Why young reporters are good
The Illinois Times articles about Springfield's other news outlets is the kind of story that makes me appreciate having an alternative weekly. Its healthy for the news industry to engage in public self-analysis and I enjoy reading articles about how the industry works when the conversation gets beyond ridiculous chanting about "liberal media bias."
The article on local TV news quotes a sentiment often repeated about stations cutting costs by hiring younger reporters to replace better paid veterans.
“The thing is, it’s hard to see a 22-year-old kid telling me what’s going to happen in Springfield in political news when they haven’t been here for 22 minutes,” says Tony Thompson, a 23-year veteran photojournalist who recently left WICS.That's a perfectly fair criticism to make. There are advantages to having an experienced journalist with strong ties to the community.
What I haven't seen before is anyone describe what I believe are the advantages of young reporters who come into a community without all of the bias and baggage of long-time local reporters. This topic came up in a round about way on the Capitol Fax blog in relation to news coverage of State Representative Aaron Schock.
Rich Miller points out that Schock is getting a new level of scrutiny as a Congressional candidate because he's being covered by papers other than his hometown Peoria Journal-Star, which has long been overly kind to Schock. Schoenburg's SJ-R column busted Schock on his crazy nuke idea after it was ignored by the Peoria Journal-Star. Miller then asks readers if their own papers show a similar deference to certain elected officials.
That's a very healthy question to ask. Ideally, the press should play the role of watch dog but more often there's a strong bias toward the political establishment nationally and locally. That's what allowed George Bush to repeatedly lie during the lead up to the Iraq war without being seriously questioned by the press while advocates for peace were almost completely excluded from all corporate news outlets.
Schoenburg deserves credit for doing the job that the Journal-Star should have done long ago, but lets not pretend that the Springfield media isn't guilty of the same behavior toward certain elected officials. News TV 20 might as well name themselves the official network of Sheriff Neil Williamson. Schoenburg remains the go-to guy at the SJ-R for stories involving the County Clerk even after he wrote how much he likes Joe Aiello personally in a column defending him when the cocaine ring story broke. Can we really expect local news outlets to be any harder on their favored elected officials than the Journal-Star is on Aaron Schock?
Sometimes experience gets in the way of good reporting when someone is writing through the lens of who they like, dislike and memories of how things worked 20 years ago that may have no real political relevance for today. Imagine what the local news might be like if no one played favorites or gave deference to their favorite sources.
Of course part of the problem is with the editors and publishers who determine what gets covered and what's left out. Maybe the Journal-Register and Journal-Star can make a deal where each paper does investigative reporting about the other towns' government and politics for a month. Personal relationships, grudges and fears of future retribution would play no role for one month. I bet readers in both towns would end up with a very different view of their elected officials.
My experience with stories I've been involved in is that the newer, young journalists in town have more consistently done reports that I thought were fair and accurate. And yes, accuracy is more important than balance.
I don't want to be too hard on the local press. I complain a lot about the media (its required to maintain my license as a blogger) but most of my complaints are about the structure of the news industry as determined by companies who put their profit margin ahead of good reporting. Journalists have a difficult job that doesn't pay a salary equal to their level of importance in society. Veteran journalists have a lot to offer but I don't resent younger reporters in the least.