Obsolete!-- Utah Media and the Death of Relevant Local News
January 18th, 2010
A look at the changes brought on by the digital revolution, and how local news coverage continues to suffer due to the shift to new media.
by Richard Markosian
"Life moves pretty fast. If you don't stop and look around once in a while, you could miss it." This is a quote from one of my favorite movies as a kid: Ferris Bueller's Day Off. Twenty years ago, this movie epitomized for teenagers the essence of cool.
I've always, in "looking around once in a while," tried to see where things are going. Consider just the past twenty years: when Ferris Bueller opened in theaters cell phones were the domain of the very wealthy -- and they were giant bricks with very limited service. Would anybody have predicted 20 years later that the general populous would use cell phones to secretly send messages, record video, take photos, and manage businesses?
Twenty years ago, the majority of the population subscribed to newspapers and there were only about 30 cable TV channels. Today newspaper subscriptions are plummeting all over the U.S. and there are hundreds of cable stations not to mention thousands of web TV shows. In 1995, less than 18 million adults used the Internet regularly, now over 184 million American adults are going online.
Twenty years ago, Ferris tricked his parents into believing he was home sick in bed by rigging up a mannequin and playing a recording of sleeping sounds. Ferris would have a tougher time getting away with that today -- if his parents were suspicious they could maintain a GPS tracking system on his car or phone and know exactly where he is at any given time.
In another scene Ferris shows up at a classy restaurant and claims to be "The Sausage King of Chicago." He pulls off the identity theft and treats his friends to a lunch at one of Chicago's finest restaurants. Today if Ferris attempted to use the expense account of the real Sausage King, the fraud could have been detected on arrival through cameras or a database account management system. The real Sausage King could have been notified in minutes, and the police would have arrived before he ate his first bite of bratwurst.
Added security and the wealth of information available on the Internet have revolutionized how we live. Most of these advances have made us more efficient, but the media rarely examines what might be lost from what we gain in change.
More Security Doesn't Equal Less Worry
When I was a kid, my parents didn't worry about where I was all the time. I would frequently play up in the mountains -- where there were rattlesnakes, mountain lions and vagrants. I was never afraid and neither was my mom. At age seven, I started riding the bus unaccompanied by my parents; I would meet cool people on the bus and I quickly overcame my shyness. Kids today seem to be really missing out when their parents don't allow them to play outside for fear of what could happen in a seemingly more dangerous world.
Today, Nintendo is a lot more graphically sophisticated, but it's certainly not cool enough to make up for not playing outside. Gone are the days of neighborhood kids all meeting up for a huge game of kick-the-can. Where are the kids playing hide-and-go-seek? Where is the gang of kids playing football after school in the street?
Online chat rooms and video games -- no matter how cool -- are no substitute for playing in the wilderness or joining a group of friends for a mock battle or a hike in the mountains.
I'm not one of those people who hates technology or who rejects the modern world. But I do believe it's worthwhile to examine progress with a wider lens and see where we are heading as a society as the digital revolution takes on more permanence.
The Death of Local Newspapers and Local TV in Utah
Newspapers are dying all over the country. The massive New York Times just laid off another 150 writers. Local TV news is still hanging in there but their tired format of covering shootings, fires and all bad news, isn't quite as captivating as it once was.
Dean Paynter, News Director of KJZZ, worked as a producer for Channel 2 news in the early 80's. He said when there was an important issue that the station determined warranted further coverage, they would hold a one-hour special -- sometimes during prime-time. The topic would be thoroughly explored and the news stations felt they were providing a service to viewers. Back then news stations considered it their civic duty to keep viewers informed due to their privilege of broadcasting over the limited airwaves. According to Paynter this was due the founder of KUTV news zealous dedication to the importance of local coverage. KUTV Founder George Hatch was dedicated the craft of informing citizens on important issues, and sharing the stories of Uthans. Today KUTV news is owned by a media conglomerate NextStar. Who devotes little coverage to important local news. But how could they? With meager budgets and limited capacity to investigate, most local news is about entertainment rather than information.
When there were only four TV stations, the pie was divided into much fewer pieces and budgets were huge. Newsrooms were full of serious journalists who would spend as much time as it took to investigate and get to the bottom of the issues of the day. This is a far cry from what we find today.
The former 10-20 staff writers on hand at the Utah political bureaus for the Deseret News and the Salt Lake Tribune have been replaced by two or three writers, who also cover development projects and court cases. This leaves the real scrutinizing of bills and new policies up to blog writers and alt media outlets. The problem with blog writers is that most don't have the resources to conduct in-depth analysis or journalism training to understand the value of fact checking. Also, their readership is often limited to members of their own political party. Blogs are classified as "left leaning" or "right leaning" and subscribers only pay attention to the message they want to hear. This doesn't leave much room for real analysis.
War Coverage Comparison 35 Years ago and Today
Thirty-five years ago Dick Nourse was sent on assignment to cover the Vietnam war for Channel 2 news as a local embedded correspondent.
Today we hardly hear anything about the wars we are waging. The Associated Press has more writers assigned to scrutinize Sarah Palin's new autobiography than all the reporters assigned to cover the wars in Afghanistan and Iraq combined (10 and 5, respectively).
It's a tough time to be a journalist. Many journalists see no hope for their profession returning. According to a recent poll conduced by the University of Georgia 30% fewer journalism students have job prospects after graduating than just 10 years ago.
If Ferris Bueller would have graduated from Mass Comm 20 years ago, he could have probably found a job at the Chicago Tribune or the Chicago Sun Times, but today he would have to settle for blogging about how to fake out your parents. So is your life becoming obsolete? What changes are shaping our world for the future?
If you liked this story you might also enjoy the story of Andrew Lock: a web tv entrepreneur who started the hit business program Help My Business Sucks
Also, read our first article on this topic "Is Utah TV News Dead?"
