February 2009 Archives

I've just helped judge a journalism contest for my alma mater, McClatchy, and have a couple of observations to report: 

First, don't believe those who argue that newspapers' investigative reporting is so minimal that it's easily replaced. It isn't small, and if newspapers couldn't do it anymore, the void would be very deep.  Second, high-quality watchdog reporting isn't simply the province of big national players doing "secret prisons" or "secret eavesdropping" stories.  It's also the heart and soul of newsrooms across the country that keep watch over their communities and regions.

I say these things not primarily to brag about the work of my former colleagues -- though I'm honored to do so.  I say it because the experience of reading this work of 29 McClatchy papers (covering the last half of 2008) was so at odds with the critiques I often read about newspapers today. 

In association with USC Annenberg's Johnson Communication Leadership Center and the Center on Communication Leadership & Policy, the Tavis Smiley Foundation presents the Young Scholars Forum as part of the foundation's 10^th annual State of the Black Union symposium. The program, hosted by Tavis Smiley, features remarks by Dean Ernest J. Wilson III and a panel of distinguished contemporary young adult leaders before an audience of outstanding student leaders from high schools and colleges in Southern California. Lunch follows discussion. This event is free, but registration is required. For more information, click here.
8:30 a.m.  - 12 noon. USC Bovard Auditorium.

The media revolution has reached a new and important stage: The American public is being let in on the discussion.

In the last two weeks articles in the New York Times and Time magazine have helped push the question of "whither news media" before a much bigger audience.  I say it's about time.

Of course, it's not as if the industry's increasingly dire business outlook has been a secret. The Chapter 11 bankruptcy filings of Tribune Co. and the Minneapolis Star Tribune were plenty telling. So was the Detroit newspapers' decision to limit home delivery to three days a week.

But in many respects the public's understanding of the upheaval under way in the news business has been limited. And that's a problem, because the future of news and information isn't just an issue for the New York Times or CBS or the hometown newspaper, but for American citizens who need accurate information to keep the nation and their hometowns on track.

Newspapers are for sale across the country. National Public Radio and television news shows are laying off staff. The Tribune Co. is in bankruptcy. It's clear that journalism is in crisis, and in the current recession, things are likely to get much worse.

That's alarming. A robust press is vital to our democracy. And while bloggers and other new-media news operations have enriched the public dialogue in important ways, their work still depends on the painstaking - and expensive - reporting supplied by traditional journalists.