Regaining relevance

The "Take A Stand..." article by Brent Cunningham was one of the most thought-provoking pieces we've read so far in this course. Although we haven’t discussed it extensively in class yet, the CJR piece brought up several issues about the modern news reporting that are highly important and deserve serious considerations by all media outlets.

One of Cunningham's main points is that the traditional media (meaning large city newspapers and broadcast news programs) should go beyond the basic tasks of chronicling the daily activities of the usual leadership faces, but should instead use their potential influence to put important issues on the public radar. His main example is mass transit, which has been declining in quality over the past decades despite it being a crucial part of urban life - he even suggests that the mass media initiate a "crusade" for better mass transit.

While I agree with him that public transit warrants more use and monetary support, I'm a bit leery of this idea. There' s a very thin line between advocating for the common good and supporting a cause that's more self-interest than public interest. One major historical example of this is at the turn of the previous century, when the family that owned the Los Angeles Times pushed for the creation of water supply sources from the eastern part of the state, over the fierce opposition of people in the effected region. They used all the power and influence of that newspaper to push government action and public opinion in the L.A. area to get behind the building of reservoirs and pipelines across hundreds of miles of desert (this story forms the backdrop of the 1974 movie “Chinatown” – one of the films that made Jack Nicholson a star). Cunningham mentions an example of a relatively minor issue can get heavy coverage if it’s a pet issue of top editors – the NY Times series of articles in late 2002 and early 2003 about the Augusta National Golf Club’s exclusion of women.

A second issue raised in this piece is one I strongly agree with – the need for more vigorous investigative reporting and strong advocacy for reform where needed. Cunningham describes how the investigative arms of many large city papers and national TV networks have shrunk from their earlier role as tenacious diggers that got behind public curtains and official statements. Many factors have influenced this decline, from lawsuits to conflicting interests with the corporate owners. He notes how the remaining people and groups willing to actively delve into public service journalism have left the media outlets that formerly published their work. Perhaps we in the public have become too jaded and cynical from reading or seeing numerous reports over the years about government waste or corporate malfeasance that we don’t find it worth caring about – an attitude that basically says “oh, well, that stuff happens…what are you gonna do about it?”.

Whether journalism can stake a new claim to importance and legitimacy remains a highly uncertain vision. I share most of Cunningham’s views that this should happen, and that the factors working against this vision are formidable. With traditional newspapers and TV news programs hardly earning any profit from their usual sources and facing a shrinking public engagement with the news, the signs are not encouraging.