On Media

So I'm writing today in honor of the East Bay Express, which posted a writing job on craigslist I'd love to get. I mentioned that I'm from SoCal, that I read the LA Times, and that I've been disappointed with both the SF Chronicle and the Oakland Trib and I wanted to write about what, as a reader, makes a newspaper worth reading, especially in print. Every time I get far enough south to catch a print copy of the LA Times, I find at least one article that impresses me with the editors' willingness to depart from traditional journalistic objectivity, not for the purpose of editorializing, as the Chronicle's journalists will happily do above the fold on the front page, but to offer deeper, sophisticated information on a complex or controversial topic, objectively, but with a serene confidence in the quantifiable truth of scientific conclusions and modern knowledge. The LA Times is not an outlet for conspiracy theorists or blowhards making more of their tiny, isolated little concern than it merits within the political movement it belongs to. Don't get me wrong, the editorial board is clearly far more conservative than its readership, and it engages in not-too-subtle, cynical attempts at mind control, like publishing in detail on every perceived gaffe by Barack Obama and giving every Hillary Clinton New Hampshire field office opening six-inches more than it deserved, while ignoring Clinton gaffes and Obama press releases alike. I wrote a letter to the editors about the coverage of the Occupy camp outside city hall, L.A. The letter lambasted politicians and newspapers alike for focusing on the $700,000 cost of replacing grass in a city park (done with one-third native growth, BTW, and looks more beautiful than before the protest) over the uncounted billions at stake to the general public if banks are allowed to continue over-leveraging and over-consolidating. I noted that the banks were a revenue stream both for the politicians themselves and for the papers, in which they advertise. When the paper printed my letter, it delivered my message faithfully, but with all idea of a media role in the narrative expertly edited out, without ellipses, as if it had never been. Hell, I don't care, I'm just glad my name got printed, and I'm still sitting here using their paper as my standard of what a print-news source should be, affordable, intelligent, objective and with enough funding to actually merit world and national news bureaus. That's the thing. There are only so many worthwhile international and national journalists in this world, apparently, and with a number of them just as good or better on camera or writing for someone on camera, there are probably only enough left over for, what, six worthwhile papers with true national stature? I doubt that many. Certainly, if you're not going to invest in the editing and journalists to compete to be one of those six, you're much better off just buying your news from the Associated Press and focusing on what a newspaper is really meant to be, the cultural touchstone, the community voice expressing the view and the concerns of the average reader, publishing their questions, concerns and divergent views when an issue really gets in their heads. Local papers should just be local papers. Just because your editorial board has pretensions that they, or their city, should be something more, does not excuse their wasting resources on terrible coverage just to say they have a Washington Bureau. Community newspapers are a necessity, the only thing print news still offers that digital media can't, physical community. It is a rare outlet that will be able to crystallize community over a large enough region today to stay funding a national print desk, LA, Chicago, New York. Atlanta, some Texas rag and Seattle are maybes, at best. San Francisco, sadly, has ceded this position to L.A. The world would have wanted San Fran, L.A. probably would not have fought it for long, but Bay Area residents are happy with their own insular, self-oriented attitudes. I say self-oriented, rather than self-centered, very deliberately, because its often very positively intended, this self-interest, it is merely personal, often extremely so. If you surrender the initiative for driving culture, however, you can't still try to have a relevant newspaper, because you've given up the very reason anyone would have to care about your voice. Just accept it that no one will want to buy your words outside your own area, win as many readers at home as you can, for being the best damn place to find out what's going on this weekend anywhere around, and don't waste your revenues on national news. Turn a profit. Survive. Your classified section, the comics and maybe a horoscope, the best Su Do Ku available, and the letters page. Focus on what people actually want. But there's still one thing, besides the fundamental rules at work, that makes the LA Times stand out, to me. On Tuesday, I was able to pick up a Times on my way to the Amtrak station. I didn't get to read it 'til I got into the city, because I was pleasantly diverted through most of the ride, but even on getting home at 8 pm I continued reading, because it was so refreshing to have. Now, Tuesday's Times had all of the regular trash that every other news outlet had that day. In depth bullshit on the Zimmerman trial, Monday morning quarterbacking of the BART strike, other in depth bullshit on that ex-spy asshole who can't stand up for the actions he calls heroic and tell the world why they are in court, sentimentalist trash on the firefighters in Arizona who just died. I skipped every one of those except the BART strike, stuff, something I usually don't have to do, but it was one of those banner days for shitty news, no matter what outlet you use. Inside the front section, next to the second half of the trite, paper-selling sentimentalist article on the dead firefighters from Southern California (bringing it home, even when its national news), was an article about what might have happened. It never says so, not directly, but the article very subtly makes it clear what seems to have happened. It begins by saying, matter-of-factly, and without undue emphasis, that at the time of the tragedy the fire was burning right through the middle of this town. The residents have been evacuated, and I'm making more of it than the paper did, but the fire was burning through people's homes. From there the article says that the team was fighting at the head of the fire, a direct confrontation strategy that is simply described as "rare," with no speculation whatsoever regarding why the decision may have been made to use it in this case. The article goes on to describe "proper" firefighting technique, always establishing a fall-back position of sufficient size, prior to attacking the fire lines, fighting with one foot "in the black," which the journalist translates for lay readers as, with one foot in burned-out space at the side of the fire. The article closes with direct quotes from agencies responsible for investigating the aftermaths of fire-related fatalities, and with opponents of universal investigations, one of whom points out that, in fire-fighting, the idea of holding a command entity responsible for a split-second decision that resulted in deaths minutes or hours down the road is not always right or fair. It becomes quite clear that what happened is nothing more or less than that these twenty men, only one of whom survived, made a reasoned decision, probably with universal consciousness of the risks, to skip the fall-back positions, to risk the fire head on, because people's homes were burning, that they sacrificed their safety and ultimately their lives, because that was their jobs, and when there was time to do the job safely, they did, but when people's lives are on fire, they were gonna put that job first. None of that hero worship comes through in the news article, not directly. It's just obvious, because the editors wanted it to be obvious, and the journalist wrote it well, exactly what happened, and exactly who these men were. So, to the East Bay Express; I am not trying to write that article for your paper, because that's national news, and your paper is rightly conscious of its geography and readership, but I want to write news about real things, that real people care about, that informs them of what really happened, so that without scandal, without baseless recriminations and without torture to the families of good men, the real story can get out right away, even if there aren't two sources, or even one, who will go on record to say it.