Newspapers serve the public and shouldn’t always be focused on turning a profit, said Jay Harris, former publisher of the San Jose Mercury-News, whose parent company announced plans in February to fire staff members to increase revenue.

Harris, who resigned before the paper’s announcement, addressed about 130 people Monday in Fisk Hall as part of the Crain Lecture Series. In a talk moderated by Medill Dean Ken Bode, Harris spoke of his recent departure from the Mercury-News and other instances of news corporations putting too much emphasis on profit, such as CNN’s nonstop broadcast of the O.J. Simpson trial in 1995.

“They were very focused on the bottom line,” Harris said about his former employers at Knight Ridder, the Mercury-News’ parent company.

Harris said Knight Ridder wanted to take steps he felt were “fundamental mistakes” and to make cuts that were “unacceptable.”

He compared newspapers to health care, calling both “businesses but a public responsibility.”

When people talk about the deterioration of health care, Harris said, they talk about the quality of care, not profits. Harris said that he feels the same way about newspaper publication and that quality of newspapers’ public service was at risk.

Top executives of news organizations are in “golden handcuffs,” Harris said. The executives make a lot of money and those salaries are tied to the overall business performance of the paper as well as the paper’s journalistic performance.

“You’re in a position where it’s a lot to give up,” Harris said. “You need to know where the line is for yourself.”

Harris said the quality of journalism is being affected by companies not re-investing their profits in the news corporation. He said when news corporations first went public in the late 1960s and early 1970s, they became progressively stronger. But in the last 15 years, he said, they have become more focused on keeping stock prices high and getting high returns.

“It turned out to be a deal with the devil,” Harris said.

He also said news corporations’ success is being “measured against the wrong type of companies,” particularly entertainment companies.

Some audience members agreed that profits should be less important for news organizations.

“There are some things that shouldn’t make money,” said Gerald Adler, Medill ’53 and an Evanston resident.