Journalists Needed

by Bruce Schimmel

"Why would you want to do that?" I asked a recent college graduate, who confessed she wanted to be a journalist.

"You know," she sighed, "everyone I talk to says the same thing."

In college, Ann (let's call her) got a taste of great journalism. She was a student producer for "War News Radio," an exemplary news service that Swarthmore College underwrites — and which every Iraq reporter knows well.

Now Ann wanted a paid gig. To be someone whose job it is to gather facts, be fair and tell the truth — come what may. A professional.

But in a world ruled by the market, news must compete with entertainment and journalism is losing.

It's clear: As dailies have shrunk, journalism has cracked. Investigative reporting, journalism's highest achievement, is becoming a lost art.

The Internet is only partly to blame. The actual manufacturing of newspapers is just as unsustainable as other old industries. The cost of newsprint, along with the manpower and energy required to print and deliver a physical product, consume over half of a paper's revenue.

Most of a dailies' revenue comes from advertising, and that's slipping away to the Web, where it's easier to target consumers.

Eyeballs are cheaper on the Web. But in the race to cut Internet ad costs, journalism becomes unaffordable. Why pay for expensive news, when features costs less and attract more click-throughs?

So, in short, Ann, the job market for journalism sucks.

I delivered this soliloquy at a holiday party at my friend Ennis Carter's PR firm, Design for Social Impact, where Ann and I looked out at an empty South Street. Ennis's firm specializes in advocacy for the public good, and she'd just announced this year's company-wide project. Last year, they'd celebrated Carter's Posters for the People (Quirk) with a book of WPA posters that has just gotten raves in the Times.

This year, Ennis wanted to make people fall in love, again, with the Preamble to the Constitution. You know, "We the people ... a more perfect union," establish justice, common defense, secure liberty and so forth.

But like the founders, we all know these fine words are empty promises without a vibrant press. Journalism gives American democracy its backbone. This is why well-meaning foundations — Knight, Pew and William Penn, among them — have been scrambling to create news alternatives.

The good news is that these foundations have actually had some success, most notably a William Penn/Knight Web site called PlanPhilly (planphilly.com). With a handful of reporters, they've fearlessly and accurately covered development — from casinos to historic preservation to the South Street Bridge.

But a big city needs a big newsroom. Which is why I was pleased recently to hear about the Pew Foundation thinking bigger (though, at the moment, saying little).

Pew has been talking with WHYY about starting an extensive online newsroom. Code named "Y-Factor," the Web site would field some 60 reporters.

This model for revitalizing American journalism through public broadcasting comes from Britain. The government-funded BBC — paid for by a tax on radios and television — is an awesome bastion of journalism, though whether America can duplicate Britain's success depends on a national commitment to quality news.

Our federal government once underwrote public broadcasting; now it barely does. At present, the average taxpayer pays less than $2 a year for public broadcasting. Imagine what we would have if we doubled that amount to $4.

Left to the marketplace, our information infrastructure will collapse. And foundations, listener-contributions and corporate underwriting alone can't prop it up. For a couple dollars more a year, as a nation we would be able to say to Ann and others, "Yeah, this nation has a job for you. Please be a journalist. Because we need you."

(bruce@schimmel.com)