Press Interviewing the Press

Can’t the press find subject or content experts or observers to interview as sources? Increasingly I see reporters quoting other reporters on stories, and they are largely regurgitating headlines, conjecture, story lines in the form of facts.

I guess it has to do with lower budgets and too many news media organizations chasing too little news. I think good reporters and editors probably do become very intimate with details, but I’d feel better if the media continued to report the news as neutral observers rather than generate news.

But maybe it’s too late for journalism as it existed or seemed to exist only a few years ago. Day after day now, I see reporters forcing stories that don’t exist, pitting individuals or groups against one another, amplifying everything as sensational or fearful. Once in a while, they are on target. Many times, as with the recent “lead” scare… it is costing communities, groups and individuals thousands of dollars in lost productivity and extra and duplicate steps.

When the news media are at their best, it makes us all better. In today’s world… and a lot of journalists agree with me, the media are part of the problem.