Wednesday, November 25, 2009 9:18 PM CST
COLUMN: How you get your news may change, but where it comes from is what counts
Caution: You are now entering a Penny Egocentric Zone (PEZ); reader discretion is encouraged.
I’ve always been interested in the news, and in the written word, so naturally that led me into journalism and newspapers in particular. When I was a kid, I watched the evening news each night with my dad. I remember him telling me that I was watching history in the making as we tuned in to coverage of President Reagan being shot.
I started my journalism career in high school but really got warmed up in college in about 1989-90 at Eastern Illinois University in Charleston. As many newspaper folks will tell you, the ink seems to get in the blood of some of us.
My first job out of college was as a reporter/photographer at the Lawrenceville Daily News. I did a little bit of everything — a great learning experience. I shot photos of basketball games, football games, school plays, community events, car accidents and just about anything else you can imagine.
I got to ride in a World War II bomber and take photos and write a story to let folks know what that was like. I loved interviewing people and meeting so many characters, and reporting the news with the best journalistic integrity possible, as I was taught.
We state the facts; we tell people what happened. They then form their opinions; we don’t take sides in real journalism unless we’re writing on the Opinions page. That’s the way it’s supposed to be.
My last day in Lawrenceville, I arrived at the scene of a suicide by hanging before the ambulance got there. I was 10 feet away from the poor fellow, my camera in hand.
I didn’t take a photo of that. I waited until I could get something more appropriate. We don’t take “body shots” in real journalism — at least, we never used to.
Now I run across Associated Press photos that include dead bodies and I cringe — not out of being offended, but for journalism’s sake.
I covered a double-fatal accident years later north of Vandalia. As the cops rolled the body of a young woman into a body bag, and later extracted her mother’s body from behind the wheel of a van, I purposely held my camera with the lens behind me so that they could be assured that I don’t take body shots.
One officer came up to me afterwards and said he appreciated my manner and my actions. I thought I was just being a real journalist.
TV news is fine, and so is radio, but they can’t do what newspapers do. Sure, I’m biased, but newspapers have just gotten in my blood. I can say this on the Opinions page.
Newspapers go in depth when TV and radio don’t have time beyond their 3-minute excerpts of real news. I like saving a newspaper until I have time to read it all, and I like to clip things out and save them or share them.
What your local newspaper has that no one else can provide is just that: local news. In towns like Mattoon and Charleston, folks know each other. If my co-worker’s daughter’s name is on the honor roll, I’m going to see it.
When my cousin excels on Neoga’s volleyball team, I can read about it in the JG/T-C. When one of my other relatives talks about the new school in Effingham, I can reading it in the paper — something I’d miss from an evening TV broadcast, when I’m working.
You can’t get that from area television, or CNN, or on the Fox News Web site.
Only a person living under a rock these days hasn’t heard that newspapers are struggling with the continued explosive growth of the Internet. Plus, in a tough economy, newspapers often suffer first and the most, as businesses almost immediately trim their advertising budgets (even though any good marketing firm can tell you that’s the opposite of what they should do).
Again, this is the PEZ: It’s all about me, you could argue. I’m just looking out for my own future existence in the work force. Maybe.
But I think newspapers are more vital now than ever before: both in their print versions and in their online incarnations.
Anyone can get on the World Wide Web and create a blog or a Web site. I could start a site and say I’m the Queen of Sheba, and as long as I’m technologically savvy, how could someone else on the other end of an electronic line know any different?
Newspapers have a long history of newsgathering experience. We print journalists have been here since news outlets of any kind have existed. We have a foundation and a method for reporting the news.
Without that basic well-honed structure, how on earth can people know they are getting accurate information from a trustworthy source?
No, we newspaper folk aren’t perfect. We make mistakes, too. But we’re experienced at this whole reporting-what’s-going-on thing. We bring that experience and the tenants of journalism to the ever-expanding Web, too.
Just like reporters, readers have to “consider the source.” Would you trust medical information online from the Mayo Clinic or another known institution with a good reputation and history, or from some site called www.medicalinfowhatever.com that any Billy Bob could be running?
Yes, I guess this is an egocentric column. I care about newspapers and their future for my own well-being.
But I also care about newspapers and real journalism — not commentary, not talking heads, not sensationalism — because it really does matter where we all get our information. The format may change — from paper to airwaves to electronic pages on a computer screen — but the foundation must be as solid as ever.
Newspapers aren’t dinosaurs. They’re the old dogs who are wise enough to know that even when you have to learn new tricks, you don’t abandon old principles.
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JEF wrote on Nov 26, 2009 9:21 AM: