One hundred years of history....
The Amarillo Globe-News has been documenting the region's travails and triumphs since 1909.
An exhibit to celebrate the paper's anniversary is currently showing at the Panhandle Plains Historical Museum in Canyon and will continue until September.
I am intimately familiar with the newspaper business, but still, walking through the exhibit I was struck at how much has changed -- and how much has stayed the same.
Photos from the 1940s showed a newsroom populated by white men. There was a single woman in the photo, but it wasn't clear what her role was and I'm betting it was either 1) society editor or 2) librarian or 3) secretary. Whatever she was, she definitely wasn't the editor in charge.
A photo of today's newsroom showed a mix of women and men and races. Typewriters were replaced by computer terminals, but the constant was a room of intense looking people parked at messy desks. Really messy desks.
The picture made me laugh because, apparently, despite the radical changes which have occurred in the way we produce news, the personality types making up a newsroom remain the same.... 1) divergent thinkers 2) sloppy housekeepers 3) people who are happy to spend their time writing about the plight of others and keeping watch over the doings of government.
I've heard it said that on personality tests journalists score nearly identical to police, firefighters, and, yes, lawyers. In other words, we're all adrenalin junkies happy to have our days filled with unpredictable events.
However, journalists differ from the police and lawyer profiles in one highly significant way. We are not rule followers and we are not drawn to authority. But we are similar to lawyers in our analytical ability and to firefighters in our desire to aid others.
I like to think we are by nature the people God designed to challenge the system and help keep it honest. As executive editor of today's Amarillo Globe-News, I routinely joke our job is to fight for "truth, justice and the American way." Truthfully, it's not a joke to me.
Looking at snapshots from the past 100 years, I wondered how our democracy may be damaged when journalists who watchdog the system are replaced by bloggers who have an opinion on everything but whose facts are only those supplied by journalists. Daily, the number of journalists are dwindling as news organizations across the country trim jobs, cut salaries and reduce the ranks of those keeping watch over their community. Just this week, the Atlantic Journal Constitution cut 30 percent of its news staff. At the AJC, that means 90 fewer people "covering Dixie like the Dew." I fear what will fall unnoticed between the cracks of those missing 90 reporters and the additional 12,000 who have disappeared from the ranks of journalism in the past year.
Our founding fathers knew the importance of keeping a watchdog in the house when they made journalism the only job protected by the Constitution -- something school students who frequently tour the Globe-News never know when asked.
As we go forward into the next century, I look to the past for inspiration:
"Congress shall make no law . . . abridging the freedom of speech, or of the press; or the right of the people peaceably to assemble, and to petition the Government for a redress of grievances."
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Dawn I don't know you and don't know your political leanings. But doesn't it seem that nowadays papers are less about unbiased protection of the truth and more about political spin. The Globe News Editorial page devotes considerably more of its space to Conservative views. One need only look at the list of regular syndicated columns published in your paper to know this is true.
ReplyDeleteI am not speaking of your paper as an anomaly but rather as the current norm. Determining a publications bias, whatever it might be, has become a pressing concern for everyone. As a medium to purvey truth, journalism is no longer the respected form it once was, or should I say was once perceived to be.
Don't get me wrong, I do believe that many journalists attempt to report the news accurately without bias. Those individuals no longer command readership, or viewership however. The strident voice of bias has become the norm. I think it unlikely that the brainwashed masses will wean themselves off of the Limbaughs, and Hannitys long enough to pay much attention to those who accurately report.
Sad as it seems, we may be heading for a world where sorting out truth becomes impossible. Take note of the recent campaign to discredit a president who has only occupied the office for ten weeks. Any honest reporting of Obama's presidency is lost behind a wall of hateful noise. Self proclaimed journalists are instead nothing but politcal shills. Might as well climb down from your pedestal of truth and join the rest of us squirming about in the mire.