On reporting and the state of the media

Molly Ivins has a great column up about newspapers, reporting, and the state of media in general. It's excellent- please go read the whole column.

Newspaper Suicide

Aside from my own sentimental attachment to newspapers, I have no objection to all of us shifting over to the Internet and doing the same thing there. You'd still have the two big problems, however: A) How do you know if it's true? And, B) how do you put a lot of information into a package that's useful to people? If newspapers were just another buggy-whip industry, none of this would be of much note -- another disappearing artifact, like the church key. But while Wall Street doesn't care, nor do many of the people who own and run newspapers, newspapers do, in fact, matter beyond producing profit -- they have a critical role in democracy. It's called a well-informed citizenry.

We are in trouble.

The Project for Excellence in Journalism, run by Columbia University, has a new report out that finds the number of media outlets continues to grow, but both the number of stories covered and the depth of reporting are sliding backward. Television, radio and newspapers are all cutting staff, while the bloggers of the Internet either do not have the size or the interest to go out and gather news. Bloggers are not news-gatherers, but opinion-mongers. I have long argued that no one should be allowed to write opinion without spending years as a reporter -- nothing like interviewing all four eyewitnesses to an automobile accident and then trying to write an accurate account of what happened. Or, as author-journalist Curtis Wilkie puts it, "Unless you can cover a five-car pile-up on Route 128, you shouldn't be allowed to cover a presidential campaign." My emphasis added.

I agree.

I guess it's too much to ask that Jim Brady of the WashingtonPost.com read that column and give it some thought. I've avoided weighing in on the Demenech saga, mostly because others are skewereing the WAPO so hilariously.

Mostly the subject just makes me furious. I've been reading the Washington Post for 30 years. It is insulting to me, as a long-time reader, to hire a 24 year old rightwing nutjob with no journalism credentials and expect me to be interested in his opinions on anything.

He is a racist and a plagarist. As for talent... well, consider Exhibit A: "Pachyderms in the mist.."???? Give me a freaking break.

That cliff is getting closer Mr. Brady. Just because Karl Rove is telling you to jump off of it with the rest of the corporate media doesn't mean you should.