Mainstream media ailing, NW journalists agree
PULLMAN – Six Northwest journalists assessed the health of the mainstream media Wednesday night, and they agreed the patient is ailing.
What seems less clear, according to the panelists at the 31st annual Edward R. Murrow Symposium, is what that means for society overall, as Web logs, talk radio and the explosion of cable TV erode the standing of traditional forms of journalism.
“The crisis is with the individuals with these (news) outlets,” said Bill Kaczaraba, the news director at Q13 FOX television in Seattle. “The community may be well-served that now there are watchdogs on the watchdogs.”
Kaczabara and the five other panelists spoke to an audience of about 200 at Washington State University’s Beasley Performing Arts Coliseum. The theme of the discussion was “Trust Me, I’m a Paid Professional: Telling the Truth Amid Declining Credibility.”
The panelists agreed that these are times of historic change in journalism. Newspaper readership has declined for years. TV news shows share an audience with an ever-expanding lineup of cable competition. And the advent of bloggers – some of whom have played crucial roles in recent news stories – has splintered the media world even more.
That, coupled with the fact that people are much more skeptical of what they learn through the media, is bad news for big media.
Kaczaraba referred to the changes as “Journalism Darwinism.”
KXLY anchor Richard Brown joked that clinging to old-school journalism sometimes feels like clinging to “the Titanic as it sinks slowly into the cold North Atlantic.”
And Spokesman-Review Editor Steven A. Smith said he’s convinced that the print newspaper is “thoroughly and utterly doomed.”
But he said it’s not important whether the traditional, print newspaper survives. What matters more is the survival of journalistic values, in whatever form.
Stanley Farrar, the managing editor for the Web site of The Seattle Times, said the idea of a centralized, monolithic press doesn’t work anymore. People use the Internet and talk radio to get news that reflects their interests or views, he said, rather than seeking a neutral, generalized source.
“We failed to recognize for so long that there is no such thing as a community,” he said. “There are thousands of communities, hundreds of thousands of communities.”
Many of the problems with mainstream journalism are also self-inflicted, the panelists agreed. In recent years, plagiarism scandals and other journalistic lapses have drawn increasing scrutiny. But media outlets can focus harder on being accurate and fair, panelists said.
“Those who have given us a black eye have not made honest mistakes,” said Mike Fitzsimmons, a longtime broadcast journalist in Spokane. “And because they have not made honest mistakes, we all have a shiner.”
Also on the panel was Dave Ross, talk host for 710 KIRO Newsradio in Seattle.
Wednesday night’s panel discussion followed a day of workshops led by industry professionals for students from WSU and regional high schools. The symposium is named for Murrow, a WSU graduate and pioneering foreign correspondent in radio and television.