Here's the plan: SJR will expand its mission into the electronic media--first with a radio program on KDHX and then, in a few months, with a television program on KDHX-TV. We will also have an interactive blog set up by mid-winter.
In the 35 years SJR has published, a sea change has taken place in journalism. When we started out, most of the local radio and television stations were owned locally or, if not, they were given a tremendous amount of autonomy. More importantly, St. Louis had two daily newspapers, both locally owned.
Today, with a few exceptions, all the local radio and television stations are owned by big national corporations. The St. Louis Globe-Democrat is no more. And the St. Louis Post-Dispatch is owned by a company in Davenport, Iowa.
In other words, the people who determine the structure of newsrooms in St. Louis, their scope, their focus, their style--their budgets--are sitting in offices hundreds of miles from here. They have less understanding of the community. They have more responsibility to their stockholders.
Fifteen or 20 years ago, SJR could critique individual news stories by how they were reported, the political and social circumstances that shaped them, and we knew where the buck stopped.
During the last few years, though, our focus has changed to more general critiques. Journalism think tanks, esoteric theories, corporate strategies, new and complex legal questions and national trends have all had enormous effect on our local news. In short, to really understand local news we had to understand things that hadn't been part of St. Louis journalism before.
Our mission to critique local journalism hasn't changed but our methods and sources have been transformed. Media criticism today is more philosophic than it was in 1970 and the people who understand it best aren't necessarily in St. Louis.
A.J. Leibling once said that freedom of the press belongs to those who own the presses. Well, if that's the case, we have less freedom of the press than ever before because fewer and fewer companies own the presses.
Let there be no mistake, journalism in its broadest sense--the flow of information needed to maintain a democratic republic--is threatened in this country. A large corporation's only purpose is to make a profit, not to disseminate information that often works against that purpose. For various reasons too complicated to go into here, that didn't used to be the case.
So, here's our problem: The public sees journalism criticism in the old ways--misquoting sources, reporters' bias, advertising pressures, editor's decisions, etc. Those are still areas of concern.
But the real story of local journalism is the national consolidation of media ownership and the newsroom's place in corporate America.
To truly critique local journalism, SJR needs to educate the general public to the new and broader problems. To do that, we have to go to where the public is--to the Internet, to radio and to television. And we have to talk to sources who deeply understand the new journalism universe.
The radio show will air on Wednesdays at 7 p.m., right after "Democracy Now."
In fact, as you read this, the first show has already aired. It was an interview with nationally syndicated radio talk-show host Thom Hartman. Hartman is also an author and media historian. His books include "What Would Jefferson Do?" and "We the People."
The second program, which will air Oct. 19, is an interview with broadcasting legend Walter Cronkite. We talked about the history of television news and how it stands now.
The television show will begin in January. It will have the same format, with a couple of additions, as the radio program--calm, intelligent conversation about the crisis in journalism and American democracy.
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