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Why We Must Work Together to Save Journalism and the Press

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Plus, Busting the Myth that Kids Don’t Care About the News

By Maddie Stone

Pleasantville, NY — My name is Maddie Stone, and I’m 13 years old. I’ve found some people form an assumption about kids that just isn’t true. They automatically infer kids don’t follow the news. Why? Because we’re an inch or two shorter? Because we haven’t yet studied trigonometry? I intend to shoot down this myth and explain the importance of following the news.

It seems the day people turn 18, they immediately begin to believe anyone younger is completely clueless about what’s happening in the world. Don’t they recall the previous day, when they knew as much?

Our author with her publisher dad–long time editor and journalist, Adam Stone.

While kids almost always understand more about what’s going on than adults realize, including the importance of local news, I have a slight advantage. My dad (people other than my sister and I call him Adam Stone) is publisher of The Examiner, our local weekly print and online community newspaper. Having a publisher as a dad, I grew up learning all kinds of lessons about the press and why it’s important. But don’t let that make you think I’m one of the rare few. Just listen to what my friend Max Rubinstein has to say:

Max Rubinstein

“The idea of children being dismissive to the media is simply preposterous and is most likely a result of modern stereotyping,” Max said.

Max, like me, is a 13-year-old seventh grader at Fox Lane Middle School in Bedford and we often talk about current events. How are we informed? By reading, watching, and listening to quality journalism.

“I watch the news to gain insight into the international community and to learn about the status and structure of American politics,” Max added.

My friends, my teammates and I are keenly aware of the world around us; we’re not naive and ignorant. For the most part, we listen to our local news broadcasts, read our community newspapers, just as much as the average person. Keeping up with the times is important for people of all ages.

The press informs the people of important issues and events, from a local carnival to a global pandemic. Especially in times like the present, when faced with a crisis, it is even more urgent to stay updated on the data, or, in this case, the spreading and containing of the coronavirus. Even on a local level, when a mayor, town supervisor, or school board reveals a proposal, it is critical for the public to be alerted of the news.

In addition to keeping citizens informed, journalists provide coverage that allows people to remain up-to-date, and, therefore, safe and free from harm. Once again circling back to the coronavirus, newscasters and print journalists are frequently encouraging self-quarantine, hand washing, and remaining six feet apart if you must leave home. This does not just apply to the epidemic that has swept the nation. Most news outlets will showcase topics such as poverty, equality, environmental contamination, and, locally, clean drinking water, jobs, and crime. News supplies citizens with knowledge they can use to make decisions about their safety and general well-being.

“An informed society is an educated society, and you cannot have a well-functioning democracy unless a country’s citizens are informed,” observed Martin Wilbur, editor-in-chief of The Examiner. His insight led me to my next point: It’s essential for every country, every state, every county, every city, to remain educated. If the general public is educated, the people are empowered.

However, people can only be educated if the news sources they’re using are reliable. It’s like dominos; if you’re educated, you’re informed. If you follow reliable news sources, you’re educated. But even if you read the news, and you read a biased, untrustworthy source, the whole thing comes crashing down. That’s what makes becoming a knowledgeable citizen so challenging.

Furthermore, journalists keep the government in check. They expose fraud and unethical behavior in our leaders. An invisible fourth estate that monitors authority figures. This includes local government. Former Speaker of the House of Representatives, Tip O’Neill, was perhaps most famous for saying, “all politics is local.” This certainly applies here. Most controversies that arise in local government and are exposed by local reporters can’t be compared to controversies as grand in scope as, say, the Watergate affair. But those stories are often the ones most impactful to people’s everyday lives.

Also, keeping the government in check does not just involve reporting on controversy and scandal. Keeping the government in check means keeping elected leaders honest, so when a government official says or does anything, and a journalist reports on it, that’s a perfectly valid example of keeping the government in check.

Speaking of keeping an eye on local government, whether my dad is talking about his work day at the dinner table or running away from the dinner table to write about a breaking political story, the news is definitely a large part of our life at home. I’m aware of what’s happening locally, so I know journalists are always attending school board meetings, writing about statements from politicians, and scrambling to meet deadlines. Either way, they are constantly busy with elected officials. But never too busy to watch their awesome, fleet-footed, line-drive hitting, 13-year-old daughter’s softball games, of course.

While I usually like to just make fun of my dad, I figured I would quickly take this unique opportunity to suggest you read his column on how The Examiner has been trying to survive these turbulent times: https://www.theexaminernews.com/want-to-save-journalism-start-local-support-the-examiner/

And as much as I love Inside Press, The Examiner, and local news in general, let’s take a moment to step away from our neck of the woods. Journalism also allows us to understand places beyond our backyard. Without journalists to report on places far away, how would we know what’s happening in India? What about Canada? What about upstate New York? What about anywhere outside our little bubble?

As important as it is to study journalism, it is equally as important to support it. The adult consumers of today were once kids and the kids of today are the adults of the future. In the words of Thomas Jefferson, “Our liberty depends on the freedom of the press, and that cannot be limited without being lost.”

In order to preserve this liberty, the youth of today must value and support well-sourced, quality journalism. We must be thankful for the news outlets we have but also think back on how much we’ve lost. Just a few years ago, the country enjoyed so many more journalists, especially print journalists. In case you didn’t know, over the past 15 years, one in five newspapers have gone out of business, and the number of journalists employed at newspapers have been cut in half. These numbers are only getting worse. My dad taught me most of what I know about journalism, but the following I can infer on my own: save the press now while there’s still time.

Maddie Stone is a 13-year-old, seventh grader at Fox Lane Middle School in Bedford. This article is also appearing in next week’s print editions of Examiner Media’s four community newspapers and is also live now at www.theexaminernews.com

 

The Fourth Estate: Covering the Trump Administration

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By Janie Rosman   Photos by Arjun Nadkarni

Left of Main Street Panel (L-R): Kate Stone Lombardi, Helen Jonsen, Peter Katz and Kristen Prata Browde. Moderating, Grace Bennett

Donald Trump’s administration has become expert at diverting negative attention from itself, requiring journalists to be extra vigilant when covering the 45th president.

News professionals offered suggestions about “Separating Fact From Fiction: The Role of the Media in Trump’s America” during a panel discussion hosted by the activist Chappaqua group Left of Main Street (LOMS) Friday night.

Moderated by Inside Press Inc. Publisher and Editor Grace Bennett, the lively and often chilling discussion among panelists—attorney Kristen Prata Browde, a veteran news reporter and anchor; Helen Jonsen, whose broadcast and digital credits include Forbes, WPIX, Fox5, NBC, Working Mother, FIOS1 and international outlets; Westchester County Business Journal editor Peter Katz and Kate Stone Lombardi, who has been a reporter for The New York Times, The Wall Street Journal, TIME, Readers Digest and other national publications—reinforced that media must double-down on its efforts to cover the 45th president.

Left of Main Street (LOMS) founders and committee members joining the panelists at the conclusion of the Town Hall forum in Chappaqua. (R-L): Committee members Jennifer Sugar Frawley, Beth Hahn and LOMS founders Cynthia Metcalf and Ann Styles Brochstein. LOMS which originated as a Chappaqua-based group advocating for Hillary Clinton, is now “an activist group advocating for progressive ideas, candidates & legislation,” Brochstein explained to the audience gathered.  “After the election we cried for a couple of days and then dusted ourselves off & decided to move forward,” she said.

 

 

Since the election, media has been accused of “not doing its job” and of helping Donald Trump get elected, Bennett said in opening the discussion. Trump’s attempts to silence the press by calling it dishonest, dismissing reports as “fake news” and silencing reporters compound the Fourth Estate’s responsibilities. The panelists jumped right in.

 “You have to keep in mind that Trump is an actor,” Katz said. “At the moment he happens to be acting the role of president, and he has surrounded himself with others who are very skilled at manipulation.”

 “We shouldn’t be loved by people we ask questions of,” Browde said. “That’s what a healthy press does. We’re channeling the questions of the public and holding them (politicians) accountable.”

News delivery changed: social media is available via cell phones, Twitter, and it influences how much the public sees, she said. A comment that once stayed on the cutting room floor is what Trump uses to his benefit.

“Most reporters aren’t intimidated by Trump when he comes after them,” Lombardi said. “I think they double down when he does. To me the danger is not that reporters get nervous; it’s that he keeps suggesting they are telling lies.”

 If reporters don’t feel the companies they work for are backing them, then they’ll back off when facing difficult situations rather than risk losing their jobs, Browde said.

 “Keep in mind that the media is big business,” Katz reminded. “Networks own stations, and stations remain on the air by virtue of the renewal of their FCC (Federal Communications Commission) licenses.”

Democratization of media means someone with a Twitter handle can be “the press,” Browde added. It also created niche media. “We’re narrow-casting options to narrower audiences. Those who watch a conservative news station and read a conservative newspaper get “something very different than you do.”

 Not only that, Jonsen added, people are surrounding themselves with others who agree with them and blocking social media news feeds of people who disagree with them.

This begs the question, What are reputable media sources? Katz suggested watching news stations whose views oppose their own will make the public better news consumers. In most newsrooms he worked in, reporters and editors left their personal viewpoints at the door, “and being impartial was sacrosanct.”

 “We (reporters) were trained not to have political beliefs and to get a balanced story,” Lombardi recalled. While reporters have their own beliefs and opinions, she said, “That’s human bias and is very different from editorial slant. It’s important to distinguish between a newspaper’s slant and the quality of its journalism.

 The difficulty with filling 24 hours a day with news is that there’s no news filter, no editor, no time to fact-check, which allows Trump to speak all things, said Katz.

 Browde agreed the media pandered to Trump the celebrity and didn’t take him seriously.

  “There’s no one around to counter alternative facts” of campaign coverage,’ she said. Because of finances, “we’ve lost a serious amount of the substance. The direct connection between the president’s thumbs and us is now a nanosecond. There is no filter, there is no gatekeeper, (and) it’s created a reactionary press.”

It also changes the public’s relationship to the president, who can Tweet something in 140 characters without anyone fact-checking. Katz agreed, adding this is the first White House to use social media as a main form of communication.

 “Meet the Press” host Chuck Todd challenged Trump advisor Kellyanne Conway for citing “alternative facts” and refusing to answer his questions, and American Urban Radio Networks reporter April Ryan stood her ground when Trump asked her to arrange a meeting with the Congressional Black Caucus.

If Trump’s disrespect for journalists is bad, then his disregard for the judiciary is worse. “Unfortunately, I think he’s parroting Adolf Hitler,” Katz said. “There’s a real hazard.”

 “That is the point,” Jonsen said. “The first (act) for a dictator, a Nazi regime, is to shut down a free press. So the press needs to be that much more aggressive and call this administration out at every turn.”

 “I think the media is savvy in not following the latest Tweet and is keeping their eyes on the story,” Lombardi said. “You have to be careful as a news consumer about what you’re looking at. The way mainstream media defends itself is by continuing to put out a really good product.”

Janie Rosman has been published in print and online media, including the Journal News, Westchester Magazine, Today’s Caregiver, Inside Chappaqua Magazine, Rockland County Times, Rivertown Magazine and Westchester Parent. She chronicles the Tappan Zee Bridge replacement project at Kaleidoscope Eyes (www.nykeypad.wordpress.com)