ACLU-NJ
01-23-2009, 06:21 AM
Thought you might be interested in this article I published about the reductions at the Star Ledger and what it means for democracy. It appeared in Editor & Publisher Magazine's online edition.
http://www.editorandpublisher.com/eandp/columns/shoptalk_display.jsp?vnu_content_id=1003933036
Editor and Publisher
The Missing Watchdogs
By Deborah Jacobs
(January 22, 2009) -- As 2008 drew to a close, so did an era of newspaper reporting in New Jersey, as Editor and Publisher chronicled so poignantly in its cover story in the December issue and online. The impact of The Star-Ledger’s decline is being felt throughout the state. Here at the ACLU of New Jersey, we’ve already suffered the consequences of the paper’s “shrinking” pains.
The reality of the paper’s situation hit me in October when the Star-Ledger failed to cover a story concerning three young men who were roughed up by the Newark Police. In the past, the paper consistently covered stories about our police-practices lawsuits and assigned reporters to both thesState and Newark police beats. Those days are gone.
The loss of more than 150 news staff that left The Star-Ledger under the buyout leaves a chasm in state and local democracy that won’t easily be filled.
The people of New Jersey rely on reporters to let us know what is going on and use that information to form opinions, take action and determine how they want to vote. Reporters sit as our proxies and do our homework, attending council meetings until 2 a.m. They uncover political corruption and work with whistleblowers to release information that can protect the public. They put pressure on officials simply by doing their jobs, compelling our leaders to fix their mistakes.
Reporters bring important issues into the public square. Sometimes the press ignites a fire from a nonprofit’s fuel, and sometimes organizations discover new causes to rally behind because of a paper’s reporting. The ACLU often engages in issues that investigative reporters work to uncover, like deaths in immigration detention, abuse at Guantanamo Bay and the secrecy of the executive branch.
In fact, journalist and media scholar Eric Umansky wrote in 2004 that the ACLU scooped The New York Times and Washington Post on the torture of detainees. But getting to the root of corruption is a tandem operation that relies on the dogged work of investigative reporters to reveal the full scope of a story. If a problem is discovered but there’s no way to the public to hear, does the “problem” still exist?
Without paid reporters on the ground it’s almost impossible to hold our government accountable. While the prospect of having no one to look over their shoulders anymore could make a New Jersey politician or two giddy, it’s at the public’s expense.
Even before the buyout, The Star-Ledger was short of essential resources, lacking full-time investigative reporters, essential to uncovering corruption, and giving insufficient attention to crucial beats such as Hoboken and Union County politics. The First Amendment not only protects free speech, it also adds a level of accountability and a new dimension to democracy. Without the watchful eye of the press, citizens’ concerns can go unmet with fewer consequences, and the vox populi weakens.
The people who serve as reporters’ sources and want to raise awareness of issues of public concern, like the staff of the ACLU, have no choice but to turn to new ways to get stories out, such as the blogosphere and social networking websites. But that leaves us to maneuver in an information terrain where false or intentionally misleading information from one author sits side-by-side with content that is well-researched and factual from another, with no reliable means for readers to determine which is which. The Star-Ledger’s website itself mingles news content and unedited anonymous commentaries often geared to the lowest common denominator. Web 2.0, for all of its democratization, lacks an authoritative voice.
With an even smaller number of overworked reporters forced to cut corners, more and more, our news sources only scratch the surface. Participatory democracy is much weaker without people who have the time and expertise to sniff out stories, wait out meetings and bring out credible information.
The Star-Ledger’s situation is just the most dramatic example in the plight of newspapers as endangered species. The New York Times and Gannett have also recently dramatically diminished their coverage in New Jersey. As of January 1, press row in the State House is down to 16 reporters; in the past there have been as many as 50.
A vacuum in the newspaper industry sucks away democracy. Television news specializes in the sound bite. Bloggers specialize in commentary and speed. And newspapers specialize in the original reporting that governments, other reporters -- including bloggers -- and society rely on to understand the inner workings of government.
The future of reporting rests in all of our hands: reporters, advocates and the people we both serve. How far will the pendulum have to swing away from researched and reported news before we establish new ways to get paid reporters on the ground to supply us with the information we need to protect our interests? It may be that reporting becomes a non-profit endeavor, funded by donors who recognize our need for unbiased reporting, or it may be that the dailies we rely on become the weeklies we wait for.
It may also be something entirely different, something developed by the next generations of trained journalists willing to fight for their essential role in democracy. They will have to grab hold of the pendulum and kick until it starts swinging back to the interests of the public.
Deborah Jacobs (djacobs@aclu-nj.org) is the executive is executive director for the American Civil Liberties Union of New Jersey.
http://www.editorandpublisher.com/eandp/columns/shoptalk_display.jsp?vnu_content_id=1003933036
Editor and Publisher
The Missing Watchdogs
By Deborah Jacobs
(January 22, 2009) -- As 2008 drew to a close, so did an era of newspaper reporting in New Jersey, as Editor and Publisher chronicled so poignantly in its cover story in the December issue and online. The impact of The Star-Ledger’s decline is being felt throughout the state. Here at the ACLU of New Jersey, we’ve already suffered the consequences of the paper’s “shrinking” pains.
The reality of the paper’s situation hit me in October when the Star-Ledger failed to cover a story concerning three young men who were roughed up by the Newark Police. In the past, the paper consistently covered stories about our police-practices lawsuits and assigned reporters to both thesState and Newark police beats. Those days are gone.
The loss of more than 150 news staff that left The Star-Ledger under the buyout leaves a chasm in state and local democracy that won’t easily be filled.
The people of New Jersey rely on reporters to let us know what is going on and use that information to form opinions, take action and determine how they want to vote. Reporters sit as our proxies and do our homework, attending council meetings until 2 a.m. They uncover political corruption and work with whistleblowers to release information that can protect the public. They put pressure on officials simply by doing their jobs, compelling our leaders to fix their mistakes.
Reporters bring important issues into the public square. Sometimes the press ignites a fire from a nonprofit’s fuel, and sometimes organizations discover new causes to rally behind because of a paper’s reporting. The ACLU often engages in issues that investigative reporters work to uncover, like deaths in immigration detention, abuse at Guantanamo Bay and the secrecy of the executive branch.
In fact, journalist and media scholar Eric Umansky wrote in 2004 that the ACLU scooped The New York Times and Washington Post on the torture of detainees. But getting to the root of corruption is a tandem operation that relies on the dogged work of investigative reporters to reveal the full scope of a story. If a problem is discovered but there’s no way to the public to hear, does the “problem” still exist?
Without paid reporters on the ground it’s almost impossible to hold our government accountable. While the prospect of having no one to look over their shoulders anymore could make a New Jersey politician or two giddy, it’s at the public’s expense.
Even before the buyout, The Star-Ledger was short of essential resources, lacking full-time investigative reporters, essential to uncovering corruption, and giving insufficient attention to crucial beats such as Hoboken and Union County politics. The First Amendment not only protects free speech, it also adds a level of accountability and a new dimension to democracy. Without the watchful eye of the press, citizens’ concerns can go unmet with fewer consequences, and the vox populi weakens.
The people who serve as reporters’ sources and want to raise awareness of issues of public concern, like the staff of the ACLU, have no choice but to turn to new ways to get stories out, such as the blogosphere and social networking websites. But that leaves us to maneuver in an information terrain where false or intentionally misleading information from one author sits side-by-side with content that is well-researched and factual from another, with no reliable means for readers to determine which is which. The Star-Ledger’s website itself mingles news content and unedited anonymous commentaries often geared to the lowest common denominator. Web 2.0, for all of its democratization, lacks an authoritative voice.
With an even smaller number of overworked reporters forced to cut corners, more and more, our news sources only scratch the surface. Participatory democracy is much weaker without people who have the time and expertise to sniff out stories, wait out meetings and bring out credible information.
The Star-Ledger’s situation is just the most dramatic example in the plight of newspapers as endangered species. The New York Times and Gannett have also recently dramatically diminished their coverage in New Jersey. As of January 1, press row in the State House is down to 16 reporters; in the past there have been as many as 50.
A vacuum in the newspaper industry sucks away democracy. Television news specializes in the sound bite. Bloggers specialize in commentary and speed. And newspapers specialize in the original reporting that governments, other reporters -- including bloggers -- and society rely on to understand the inner workings of government.
The future of reporting rests in all of our hands: reporters, advocates and the people we both serve. How far will the pendulum have to swing away from researched and reported news before we establish new ways to get paid reporters on the ground to supply us with the information we need to protect our interests? It may be that reporting becomes a non-profit endeavor, funded by donors who recognize our need for unbiased reporting, or it may be that the dailies we rely on become the weeklies we wait for.
It may also be something entirely different, something developed by the next generations of trained journalists willing to fight for their essential role in democracy. They will have to grab hold of the pendulum and kick until it starts swinging back to the interests of the public.
Deborah Jacobs (djacobs@aclu-nj.org) is the executive is executive director for the American Civil Liberties Union of New Jersey.