When the topic of the demise of the newspaper industry comes up, a lot of people seem to forget how different small market journalism is from national journalism. Obviously, I’d like to see Fred Hiatt and Adam Nagourney (for example) lose their jobs, but I’d hate to see some hardworking beat reporter in a third-tier city like mine be unemployed. Thinking about this, I was reminded of a post on the blog I used to write for about how a local reporter was aghast at the gullibility of the national media with respect to Scott McClellan. Local reporter Rachel Barnhart wrote:
Traitor! Sellout! Opportunist!
Scott McClellan may be all of those things, but the self-righteousness of the media covering his new book absolutely amazes me.
[….]Journalists find out pretty quick the job of spokesperson is designed to serve the agency’s best interest. It’s designed to be the mouthpiece for the person at the helm. It’s designed to be a buffer between the media and the top dogs. Sometimes, these positions are purely patronage jobs. Sometimes, spokespeople form a very effective wall between the media and information that serves the public.
I say this after 10 years covering local news. It’s no different on the national level. Government agencies have adopted public relations models that the private sector has used for years. I’m not saying it’s right, but that’s the system….I try to avoid talking to spokespeople for my stories as much as possible.
Nearly that very same day, there was the following exchange in a WaPo reporter chat:
SW Nebraska: Will any future president be able to do the job on the press, Congress and the public that George Bush has been able to do? What about the politicization of the Justice Department, science, etc? It seems that McClellan has taken the press to task in his book. Will the press be so cooperative with a President again or has the media been reminded that they actually have an important, difficult job to do?
Anne E. Kornblut: I haven’t read McClellan’s book yet, but really look forward to it, especially on the point you raise. My immediate reaction upon hearing he’d said that was, “Wait, what!? Isn’t it the job of those employed at the White House to be straightforward in the first place?”
I don’t know for sure why local reporters are often much savvier and tougher than national ones, but I think it is related to the fact that reporters in podunk towns have nothing to gain professionally or financially from getting into the good graces of local muckety mucks. A reporter from a small city will never appear on “Meet the Press” or go on wingnut welfare or get access to write a best-selling book about Condi Rice.
r€nato
stenography is easy.
journamalism is hard. it’s hard work.
The Tim Channel
I don’t worry about the newspapers demise, national or local. The bloggers have made them redundant. News is now open source, and the AP squelching tactics aside, will continue to be so.
"Traditional" media is corporate owned. I don’t believe 90% of anything I hear on FOX and about half of what I hear on the other networks. What I don’t hear on ANY network is coverage of the VAST PEACE MOVEMENT that exists. They SOLD us (can you say COMPLICIT) the Bush War and Torture Regime. Spain needs to keep a seat open for a few of the bigger media blowhards.
How about this John? I trust you because I’ve read enough of your stuff. You are a little slow on the uptake (former Thug), but show an honorable amount of repentance for your sin/crimes. You can chose to trust me for the same reasons. You might not always agree with me, but my opinions are commercially untainted, and I’m not trying to blow smoke up anybody’s ass.
There are already a whole host of people that I read in place of the traditional (print) media (some who undoubtedly get real ink as well) on the web.
Kos, Greenwald, Huffington, Tbogg, Oliver Willis, DDay, Arovosis, Sullivan, Spaulding, Marcotte, etc. ad nauseum.
To be honest, I’d trade ALL newspapers and almost every other source of information and opinion just to have Josh Marshall and Digby available.
Free the Weed
Stop the Hate
Regulate
Enjoy.
AnotherBruce
I’ve decided to write blank checks to pay all of my bills. Isn’t it my creditor’s job to be honest and fill in the correct amounts when I pay my bills?
guest omen
david gregory said it’s not his job to call out liars.
especially when he’s the assigned back up dancer.
gbear
Wow, John. You’ve been blessed by a perfect being. You must be walking on air right now.
Nikki
Then, please, pray god, that we do away with national papers and let the local reporters do their stuff.
binzinerator
And my immediate reaction to Kornbluth saying this is Fire. Her. Now.
Any national reporter who is this fucking stupid — or tries to pretend he or she is — should be out of a job.
Duggiejay:
What was that old adage? "It is difficult to get a man to understand something when his job depends on not understanding it."
Obviously the national press has very different ideas from us of what their job is.
Punchy
How about this theory:
Small-town reporters are probably working for $30-$50K, tops, and need their fucking job to survive, raise a fam, and keep their insurance. And there’s 9 new peeps applying for their very position each month.
Big-town reporters are probably making large 6, maybe small 7 fig salaries and really dont give a fuck what they say, cuz they’re loaded with scratch, on TV daily, and nobody ever calls them on their bullshit.
If you dont need to be the fittest to survive, you get fucking fat and professionally lazy. Hence, Cohen and Broder and their ilk.
Mike G
“Wait, what!? Isn’t it the job of those employed at the White House to be straightforward in the first place?”
I imagine Anne Kornblut is shocked and outraged that TV commercials lie to her, that the clothes don’t look as good on her as they do on the catalog models, and that consuming a carbonated beverage doesn’t lead to spontaneous mass choreography on the streets of Manhattan.
It’s almost as if the national corporate media spokesmodels are actively *chosen* for their gullibility and kowtowing to Repig authority. No, that couldn’t possibly be…
joes527
You get local reporters????
Here in America’s Finest City, local papers are constructed by letting a right wing editorial staff cherry pick from AP.
jonas
“Wait, what!? Isn’t it the job of those employed at the White House to be straightforward in the first place?”
The mind reels. Wow. Just wow.
DougJ
?
someguy
Because:
1. Your local cocktail parties suck ass compared to Georgetown cocktail parties, so nobody wants to do anything to get cut out of that scene;
2. People in your hometown would stop talking to you if you went around thinking you’re smarter than everybody else in the world and being a suckup; and,
3. It’s fun and easy to sell out for big circulation, big bucks, and to be around people who don’t mind you pretending that being close to power means you have power; but few folks find it easy to sell out for $30,000 a year, 30,000 readers and an apartment near the railroad tracks.
The Moar You Know
No wonder I get such weird looks when I tell people that by drinking Coke I’m helping America get exercise.
Ryan S.
@DougJ: see The Tim Channel post above for clarification.
jenniebee
OT, but an earlier thread was asking about Ross Douthat and the "institutions" question?
This commercial by the National Organization for Marriage should shed some light on what the Douthat-esque nutters are telling each other. It’s sickening, but on the plus side, the Courage Campaign should be able to raise a few dollars in reaction to it.
Zifnab
I mean, that’s basically it. Small town journalists don’t have a financial incentive to suck up to big money types. If they become unreliable, people just toss them. Why subscribe to a local daily or weekly that can’t get the facts straight on a city council vote or a mayoral election? Who was giving the Kansas Sun-Tribune such amazing access that it can’t afford to piss off the State Comptroller?
There’s also the issue that a modern corporate newspaper model doesn’t hinge on breaking the BIG STORY anymore. You’ve got people who bought the paper to get housecleaning tips or check the weather or read national gossip or just check the sports section. The paper is thicker. There’s more than anyone wants to read. A national paper is just a different animal than a local.
JK
Anne Kornblut has space available for rent between her ears.
The Washington press corps and the op-ed writers for the major papers are among the dumbest most clueless people in the nation.
DanSmoot'sGhost
You’ll be disappointed to learn that I agree completely.
A Mom Anon
@jenniebee:
Honest to Jeebus,if these nitwits put as much energy into something tangibly constructive and good as they do into being everybody’s Gladys Kravitz the country might actually get something accomplished.
They really are why we can’t have nice things. Fuckers.
JK
Mainstream print journalists I’d love to see fired or downsized for breathtaking incompetence
Maureen Dowd
Mark Halperin
Adam Nagourney
Howard Kurtz
Sheryl Gay Stolberg
David Brooks
John Dickerson
David Atkins
wow. you’ve got to be kidding me. Kornblut actually said that?
The traditional media is in even bigger trouble than I thought.
Zifnab
@JK: Now count how many of those people actually conduct interviews or field research and how many just fart editorial columns.
schrodinger's cat
@JK:
I can add to your list
Tom Friedman
Richard Cohen
Michael Scherer
David Broder
George Will
sugarfree
Let’s not pretend that bloggers are immune to this either.
Access and attention is exactly what prompted the likes of Sirota, Bowers and rest of the liberal blogosphere to drop to their knees for the Second Coming of Our Savior Sen. John Edwards (D-LC).
Obama’s biggest sin was not kissing their ass and then having the temerity to get elected anyways.
They’ve never forgiven him for it.
cleek
also:
Nedra Pickler
WIlliam Kristol
MikeJ
JK and physics kitty, no Jake Tapper?
Zifnab
@cleek: You might as well go all the way and mention Johan Goldberg and Bill O’Reilly as they’re both syndicated columnists too.
smiley
At the risk of being flamed, don’t forget that many of the national press are advanced to better, more high-profile jobs because of their looks and/or connections. It’s the same in many professions. Anne Kornblut is young, kinda attractive, and probably went to the right school (Northwestern, Syracuse, Florida?). The locals, especially in print – not TV, just don’t have what the bosses are looking for. Competence matters much less than looks and glibness. The advancement of the "Obama defense budget cut" meme just proves the point.
Edited.
JK
@ Schrodinger’s cat and cleek
Excellent recommendations
As for broadcast reporters, we’d all be better off without the following:
Chip "major league douche" Reid – who can forget him describing Dems as "rearing their ugly heads" when he posed a question to Robert Gibbs
Chuck Todd – he’s good at crunching poll numbers, but he’s totally lost and clueless as a WH reporter
Jake Tapper – smug. prissy dweeb
Ed Henry – loser
Everyone who works for Fox News
Mnemosyne
I guess no one ever told her there’s no Santa Claus, either.
gwangung
Dude, that is SO wrong and so totally naive that I worry for you.
So much of what you cite as news sources are SECONDARY sources, feeding off of other primary sources, which are almost always traditional journalists.
smiley
@gwangung:
Thank you. Bloggers wouldn’t be able to do much of anything (other than being online diaries) if there wasn’t original reporting to rip from. Go ahead, AP, commit suicide. For now, we still need a "real", "traditional" press.
Karen S.
The demise of national media doesn’t concern me unduly, but since so many smaller local papers are corporate owned, as the national media spirals down the toilet, the smaller local newspapers go down with them. So far, I haven’t seen many local bloggers who can take the place of smaller community newspapers. They can complement them, sure, but local bloggers around here (Chicago metro area) do absolutely no original reporting, so far. They mostly link to stories in the local dailies and cheer, jeer or mock accordingly.
Meadow Lark
As "SW Nebraska" I was surprised to see myself quoted after so many months. Yeah, I was surprised that Anne Kornblutt would be so naive and trusting about anything from the W.H., especially Bush’s W.H. I thought she was, like many of the reporters that chat on "Post Politics" being awfully defensive.
Comrade Dread
Because they’re still trying to make a name for themselves, or they’ve given up trying to be a name.
Because they’re still closer to being fresh out of journalism classes with images of Watergate dancing in their mind so they know that politicians (and PR people) are full of shit.
Because most people who get promoted to a cable or network position are usually done so on the basis of their entertainment value.
Because national reporters are in awe of the Washington set and are like the pathetic sychophants in High School who would wear the same clothes and set near the popular kids during lunch hoping to be noticed.
I could go on.
bago
Mass Effect style Journalism.
DougJ
@Meadow Lark
Well done.
HumboldtBlue
I’m pretty close to our local print reporters and was a local sportswriter for the same paper before, ahem, moving on.
More than just being young and gung-ho, more than just being willing pound the pavement in search of a good story, they’re better because they are much, much closer to the decision makers.
I have found local city and county government to be a fascinating beat, it’s the epitome of governance, not politics, and I think most local reporters would agree.
Politics is the kabuki we witness on cable tv each night and read about in such august papers as the Times and Post, and yet, the decisions made by city councils, supervisory boards etcetera have a direct and immediate impact on local citizenry and the quality of their lives.
I’ve seen a thousand toss away comments written by bloggers about national journalists who they believe are doing a lousy job by stating that they aren’t even qualified to cover the local water board.
Huh.
As stated above, good journalism is hard work and when the person making the decisions also happens to coach your child’s ball team, or who lives on your block or who attends your church makes a bad decision it’s awfully hard for them to hide.
A case in point, there’s a journo prof at HSU who writes a media critique column for an excellent local weekly. She hits the local daily pretty hard and pretty regularly, but even she, a graduate of Columbia, can;t resist the temptation to point to the Times as the paragon of journalistic excellence. She went so far as to compare our local daily’s coverage of a local business scandal at a widely popular and successful dairy co-op with one story ONE story, written by a NY Times writer who used the issue to launch a series of stories focusing on economic troubles across the nation.
The Times piece was good, but it added absolutely no new information, not one new insight, fact or factoid that advanced the readers knowledge of the situation, but the prof went on for a thousand words about how the local daily screwed up and should use the Times piece as an example.
The local daily is corporate owned, but it’s still a locally focused news source reporting on issues that are of vital importance to the local area. Lone may the small local daily live.
Mike G
Because most people who get promoted to a cable or network position are usually done so on the basis of their entertainment value.
Because corporate America (and not just in journamalism) seeks and promotes vacuous, obedient careerist spokesmodels, gullible tools with mediocre minds unsullied by the cynicism and skepticism that comes with ‘excessive thinking’ to sell easily-digested nuggets to fill the spaces between advertising.
The question is not why are they so stupid and shallow, but how the occasional bright bulb slips through the screening process.
JWW
Good reporters are made by doing honest research and reporting it. We listenen to reporters that have a name, yet only speak second hand. They never fact find, kinda like this blog site. Finding facts before reporting is the way to build credibility, not regurgitating what sounds good to me.
JackieBinAZ
Reporters at the local level don’t make enough money to feel an affinity for their local and regional elite. The only way they get to travel anywhere close to those circles is when they’re working. With a camera and notebook in hand, it’s not so easy to navigate the weenie buffet like an equal.
lou
As a former reporter, all of the above that you and your commenters have said. Other things: Local papers have stricter policies about quoting anonymous sources. The justification has to be really, really good. Usually you get background and find the evidence.
Also, the national papers are becoming more likely to hire people straight out of Ivy League schools now. Used to be that you’d go to state J-school, start at a small paper or in a bureau of a big city daily, work your way up the food chain. Since pay was lousy, you understand what regular folks go through because you’re going through it too. When officials are corrupt and benefit their friends it hurts your wallet too.
There’s some of that left, but not as much. You learn a lot of humility covering a water and sewer commission meeting or getting doors slammed in your face when covering a deadly car accident that killed four teens. An Ivy Leaguer going straight into the big leagues never loses a sense of entitlement, never really has to dig for a story.
OTOH, no print reporter, even at the Times, ever makes seven figures or even that much above lower quadrant of six — unless you write bestsellers. TV has that privilege all to itself.