included in this experiment. For our privileged relationship with The Beacon is traveling with them to their new home at St. Louis Public Radio. This, too, is amazing and exciting.
Before we turn to ourselves, we should acknowledge that KDHX Community Media, another colleague of ours, also invested in this community in 2013 by upgrading their facilities and moving to the new Larry J. Weir building, also in Grand Center, not far from The Beacon and St. Louis Public Radio. Also, our sometimes nemesis the St. Louis Post-Dispatch, with our region’s largest staff of journalists, is still publishing great journalism on a routine basis. We congratulate them in advance for the major journalism awards their investigative package on wrongful arrests in St. Louis will win them. It deserves to bring a Pulitzer Prize to St. Louis. Invite us to the celebration party if it does.
And then there is your St. Louis American, the most widely circulated print publication in the state of Missouri after the Post and the Kansas City Star. We also made a new investment in 2013, leap-frogging Grand Center to our new offices in west Downtown. While many newspapers continue to decline, we also stepped up decisively this year. We expect to expand and improve the quality and scope of our video production in a new, upgraded studio and compete for viewers with anyone producing filmed media in St. Louis. We expect to help teach more and more public school students through our Newspapers In Education program, the largest in the state. And we plan to change and grow without leaving behind this lovingly produced print newspaper you hold in your hands. It is for and because of you, our readers and our community, that we are able to make these investments and take these chances. You are so very worth it.
