Investigative journalism.
It was reporters who toiled in newsrooms, courted sources and conducted interviews. It was the facts. If your mother says she loves you, check it out.
Reporters on the streets got tips, did the research, and put together stories. Their news made a difference. People learned what was going on behind the scenes, discovered what those in charge didn't want discovered.
News doesn't matter any more. We don't need a piece of paper when we've got a screen covered with electronic letters. Except that you pick and choose the stories you read, and don't happen to come upon something by accident, only to find that it's a very interesting story.
The Tribune Company is looking at bankruptcy. Sam Zell bought it, and like all the other leveraged buy-outs that have failed, the debt burden is so onerous that it's unlikely the company can service all that debt.
Newspapers are losing ad revenue to the Internet and it's ad revenue that pays for the investigative journalists and the beat reporters and the staff who keep us informed about local happenings. Mr. Zell took the Chicago Tribune and shook it up, reduced staff, decreased the amount of news coverage, and lost even more clients.
People didn't like the new look. They noticed that they got less for their money. They couldn't find certain sections they liked to read first because sections got merged in a bid to save on paper.
Then Mr. Zell put his own personal stamp on the editorial page. His editors endorsed the Democratic candidate for president, when the Chicago Tribune was historically a Republican-leaning publication.
Between the change in format and the change in direction, people began to cancel subscriptions. With even fewer readers, the advertisers found less reason to buy ad space.
Now the company is considering re-organizing its debt in an effort to survive, but once management makes too many mistakes, there's no turning back. The television and radio stations may be profitable, but the many newspapers in the Tribune Company stable are dragging the whole corporation down.
So what will become of the Nelson Algren Awards? Will the prizes for best short stories be eliminated as well, along with all the other extraneous expenses?
Bad enough to lose the book reviews in a frenzy of cost cutting. A pity to lose a recognized venue for short fiction. But far more troublesome is the loss of the investigative journalists who expose corruption and dirty deals, because if they aren't there to do it, it won't get done anymore.
No comments:
Post a Comment