Why I’ll miss the local opinion pages

The Arizona Daily Star's editorial page boss sheds some light on what it’s like to lose the best job in journalism.

Last week, we noted that the Arizona Daily Star suffered another round of devastating layoffs, and we asked you to help us figure out how to save local news.

You all had a ton of great thoughts! One of the really cool things about our readers is you all seem genuinely interested in the fate of local news and what it means for all of us.

So today, we invited Curt Prendergast, the former editor of the Star’s opinion pages, to talk about what the shrinking newsroom means for Tucsonans, and what being laid off from a job he loved has been like for him.

Curt is one of the sharpest, most thoughtful, reporters we know. And unfortunately, he’s looking for new opportunities. Hit him up at prendergastcurt@gmail.com

I don’t get to do it again.

That was the thought that hit me like a thunderclap after I was laid off from the Arizona Daily Star. Until last week, I ran the Star’s opinion pages, rounding up local commentaries for the state’s second-largest city, writing columns and acting as one of the main public faces of the newspaper. It was a hectic, stressful job, but it also was more fun than I ever thought journalism could be. Every day I felt honored to do it.

All that went away on April 24 when I learned my position had been cut, along with nine others at the Star. It happened so suddenly I didn’t get a chance to say goodbye to our readers. So I’d like to take a moment here to talk about the importance of local opinion pages and what I’ll miss most about running them.

The last Sunday edition I put together is a great example. I devoted the entire opinion section to Proposition 412. If you’re not from Tucson, you probably have no idea what that is. It would extend Tucson Electric Power’s franchise agreement with the City of Tucson for 25 years, while raising rates to pay for putting certain power lines underground, instead of erecting enormous, unsightly poles. It also would fund some of the city’s green initiatives.

The week before I was laid off, Prop 412 took a beating from local residents in the Star’s opinion pages and TEP decided to write a rebuttal. I ran their rebuttal that Sunday, alongside another pro-Prop 412 opinion from a group advocating for power lines to go underground. On the other side of the argument, we had a local resident calling attention to the lack of transparency and the tens of millions of dollars at stake, while another resident asked voters to bargain for more money for green projects. I spent days fact-checking all of them. That Sunday, thousands of Tucsonans had the chance to balance four thoughtful arguments, each one grounded in fact.

Think about that for a second. The most powerful political figures in Tucson, the mayor and council, negotiated the terms of Prop 412 with one of the most powerful businesses in town, TEP. Then, with little fanfare or public outreach, they put a proposition up for a vote by the public. But all of a sudden, Prop 412 was a source of intense debate, and the Star’s opinion pages played a crucial role by hosting much of that debate.

That is what I don’t get to do again. That is what hit home with me more than anything else during those shocked, grief-filled days after I was laid off. I felt like part of my soul had been amputated.

The New York Times is not going to write about Prop 412, let alone devote an entire opinion section to it. The same goes for the countless other propositions and elections in local communities throughout the country. We need local people to write about local issues.

I live in Tucson and love this city, just like the other Star employees who were laid off last week and the many others who were laid off in recent years. Over the course of my 18 months as opinion editor, and six years before that as a reporter for the Star covering the border, federal courts and a variety of other beats, I built a bond with our readers. Then, out of nowhere, a phone call from the Star’s parent company severed that bond.

Thankfully, the debate over Prop 412 continued in the Star’s opinion pages after I was laid off. The Star still has smart, dedicated people who I’m sure will do their best. But how long can they keep it up without enough people to do the job?

Shortly after I got the job as opinion editor, I wrote a column about Alden Global Capital, a hedge fund known for gutting newsrooms, trying to buy the Star’s parent company. The takeover attempt eventually fell apart, but it raised questions in my mind about what Tucson would be like without a big, daily newspaper like the Star. 

Obviously, I am not the only person to ask that question. A few days after the layoffs, the Agenda asked its readers to “tell us how to save local news.” I don’t have any easy answers, but that doesn’t mean I’m not optimistic. 

As newspapers hollow out, I see outlets like the Agenda, the Tucson Sentinel, and Arizona Luminaria, all of which are staffed by ink-in-their-veins reporters and editors, rising up to meet the moment. All across the country, small outlets spring up when larger outlets fold. My gut tells me they will flourish if they are given time and support to grow, and the emerging “news deserts” will disappear faster than we think.

But these small outlets often can’t act as a counterweight to the powerful yet, and it will be a long time until they have the resources to replace what the Star lost last week. The public still needs bigger outlets like the Star to do the bulk of local reporting. I’m glad readers still put up money to subscribe to the Star and the newspaper is still profitable. 

If you’re one of the paid subscribers, ask yourself why you do that. I bet you do it because you want to stay informed, you value the dedication of reporters and editors, and you depend on the bonds, the trust, they’ve built with you.

We quietly forge those bonds every time a reporter asks a question we know our readers want answered, an editor raises a skeptical eyebrow, and a reader opens a newspaper or clicks on a news website, ready to learn what’s going on in the world outside their daily lives. 

We have a long way to go before the smaller outlets become what readers need them to be. Be patient with them. Give them time to grow. Reach out to the reporters and editors and tell them what you’d like them to do. Strengthen those bonds.

In the meantime, I’ll never forget how lucky I was to get to help local people make their voices heard. And I’ll keep looking for a place where I get to do it again.