A Nieman Report or Anemic Report?

By Ted Cohen/Patch.com

It's hard to determine which institution has fallen harder since the 1980s - Maine's largest newspaper or Massachusetts' most hallowed university.

The two once literally shared a deuce of things in common - craftsmanship and fellowship.

But to see the latest piece of alleged journalism that came out of the Nieman Foundation - a story about the Portland Press Herald - it's obvious what a downward slide each has suffered.

Maine's largest and storied newspaper of record had a starting team in the 20th century that was second to none, producing not just just one, but two, Nieman Fellows.

David Himmelstein was the best writer ever to enhance the pages of the Portland Press Herald. Louis Ureneck as the top editor was the most gifted wordsmith ever to have sat in the paper's corner office.

Himmelstein was selected to the 1983 Nieman class, Ureneck 12 years later.

To have not just one but two Nieman draftees from a small state - and from the same paper, no less - was unprecedented. Not only that, but within such a short time span.

Now the paper, which used to claim unmatched talent, is a shadow of its former self, run by a clueless journalism foundation, The National Trust for Local News, and staffed by a hapless group of so-called journalists who wouldn't know news on sight.

A Nieman Reports writer just came out with an anemic piece purporting to analyze the trust's ill-fated mission that began in 2023 when it bought the Press Herald, two other dailies and a string of weeklies in Maine.

But, again, this wasn't the Nieman of yesteryear. The story simply repackaged the credible analyses that have already been done, first by Patch.com, then by The Maine Wire and the Poynter Institute's Rick Edmonds.

The Nieman piece anonymously quoted at one point what it called "a number of sources with knowledge."

Not even the newspaper of repute in Maine would have used unnamed sources back in the day. But now Harvard University's Nieman is doing it?

The Nieman piece did quote by name, among others, Stefanie Manning, who runs the subsidiary Maine Trust for Local News.

Manning - who just announced plans to stop printing many of the papers she's now running - was actually quoted by Nieman as touting the importance of the printed word vs. going digital.

"Civic-mindedness is what’s brought us to today, and the fact that there still are so many printed newspapers all across the state," she was allowed to say with an impugned straight face to Nieman Reports.

Nieman never mentioned the fact that the financially troubled trust - which just announced 49 layoffs - is run by the same woman whose focus is diluted between trying to cover news and running a breakfast diner.

Oh how far we have come.

Editor's note: Ted Cohen is a former long-time staffer for Maine's largest newspaper, the Portland Press Herald