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Who's
Watching
the
Richmond Media?
Community
weeklies diverge on news council idea.
Part
I of a Two-Part Series
Greg
Pearson does not particularly care for the Richmond
Times-Dispatch or NBC-12. Actually, Pearson is
not a big fan of Media General or many of the
corporate media conglomerates. The publisher and
editor of the Chesterfield
Observer, one of two community newsweeklies
covering Virginia’s fourth-largest locality,
Pearson believes that local news issues suffer a
lack of coverage by such large media corporations.
As a response, Person regularly uses his “Media Watch” column to
chastise the larger news outlets for what he
considers to be shabby treatment of Chesterfield
news.
In
Pearson’s mind, the situation with Media General
is drastic enough to mandate an institutional
response. For quite some time, he has been beating
the drums for the creation of an outside
intermediary organization to serve as a watchdog
for fairness and accuracy in coverage, especially
of news in his hometown. Called a “news
council,” this group would field complaints,
conduct investigation and serve as a sounding
board for citizen, business, and government
criticism of the local press.
According
to Pearson, “the news council idea is not an
original one. I first inquired about it in 1997
when I heard about it and contacted the Minnesota
News Council. I spoke with Gary Gilson
(the Minnesota group’s executive director) who
said it would be announced what markets are given
a grant [by the Knight Foundation] to get a news
council started.”
What
Pearson is referring to is the Knight Foundation,
a national grant-making institution founded by the
men who started what the Knight-Ridder media
empire. In June, Knight awarded two $75,000 grants
to emerging news councils in Southern California
and New England to assist with start-up costs.
According to a Knight press
release, “News councils are independent,
nonprofit organizations that promote trusted
journalism by investigating accuracy and fairness
complaints against news outlets. They help
determine the facts involved in these disputes,
and provide open forums where citizens and
journalists can discuss media ethics, standards
and performance."
The
Minnesota group that Pearson alludes to is the
oldest such organization in the nation. It was
started in the 1970s in response to the decline in
public trust of media in that state. Financially
supported by foundations, media organizations,
individual donors, and corporations, the Minnesota
News Council conducts public hearings, hosts
public forums, and engages in workshops and other
activities in order to promote “fair,
vigorous and trusted journalism by engaging the
news media and the public in examining standards
of fairness.” According to its website, “democracy
needs trusted news media; media openness earns
public trust. A complaint is a gift that helps a
news outlet look at its performance and improve
it.” Prior to the Knight grant, only one
other organization of this sort existed, an eight-year-old
council in the state of Washington.
Pearson
has previously attempted to garner the support of
his colleagues in Metro Richmond’s press. He
says, “Last year I suggested that [some local
media colleagues] take on the project just for
Richmond or statewide, but the word came back
that a news council would potentially damage local
media relationships. I'm not looking to spearhead
the idea or necessarily serve but do support the
concept. Most of the folks serving on the
Minnesota News Council are not in the media but
have media backgrounds or work with the media,
including judges and attorneys.”
Despite
his calls to action, Pearson is not necessarily up
for bearing the brunt of the burden of starting
such an organization. In his mind, “This is a
much bigger concept than a weekly newspaper can
pull off. I'm actively involved in the day-to-day
running of our paper. The daily media --
particularly the Richmond Times-Dispatch Dispatch
-- is opposed to the idea. They believe it's not
needed.”
Going
alone is not an option for him as he feels that
the targets of his scorn are the very entities
that should support the news council. Pearson
asserts, “For a media council to be started
it will take the mainstream press to support it.
My impression is that the media reluctantly gets
behind the idea because of pressure to accept it.”
For
the time being, the likelihood of a news council
growing in Metro Richmond seems off in the
distance. Any number of pieces would have to fall
into place to make such a formalized media
monitoring organization a reality. Despite the
odds, Greg Pearson remains undeterred. While he
recognizes the difficulty of his vision, he is
mostly undaunted by the challenges therein. He has
concluded that, “Upsetting the status quo is
upsetting. I'm a proponent [because] it would be
the right and fair thing to do.”
If
he could only get his colleagues in and around the
region’s community-based and alternative media
to agree, he just might be on to something.
*****
Mark
Fausz, publisher and editor of the Village
News, a community newsweekly focusing
mostly on eastern Chesterfield County, is by no
means a fan of the Richmond Times-Dispatch
or similar large media companies. On the contrary,
he holds rather strong negative views of the big
Richmond paper. He says, “Personally, I find
the Times Dispatch lacking and politically biased,
not only D[emocrats] and R[epublicans] but county
vs. county.” Fausz’s paper is the
chief rival of the Chesterfield Observer in
the race to capture the local news market. Despite
producing a smaller outlet for news and opinion,
Fausz has a different take on the issue of whether
Richmond needs a local news council the likes of
which Observer chief Greg Pearson ardently
advocates for.
As
for a formal media monitoring group, Fausz is not
necessarily a proponent. He is, however, a
vigorous promoter of alternative media sources
like his paper and even Pearson’s. He also
supports the growth and development of blogs as
providers of local news and opinion content. To
that end, he provides relevant links on the
Village News’ website (including South of the
James and Bacon’s Rebellion). Despite
his distaste for the big media, Fausz prefers a
less-institutionalized response to consumer
dissatisfaction. As he says, “A news council
will not replace market research for a big
operation like the Times-Dispatch. Their news
forums are for show only or possibly a large focus
group. It is done through the business department.
The people at media organizations that need
convincing are not listening, they’re looking at
the bottom line.”
Although
his paper has a relatively small reported
circulation of around 11,000, Fausz is more than
willing to let market forces dictate the fortunes
of media entities, large and small. For him, “the
readers are the ‘news council.’ I think that
in the media business, a reader or a viewer has
options. In the Richmond area, he or she can get
regional news from the Times Dispatch or four
separate television news channels or even
Richmond.com. There are alternatives although one
may not realize it at first.”
Fausz
regularly watches developments in the Metro
area’s media market, and he draws a more
expansive picture of it. From his vantage point,
“If one doesn’t care for [the
Times-Dispatch], there are alternative such as the
community newspapers and the Internet, or if
you’re not in a hurry, Style
Weekly. They all may have a different approach,
but local TV is going to scoop the breaking news
anyway - the murder and mayhem stuff. Newspapers,
and now the Internet, are charged with the job of
in-depth reporting, and one thing the
Times-Dispatch or any other large daily cannot do
is in-depth stories on every community in its
readership area.”
Fausz’s
stance stems from the changing media market
dynamics that are present in Richmond and beyond.
It is no secret that major daily newspapers are
scrambling to stem the loss of readership to a
growing cadre of alternatives. By the same token,
television news is spread broadly among a number
of regional and national network and cable
options.
As
Fausz notes, “The Times Dispatch is losing
readership continually, and that’s why you have
recently seen the emergence [at Media General] of
the Midlothian
Exchange, a new Spanish language publication,
a Style Weekly type publication, and a move to
special subscription rates for their stock
[market] reports. It’s not news that the larger
dailies are having a hard time. News councils have
not or never will have an effect on that. Like any
other business, publishing is market driven.
People want to read or watch what is most
important to them – what touches their own
lives.”
Fausz
sees an opportunity for entrepreneurs like himself
– and by extension, the Chesterfield Observer
– in fulfilling the community’s need for
news and opinion. Says Fausz, “I am
prejudiced, of course, on the issue of community
newspapers, but I have read a lot about the future
of the genre, and, at least for the time being,
the future of print media is in specialty
publications, especially community newspapers."
Operating
in Virginia’s fourth largest locality, a county
with a population of near 300,000 residents, Fausz
believes that Chesterfield’s growth is breeding
additional segmentation for the local media
market. He notes that, “In Chesterfield there
is a natural barrier between southeastern and
northwestern Chesterfield. It is our [Village
News] contention that Chesterfield is getting too
large to do local news, features and opinion, in a
countywide publication [like the RTD]. People in
Chester don’t know where Moseley is and many of
those in Midlothian could care less what happens
in Enon. [They say].” It is against this
backdrop that Fausz finds opportunities for
himself and his community media colleagues.
One
area of agreement between both Greg Pearson and
Mark Fausz is over the Times-Dispatch’s
coverage of Chesterfield-centric news. According
to Fausz, “There have been times when
[Chesterfield] county officials have gone to the
Times-Dispatch and asked, possibly threatened, the
paper to stop printing negative stories about
Chesterfield. Once again, it is market driven;
they will print what they think people want to
know. They are not going to print stories that
they think will not be read, at least I don’t
think so.”
Where
the Village News owner differs is in his
suggested recourse. The way he sees it, “The
answer for Chesterfield government is to quit
doing stupid things!”
Having
watched overall media trends, Fausz believes that
“the future of print media is in specialty
publications, especially community
newspapers...the only way to convince a business
to change its practices is through the market.”
In the final analysis, as he sees it, “If
someone doesn’t like the Times-Dispatch,
Observer, Midlothian Exchange or Village News,
they can quit subscribing to or picking it up.
Soon the advertising will wane and the end will
come quickly.”
*****
The
shortcomings of Metro Richmond’s mainstream
media also extend to its coverage of the
African-American community. Despite the presence
of a number of talented black journalists inside
the traditional outlets, reporting and
editorializing on the contradictory polarization
and progress on race-related matters in the region
still falls mostly on the smaller shoulders of the
area’s two black newsweeklies, the Richmond
Free Press (link not available) and the Richmond
Voice. The Free Press has long been
an antagonist of the RTD, once even taking
the daily paper to court over the Free Press’
status as a paper or record for the publication of
legal notices. Rarely does a week go by in which
the editors of black newsweekly do not gleefully
lampoon and lambaste the RTD in ink.
The
region’s other black-themed newspaper – the Richmond
Voice - takes a less strident, but just as
critical view of the RTD. It chooses not to
print as much on this subject, though. As news
editor for the weekly newspaper with a circulation
of over 40,000, Marlene Jones focuses on news and
opinion for African-American communities in Metro
Richmond and Southside Virginia. She is critical
of larger media outlets for what she sees as a
failure to adequately cover the happenings in
communities of color. Jones believes that “just
because a young man in Richmond's Gilpin Court
community is arrested for carrying an illegal gun
does not mean that every young man in that
community will behave similarly.”
Though
she does indicate that she would “have
something to say” about any attempts at
developing a Richmond-area news council to better
monitor coverage and mediate complaints, the
Voice’s Marlene Jones reserves her full judgment
for Metro Richmond’s overall media scene. She
believes that newspapers and large media entities
like the RTD thrive off of controversy, with much
of that negativity disproportionately attached to
black faces. In her mind, “Big media tends to
focus on the bad. If I had to guess how much, I'd
say [negative stories represent] more than 90
percent of their coverage and [they focus] rarely
on the good. Additionally, inclusion of the
whole community in coverage - affluent or not,
black or not - demonstrates a dedication to the
most important component of the profession - the
audience.”
The
Voice is part of the unheralded but vital
tradition of the African-American press. In the
US, the black media has tended toward advocacy
journalism, a tradition that dates back to its
crusades against slavery in the antebellum period.
From that point onward, in print, radio, and even
television, the black media engaged in intrepid
efforts to undermine Jim Crow in the early 20th
century, and to give voice to little-known facets
of African-American life in the years leading up
to and following the Civil Rights Movement. To
this day, black media outlets continue to showcase
both the travails and triumphs of contemporary
African-American life.
In
particular, weekly newspapers like the Voice
and Free Press have provided information
sustenance for communities oft-ignored by the
mainstream press, communities like those where
Metro Richmond’s poor, middle and upper classes
reside. Out of this tradition of
community-oriented news gathering and
opinion-making, the Voice and Free Press
offer their takes on the region’s African
American communities, doing what they can to hold
the mainstream media to some measure of
accountability to its African-Americans readers
and story subjects.
Though
the Voice and papers like it are small
businesses seeking to carry out their social
missions while maintaining the profitability
needed as a going concern, Jones is actually wary
of the growing demands of the business side of the
media equation. She asserts that responding to
corporate concerns as a guide to news coverage
essentially waters down journalistic principles.
To her, “The journalism profession has to be
more than just making money. Accountability to the
communities that support the media should be first
and foremost and this means being there equally
through the good and the bad. Ignoring the
good for the bad and sensationalizing only serves
to minimize public trust in media.”
*****
With
alternative and community papers like the Richmond
Voice and Village News being either
unsupportive or lukewarm to the notion of a news
council, bringing a full-fledged organization to
fruition would appear to be difficult. As the Observer’s
Pearson has acknowledged, the burden of
maintaining his own newspaper’s commercial
viability already makes his full plate rather
crowded. Thus, it would appear that those
interesting in media watch-dogging should look to
other sources. Some Richmond media observers have
one such alternative outlet in mind: Blogs.
--
September 12, 2006
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