Changing the quality of coverage

Vice President Spiro T. Agnew once said, “Some newspapers are fit only to line the bottom of… Vice President Spiro T. Agnew once said, “Some newspapers are fit only to line the bottom of bird cages.” Agnew surely had his own axe to grind with the media, but it seems that these days more and more Americans would be inclined to agree.

It is continually stressed to us that staying involved and up-to-date with current affairs is an important aspect of civic engagement. After all, it is vital to maintain a good understanding of our current global and domestic climate in order to make informed decisions regarding electing public officials, deciding how to invest savings and what sort of education we prefer for our children to pursue.

But just keeping up with the daily newspaper can prove to be a task that, for many, is too unpleasant to risk ruining a perfectly good breakfast with. The majority of front-page headlines are dominated by a decidedly unpleasant nature.

I have no illusions that the nature of a majority of breaking events is bound to be bad news or that this has not always persisted through our history. But I do believe that our times have compounded this syndrome. We remain caught in a war that is complex and confusing, and the advent of 24-hour cable news channels has bolstered the continual frenzy for scoops and dragging out events to extreme lengths. This past election season has definitely reinforced that around-the-clock election coverage is neither healthy nor informative but rather a revolving array of talking heads arguing over poll numbers.

Such an environment speaks to me on the importance of the local newspaper. Some might look at what constitutes headline news on a typical Pitt News as laughable or mundane. I think it’s both a throwback to the sort of community we want to have and an indicator of the future. Just why is it that we reserve our bold-face type for the latest gory statistic or intrusion into the private lives of citizens who have suffered ethical lapses? Why does the front page necessarily have to be the messenger of bad news?

Keeping up with what’s really going on in the world means a lot of unpleasantness. It also means a lot of joy and innovation largely goes unreported. I would like to see a focus in this century on journalism that is truly balanced, not just in presenting alternative partisan sides of issues but also in reminding us of all the good in the world that goes unnoticed. Institutions like the Good News Network are not fluff — they reflect a side of our society that is unjustly overlooked in favor of continually looking for the hot scoop to attract viewers and readers, even if it takes instilling a perpetual culture of fear to do so. Perhaps if “60 Minutes” or Time magazine led with more developments about a youth with amazing artistic ability than the latest senator to declare a run for the White House, we would be doing more to inspire and reaffirm the efforts of young people.

Small community newspapers may not be winning any Pulitzers with dramatic exposes anytime soon — and that’s OK. They have more pressing business to attend to. Newspapers and information sharing are critical components of creating effective communities. By spreading the word about book clubs and church dinners, honoring youth achievement and recording the minutes of town council meetings, we can ourselves hope to perpetuate communities capable of generating more good news. That certainly doesn’t strike me as boring.

News should be helping to set the agenda for what the national — and local — conversation is. The news community has the power to establish just what the public’s leading concerns should be. The media pounced all over the John Mark Carr debacle, predicated upon the flimsiest of evidence, obstinately because “they report the stories.” Yet they bear a responsibility to stress just what stories should be of critical interest to the viewer.

Take a look at the glaring differences in the news forums in Western Europe which pay far more attention to foreign policy and happenings all around the globe, rather than the lightning-quick “global roundup” that passes for international coverage in most markets here in the States. The result is a populace vastly more informed and, conversely, interested in international affairs. This may seem to be a contradiction, to emphasize the importance of reporting on events intensely local and intensely international. I would welcome this shift, however, away from gossip of Tom Cruise’s wedding and toward just how events in the world affect our abilities to “think globally, act locally.”

It was New Yorker writer Nicholas Lemann who noted, “It often seems to me that at any given moment 99 percent of the journalists are covering 1 percent of what is happening in the world.” It is my hope that, in the future, we can do more to learn about the other 99 percent.

E-mail Daron at djc14@pitt.edu.