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The Bad News about the News

vonzastrowc's picture
By Claus von Zastrow on March 18, 2009

The 146-year-old Seattle Post-Intelligencer is the latest newspaper to run its own obituary. It followed closely on the heels of the Rocky Mountain News, which bid adieu to its Denver readers after 160 years. More newspapers and journals are sure to follow. Just this morning, I received an alarming email solicitation from The Nation, ominously titled "1865-??", requesting donations to forestall its own demise.

The implications of this situation for education are not hard to grasp.

For one, it reflects and exacerbates the erosion of civic education in this country. As Kathleen Parker notes in a recent Washington Post editorial, the Pew Research Center for the People and the Press recently "found that just 27 percent of Americans born since 1977 read a newspaper the previous day." Young people don't seem to have much appetite for serious newspapers. Many educators feel they don't have much time to whet that appetite.

Yes, young people get some news on line, but I can't find much evidence that newspapers are substantial part of their on-line diet. As newspapers go the way of the 8-track tape, young people will have even fewer opportunities to develop their civic lives.

The decline of newspapers also hastens the demise of responsible reporting on education. Education blogger Alexander Russo regularly chasitises the education media, arguing that reporters would sooner parrot expert opinion than investigate experts' claims.

As more newspapers reassign or lay off their education reporters, on-line opinionators fill the vacuum. No one covers school board meetings. No one reviews the research on which think tanks from across the political spectrum build grand claims about education policy and practice. Even some of our most esteemed national pundits are making rookie mistakes in their writing about education.

The news business has so much stacked against it right now: a lousy economy; the rise of infotainment; the high cost of investigative journalism; the low cost of opinion; free on-line delivery; the exodus of advertisers from adult media; changing reading habits among youth; etc, etc.

One way to slow the decline: Help schools raise eager, demanding consumers of news.

Image: www.rockymountainnews.com

Link to this story: http://www.learningfirst.org/node/2356

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Claus, While I think you

Submitted by Patrick on Wed, 03/18/2009 - 21:48

Claus,

While I think you raise some valid points about the news business and its affect on society, I think you sell short what can be learned from this. One major flaw with the print news media in the eyes of the post-1977, is that it wasn't much in the way of participatory. With the rise of social media, responding to an article via a letter to the editor just didn't appeal to those who had an opinion about what they read. You state "Young people don't seem to have much appetite for serious newspapers." True, but they do have an appetite for news and information. It should have fallen upon the media industry to see that shift and react to it.

If we look at the massive participation in the 2008 Presidential election by the very generation that Parsons decries as not reading a news paper, I can't help but be hopeful about their civic pride.

Your last line: "Help schools raise eager, demanding consumers of news," is right on the money. The role of schools in guiding students to be exacting in their pursuit of information, and relentless in the interrogation of said news cannot be stated enough. More information, both worthy and banal, is generated daily and must be sifted through. The skills we developed by reading a daily newspaper still play a role in helping students accomplish this. It's just been taken to a whole new level by the ease with which news is produced and shared.

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  Thanks, Patrick.  I agree

Submitted by vonzastrowc on Thu, 03/19/2009 - 05:53

 

Thanks, Patrick.  I agree that print journalism doesn't necessarily hold much appeal for young people used to web 2.0 (3.0?), and that the surge in political activity during the recent election was an encouraging sign.  Newspapers could certainly have created a more interactive on-line model earlier on, even though it has been challenging to "capitalize" such models.
Of course, your comment raises the question about whether both sorts of reading--traditional and on-line--are equally valuable, and the jury still seems to be out on that one. And it's not clear to me whether people who get their information on line are necessarily reading the work of journalists who have done front-line reporting.
(The irony of the fact that I'm writing all of this in a blog without doing primary research of my own is not lost on me.)
There is also, of course, the question of whether students have enough opportunity to gain the background knowledge they need to be informed consumers of news. Especially if subjects like civics or history are getting squeezed, students might not be getting the kind of background they need.
Of course, there are bright spots around the country. Educators like Sally Broughton are giving students a strong dose civic learning. It would be interesting to gauge those students' interest in newspapers a few years down the line.
Regarding encouraging signs of greater youth engagement in the last election: A number of civic education advocates we've interviewed share you view--though with some caution. (See here, here, here, and here.) They're all waiting to see if it will last.
Thanks again for your very thought-provoking comment. 

 

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http://www.nytimes.com/2009/0

Submitted by Kate on Thu, 03/19/2009 - 09:42

http://www.nytimes.com/2009/03/19/opinion/19kristof.html?_r=1&th&emc=th
To add, take a look at what Nicholas Kristof says in today's NYT:

"When we go online, each of us is our own editor, our own gatekeeper. We select the kind of news and opinions that we care most about.

Nicholas Negroponte of M.I.T. has called this emerging news product The Daily Me. And if that’s the trend, God save us from ourselves.

That’s because there’s pretty good evidence that we generally don’t truly want good information — but rather information that confirms our prejudices.."

Kristof concludes with an air of lament, "So perhaps the only way forward is for each of us to struggle on our own to work out intellectually with sparring partners whose views we deplore. .." I wonder how much personal discipline we have to pursue that course?

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Thanks for the reference to

Submitted by vonzastrowc on Thu, 03/19/2009 - 13:10

Thanks for the reference to the very timely article by Kristof, Kate.  Ironically, Kristof was one of the esteemed journalists I referred to in my post--the journalists who make rookie mistakes in their education reporting.

In this instance, however, he's pointing to an important concern, one that has further parallels in education.  Newspapers and schools both perform an important civic function insofar as they create a public square where people of different faiths, opinions, backgrounds, etc. come together to understand each other and live together more productively.  They balance unity and diversity--e pluribus unum.  The desire for "The Daily Me"--that news outlet that confirms or amplifies my every personal opinion--resembles to desire to place my children in a school that confirms my particular world view. Choice and personalization are very important concerns in education policy, but we mustn't forget the need to find common ground.  Even some of our most vocal proponents of school choice policies recognize this need.

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