The Printer’s Devil

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U.S. Army Col. David Hackworth, the maverick Vietnam War hero, had a theory about Army officers that applies to newspaper publishers.

Hackworth’s theory neatly describes one of the key reasons American newspapers are dying.

According to the Hackworth Theory, there are four personality traits that be combined to describe any publisher: Smart, stupid, busy and lazy.

You might think that a smart and busy publisher would be the best but you’re wrong.

The smart, busy Army officers were the ones out in front, always scouting out, always checking on every man and always active — and were the ones getting shot in the opening stages of the battle — and getting their men shot as well.

I’ve heard of a couple of smart, busy publishers — both of them got fired.

One I knew and his newspaper, a small daily, was awe-inspiring; the best newspaper I ever saw, and that’s counting the New York Times and Washington Post. Although he wasn’t one for newspaper contests, his paper was a Pulitzer Prize winner if he had bothered to enter.

The paper did real investigations. It went after the powerful and wealthy in town: it truly comforted the afflicted and afflicted the comfortable.

And the wealthy and powerful screamed — they also called the chairman and every member of the newspaper chain’s corporate board. They threatened a advertising boycott and the company buckled, and fired the publisher. The guy ended up at the Washington Post.

No, according to the Hackworth Theory, the best publisher is the one who’s smart but lazy.

Consider the generals who are smart and lazy.

Rather than hitting their enemy head-on over and over, the smart and lazy general looks for the easy way, sneaking around the enemy forces and hitting them from behind. Fewer casualties, bigger results and greater glory from snookering the other guy.

Napoleon became the greatest general of the age by sending his armies on end-runs around his opponents, then sitting down on their supply lines and making them turn and attack him — with disastrous results.

Military experts still study the advice of the ancient Chinese military genius Sun Tzu who advised: Retreat when the enemy advances; advance when they retreat, etc.

Gen. George Washington ensured America’s independence — and his presidency — by attacking the British at places and times they didn’t expect.

The smart and lazy publisher knows that things run surprisingly well without his “help.”

Because they’re smart, they will recognize that small problems can grow to be big problems and head those off with a judicious action.

But mostly, they’ve learned that most difficult lesson — institutions tend to work best when the head guys sit on their hands.

As one smart and lazy publisher once told me: “The secret of success is finding good people, telling them what you want done, then getting out of the way — and then take all the credit.”

Dumb and lazy publishers are almost just as good.

They’re too stupid to run things and are too lazy to care. The more they’re out on the golf course, the better things run at the paper.

But most publishers are busy — and stupid.

Because I started with military examples, consider Braxton Bragg, one of the top Confederate generals during the American Civil War — one of the top generals for stupid and busy in a war full of unusually stupid and busy generals.

There’s a story about Bragg as a middle-ranked officer serving at an isolated U.S. Army fort before the war. Whether it’s true is a question, but from what I’ve read about Bragg, I would believe it.

Bragg’s commanding officer was called away from the fort and left Bragg in charge.

As the story goes, Commander Bragg would issue orders for the post.

Bragg was famous even then as being a difficult person to get along with and when he switched hats and became Subordinate Bragg, he would draft a counter response objecting the commander’s orders, stiffly explaining why the orders were misguided and unrealistic and that he as subordinate couldn’t possibly follow them.

Then Commander Bragg would find the response on his new desk and write a counter-counter-response saying the subordinate didn’t understand the big picture and demanding the orders be carried out as written.

Then Subordinate Bragg would shoot back a defiant reply, saying only a fool would follow such a stupid order.

Then Commander Bragg would write an angry reply, putting the subordinate on report and threatening court martial.

Bragg was so busy that nothing else got done.

This continued back and forth and the stack of orders and responses grew until the fort commander returned. Needless to say, he was astonished by the stack of correspondence that was awaiting him and the things he had to fix.

Stupid publishers are just as spectacularly busy.

For a variety of reasons that I’ll discuss later, publishers and publishing companies ignore the one thing that will save newspapers and bring in more readers.

They do try to attract readers.

They look mightily for the next new gimmick that will bring the readers back, be it all-local front pages, redesigns, “branding,” fancy graphics, “what’s in it for the readers” ledes, cutting to the core readership, convergence with the Internet, or plain old “synergy.”

Because they’re stupid, they’re always wrong.

I know I sound the jaded cynic and the negative nabob.

But I’ve been in the trade long enough to have seen the next great idea, some for the second and third time. It might work for the short term. Every other publisher will acclaim it and it will get written in breathless terms in the trade magazines. But the next great idea always crashes and burns, costing money, demoralizing reporters and alienating readers.

But other publishers honor and laud those publishers who stay busy.

As an editor, you’ll be in a tough situation, having your publisher demand that you adopt the latest gimmick, at some inconvenience to you.

And unfortunately, when the gimmick blows up or wears out, there will be another gimmick, followed by another gimmick, squandering your time and resources and distracting from the important stuff.

And unfortunately, when they fail, as they will, guess who will be blamed? Hint, it won’t be the publisher.

To be fair, publishers aren’t the only stupid and busy business types around these days. One merely has to note the disappearance of the electronics and steel industries, or ponder the state of he Big Three automakers who are being beaten senseless by Japanese car makers. Look at just about any economic (and government) sector these days. Stupid reigns supreme in American business.

And Americans have forgotten the Number One rule that most of the rest of the world knows: Stupidity is the only sure capital crime.