The Crisis Management Memo

Who’s going to cover the school board?

For as long as I can remember, I’ve always read newspapers while traveling – either for business, or vacation. But this past week, I found myself breaking that habit. I hope it’s temporary.

I was on a short vacation and staying in a rented condo vs. a hotel room, so there was no newspaper being delivered to my door, or in the lobby. As a result, getting a paper meant walking to a local newspaper box. After depositing my 50 cents and returning with my prized newspaper, I noticed the newspaper was a lot thinner than I remembered it in vacations past. It also was more expensive and it seemed like there wasn’t an awful lot of news in it. The business section had all but disappeared, as is the case in a growing number of papers today.

I spent more time watching the cable news channels and checking headlines on my laptop. Ultimately, I stopped walking by the newspaper box and just checked the headlines on the internet.

As I was catching up on the latest news, I read or listened to probably a half-dozen stories on dying newspapers. There were also more and more stories on newsroom layoffs at television stations and how competing stations were now going together to cover news conferences. Newspaper reporters are already reporting the news on some TV stations and TV reporters are reporting the news in some newspapers. The result is that we have fewer and fewer reporters covering the news.

I have no doubt as we turn more and more to the internet, cable news and iReporters armed with their video phones, the big stories will continue to be covered “somewhere.” We can probably read about them on the internet, if no where else. CNN will always cover the Earthquakes in Italy or the shootings in New York. And, they’ll always have their “analysts” to tell us what President Obama’s latest speech really means.

What I began worrying about on this trip, however, is who will be covering the local school board or checking the public records at the court house?

When I first started out as a newspaper reporter, I spent what seemed like a lifetime checking public records or attending public meetings. Most of which I found extremely boring. But, occasionally, you’d find the kind of information that news stories are based on. Occasionally, you’d uncover political corruption. Occasionally, all that boring work seemed to be worthwhile. You felt you were making a difference.

If the layoffs in newspaper and television newsrooms continue. If we have less and less competition among news-gathering organizations, what happens to coverage of those “boring” school board meetings and court house records? Will the iReporters cover them? Will they break the news stories on corruption? I doubt it.

As a young reporter, when I’d complain about covering another boring public meeting or spending an hour at the court house reviewing boring records, my editor reminded me that was what journalism was all about. “If we don’t watch the public officials,” he’d say, “no one will and they’d be able to operate without the scrutiny provided by a free press.”

But now there are fewer and fewer watchful, watch dogs looking over the shoulders of public officials. This doesn’t mean all public officials are going to go out and try to plunder the institutions they are entrusted to protect, but it means there are fewer and fewer people watching them to make sure they don’t.

I personally like to think that somehow newspapers will survive this current crisis that threatens them. I personally like to think that local television will become more and more aggressive in reporting and uncovering corruption. I’d like to think that we don’t have to depend on iReporters to keep a check on public institutions.

I believe a lot of us would like to think that.

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