General Discussion

Despite what we're seeing with the NYTimes and Washington Post over the last 14 months, journalism is still fighting a rapid decline in this nation. Print journalism has become nearly non-profitable. Beat reporters are a fading relic and the loss of the insight, expertise and resources they carried with them has decimated accuracy and insight.

TV is another tale. While it was never as incisive as print media, it's become even more insidious these days. Big news networks pander to sensationalism and personality conflicts, with warring punditry the order of the day. Local news is even worse. Its reporting is often light on facts, heavy on visuals. It has little depth.

And the public doesn't care. They don't want news anyway. They want confirmation bias. They want echo chambers.

What was outlined in Neil Postman's prescient 1985 book "Amusing Ourselves to Death" has come to pass, less George Orwell, more Aldous Huxley. As he wrote in one passage:

"What Orwell feared were those who would ban books. What Huxley feared was that there would be no reason to ban a book, for there would be no one who wanted to read one. Orwell feared those who would deprive us of information. Huxley feared those who would give us so much that we would be reduced to passivity and egoism. Orwell feared that the truth would be concealed from us. Huxley feared the truth would be drowned in a sea of irrelevance. Orwell feared we would become a captive culture. Huxley feared we would become a trivial culture."

So here we are. Our journalism is like this because it's what the citizens want. One effect is those who want to do good, solid journalism are left with fewer ways and places to do so.

In the small-to-medium city where I live, two of the four local news stations are Sinclair stations. The remaining two are a FOX affiliate and a CBS affiliate that has always been known for its "hometown" slant that reinforces "old-fashioned Southern values."

If you're a reporter at any of these stations, you just do your job, keep your head down and try to look for something else. It's not getting any better.