I suspect that Eliot White will be pleased with the title of this post. Mr. White, the publisher of the Sun, as well as the Meriden Record-Journal in Central Connecticut, is a bit of a rarity in modern America. He is the publisher of a family-owned newspaper, among just a handful of folks in the United States still to do so. This is too bad. Newspapers published by people who have a vital interest in their local community are the first thing you should be reading. Here are four reasons why:
1) They are less likely to have an agenda that you can't readily suss out. Put differently, if they do have a secret agenda (for example, "that guy at the Sun really wants to get a casino in town,") chances are it will become apparent. A local paper can end up with a credibility problem if it pushes an agenda.
2) They put local perspective on national issues. How does the recent tax legislation affect local businesses? What do changes in healthcare legislation mean for local healthcare providers? You find this out when you read the local paper.
3) They know what's going on where you live. If something extraordinary is happening in your community, chances are the national media outlets have to call someone in the know to find out about it. They certainly don't know. (That reminds me of a story: Five years ago, I was speaking with Janette McMahon, who was then the director of the public library in West Liberty, Iowa. It was around that time that West Liberty had been declared the first minority-majority town [more ethnic minorities than white folks] in the United States. Someone from the national media called Ms. McMahon and asked her how the community had changed. She went to the window, looked around, got back on the phone, and said, "it seems the same to me.")
4) If you don't like what local newspapers print, you can do something about it. Your chances of getting a letter to the editor printed by the Washington Post or the Wall Street Journal are not very good. Local newspapers, however, thrive on informed opinion and community engagement. Moreover, if the publisher and the editorial staff really are based locally, you can buttonhole them when you see them around town and let them know what you think. Finally, local advertising revenue matters, so if you can lobby a local business owner around to your point of view, you have a powerful ally on your side.
If you live in Enid, Nebraska, however, chances are you would have no interest in reading a Rhode Island newspaper like the Westerly Sun (serving the 8th largest town in the state). Well, then, you should be reading the Enid News & Eagle. My point is that we all need to be doing a lot more reading to acquire our news and information. Long-form journalism is by far the best source of reliable information. Why? It's increasingly difficult to hide a lie or even a bias in a long, written article. The reader is much more like to sense, if not discover, fallacies of argumentation, as well as sins of omission and distortion. It's written right in front of you, for you to digest and pick apart.
Now you might be saying that local newspapers don't do much long-form journalism (loosely defined as longer articles between 1,000 and 20,000 words). The Westerly Sun, for example, relies quite a bit on material from the Associated Press for its coverage outside the local area. Allow me to say that local newspapers probably would do a lot more in-depth coverage, if they knew you'd be reading it. Then, just imagine all you'd know about the world right outside your door.
If you really don't like the local newspaper (although my response would be to keep telling the local newspaper that you don't like it, and why), then you should be reading two of the major dailies. If you were to read the New York Times or the Washington Post along with Wall Street Journal every day, you may well come to the conclusion that the truth is somewhere in the middle of those points of view. I think it is.
Too busy for all that? Your next step would be weekly news magazines like the Economist, Newsweek, Time, or U.S. News & World Report. Again, if you're reading the Economist and any one of the other three, you're probably close to finding out what's really going on.
Finally, if you don't like that idea, you're stuck with the television news or Internet news sources. These are the least desirable sources of information. I say that because, despite the existence of a lot of high-quality journalism in both media, they are different beasts and we should treat them as such. I do not intend to suggest that you stop watching the evening news or reading your news on the Internet. That would be a tall order (and I don't think of myself as a Luddite). According to the Pew Research Center, 93% of American adults have at one time or another gotten their news online. That's not the bad news. This is: the same report noted that the average length of visit to news outlets that are native to the web (sites that were not originally print or broadcast, but created for an Internet audience) is 2.4 minutes.
Ok, that's 144 seconds. What can anyone read, what can anyone digest and comprehend in 144 seconds? I've just done a test. In 144 seconds, I read 13 out of 29 paragraphs (45%) of one news story. On the second try, I read 16 out of 33 paragraphs (48%) of another. On the final try, I read 16 out of 27 paragraphs (59%) of a third story. Maybe I'm a slow reader. Of course, no one reads a fully story unless it's of great interest to them, but my point is that reading to comprehend, or to be informed, is more than a matter of skimming the headlines.
This post was intended as a detailed discussion of the press in a free society, which is why it's taken me more than three months to write it. (Luckily for me, there's been nothing going on in the world worthy of commentary or discussion during that period.) There's a lot more to be said, and I'm sure many of you have something to add to the discussion, which I would be happy to hear. For now, allow me to suggest that local newspapers deserve a lot more support from all of us. They should be attracting the advertising dollars of major corporations and they should be a powerful force and proponent for representative democracy across the United States. As the voice of your local community, they should be the first thing we all read for our news.
What I'm reading:
When Peggy Noonan, the Pulitzer-prize winning columnist for The Wall Street Journal, is spot on, she's spot on. Such is her column in last weekend's edition of the Journal, "America Needs More Gentlemen." I recommend it.
For the Holidays this year, my lovely wife gave me the Ross MacDonald Collection, a three-volume set published by the Library of America. My secret intention was to read the whole thing this past weekend, but then I would be left with nothing to read by Monday, so I've been painfully parsing it out, one chapter at a time. Ross MacDonald, the nom de plume of Kevin Millar, was a master of mystery fiction, and his novels featuring the private detective Lew Archer and his exploits in southern California are a joy to read. If you'd really like to do it right, start with Dashiell Hammett, move on to Raymond Chandler, and then delve into Ross MacDonald. You won't be disappointed.
1) They are less likely to have an agenda that you can't readily suss out. Put differently, if they do have a secret agenda (for example, "that guy at the Sun really wants to get a casino in town,") chances are it will become apparent. A local paper can end up with a credibility problem if it pushes an agenda.
2) They put local perspective on national issues. How does the recent tax legislation affect local businesses? What do changes in healthcare legislation mean for local healthcare providers? You find this out when you read the local paper.
3) They know what's going on where you live. If something extraordinary is happening in your community, chances are the national media outlets have to call someone in the know to find out about it. They certainly don't know. (That reminds me of a story: Five years ago, I was speaking with Janette McMahon, who was then the director of the public library in West Liberty, Iowa. It was around that time that West Liberty had been declared the first minority-majority town [more ethnic minorities than white folks] in the United States. Someone from the national media called Ms. McMahon and asked her how the community had changed. She went to the window, looked around, got back on the phone, and said, "it seems the same to me.")
4) If you don't like what local newspapers print, you can do something about it. Your chances of getting a letter to the editor printed by the Washington Post or the Wall Street Journal are not very good. Local newspapers, however, thrive on informed opinion and community engagement. Moreover, if the publisher and the editorial staff really are based locally, you can buttonhole them when you see them around town and let them know what you think. Finally, local advertising revenue matters, so if you can lobby a local business owner around to your point of view, you have a powerful ally on your side.
If you live in Enid, Nebraska, however, chances are you would have no interest in reading a Rhode Island newspaper like the Westerly Sun (serving the 8th largest town in the state). Well, then, you should be reading the Enid News & Eagle. My point is that we all need to be doing a lot more reading to acquire our news and information. Long-form journalism is by far the best source of reliable information. Why? It's increasingly difficult to hide a lie or even a bias in a long, written article. The reader is much more like to sense, if not discover, fallacies of argumentation, as well as sins of omission and distortion. It's written right in front of you, for you to digest and pick apart.
Now you might be saying that local newspapers don't do much long-form journalism (loosely defined as longer articles between 1,000 and 20,000 words). The Westerly Sun, for example, relies quite a bit on material from the Associated Press for its coverage outside the local area. Allow me to say that local newspapers probably would do a lot more in-depth coverage, if they knew you'd be reading it. Then, just imagine all you'd know about the world right outside your door.
If you really don't like the local newspaper (although my response would be to keep telling the local newspaper that you don't like it, and why), then you should be reading two of the major dailies. If you were to read the New York Times or the Washington Post along with Wall Street Journal every day, you may well come to the conclusion that the truth is somewhere in the middle of those points of view. I think it is.
Too busy for all that? Your next step would be weekly news magazines like the Economist, Newsweek, Time, or U.S. News & World Report. Again, if you're reading the Economist and any one of the other three, you're probably close to finding out what's really going on.
Finally, if you don't like that idea, you're stuck with the television news or Internet news sources. These are the least desirable sources of information. I say that because, despite the existence of a lot of high-quality journalism in both media, they are different beasts and we should treat them as such. I do not intend to suggest that you stop watching the evening news or reading your news on the Internet. That would be a tall order (and I don't think of myself as a Luddite). According to the Pew Research Center, 93% of American adults have at one time or another gotten their news online. That's not the bad news. This is: the same report noted that the average length of visit to news outlets that are native to the web (sites that were not originally print or broadcast, but created for an Internet audience) is 2.4 minutes.
Ok, that's 144 seconds. What can anyone read, what can anyone digest and comprehend in 144 seconds? I've just done a test. In 144 seconds, I read 13 out of 29 paragraphs (45%) of one news story. On the second try, I read 16 out of 33 paragraphs (48%) of another. On the final try, I read 16 out of 27 paragraphs (59%) of a third story. Maybe I'm a slow reader. Of course, no one reads a fully story unless it's of great interest to them, but my point is that reading to comprehend, or to be informed, is more than a matter of skimming the headlines.
This post was intended as a detailed discussion of the press in a free society, which is why it's taken me more than three months to write it. (Luckily for me, there's been nothing going on in the world worthy of commentary or discussion during that period.) There's a lot more to be said, and I'm sure many of you have something to add to the discussion, which I would be happy to hear. For now, allow me to suggest that local newspapers deserve a lot more support from all of us. They should be attracting the advertising dollars of major corporations and they should be a powerful force and proponent for representative democracy across the United States. As the voice of your local community, they should be the first thing we all read for our news.
What I'm reading:
When Peggy Noonan, the Pulitzer-prize winning columnist for The Wall Street Journal, is spot on, she's spot on. Such is her column in last weekend's edition of the Journal, "America Needs More Gentlemen." I recommend it.
For the Holidays this year, my lovely wife gave me the Ross MacDonald Collection, a three-volume set published by the Library of America. My secret intention was to read the whole thing this past weekend, but then I would be left with nothing to read by Monday, so I've been painfully parsing it out, one chapter at a time. Ross MacDonald, the nom de plume of Kevin Millar, was a master of mystery fiction, and his novels featuring the private detective Lew Archer and his exploits in southern California are a joy to read. If you'd really like to do it right, start with Dashiell Hammett, move on to Raymond Chandler, and then delve into Ross MacDonald. You won't be disappointed.
Comments
Post a Comment