That is the premise Charlotte magazine editor Richard Thurmond starts with in the course of a column about how the McClatchy take-over will likely dull the Uptown paper of record’s competitive instincts. There are a couple things amiss here, I think.
First, let’s not even argue about the quality of the Observer. There are too many variables — compared to what? Its current peers? What it once was? What it could be? Let’s just grant that, yes, today’s Observer is representative of a modern, mid-tier daily newspaper and leave it at that.
So as to Thurmond’s premise that the Observer is good — we’ll just roll with. But Thurmond still goes wrong when he concludes having the Charlotte and Raleigh papers under the same corporate leadership will diminish competition. I would argue that having all the McClatchy reporters under one roof will gin up at least as much competition between them as the old Knight Ridder vs. McClatchy corporate rivalry may have.
And Thurmond really slides off the rails when he turns to newspaper vet Walker Lundy for his view of the post-McClatchy Observer. As we noted months ago, Lundy’s take on modern media does not include any role for online media. As a result, Thurmond’s search for competition for the paper begins and ends with other daily papers. That, it should be clear, is dead wrong.
For one, Charlotte’s print alt-media — which includes Thurmond’s own magazine — has exploded in recent years. Certainly compared to the days when Knight Ridder tried to kill off local alt-tabs with its own Break publication, Charlotte is over-flowing with niche publications each of which takes eyeballs and ad dollars away from the daily paper.
Throw in the fact that The Rhino Times and Creative Loafing each routinely break stories of local import and you see there is no lack of competition there.
Then factor in the competition from online sites and blogs like Crime in Charlotte and, yes, the MeckDeck and it is really hard to sustain the idea that the Uptown paper of record will soon grow fat and happy without the gang from Raleigh to kick around.
