​‘Spotlight’ on Newspapers; Do People Read Them?

‘Spotlight’ on Newspapers; Do People Read Them?

2/29/2016

This is how the public learns stuff

What a wonderful night for journalism, at the end of the Academy Awards, to see “Spotlight” honored as best picture. The film shows how the Boston Globe pursued a history of abuse by priests in the region.

Yes, journalism is still being practiced at some of the surviving journals in the United States, the ones that devote precious time and money and staff to finding stuff out, and publishing it.

However, my pride in colleagues is tempered by the realization that not enough people read the information – and opinion – in the surviving fringe of American journalism.

I occasionally talk at colleges and high schools and generally get blank looks from students when I ask how many people read newspapers.

Even on line? I ask. Some nod yes, but cannot give examples. They like things that jump around. But apparently so do their elders.

A frightening swath of Americans seem to think Donald Trump knows how the world works. Because people do not read newspapers, in print or on line, they do not know that he is generally regarded with a shrug and a smile in New York, the town that knows him best. Oh, that guy.

This reality was brought home recently by two articles in The New York Times about Trump’s reputation (marginal) in New York real estate circles, and how he bled investors in a golf resort in Florida.

This is who the guy is; this is how he operates. But unless people delve into the details – that is to say, read – they will never know. This is where we are going.

Here are two stories most of America will never read:

http://www.nytimes.com/2016/02/24/nyregion/donald-trump-nyc.html?_r=0

http://www.nytimes.com/2016/02/27/sports/golf/at-trump-club-in-florida-some-members-want-their-money-back.html

Now Trump is threatening to suppress newspapers when he becomes President. Perhaps he will send his Brown Shirts to crowbar the printing presses.

Here’s another look at Trump, from 1990, by Marie Brenner in Vanity Fair -- the attention-deficit playboy-builder we knew before he unleashed his public bully.

http://www.vanityfair.com/magazine/2015/07/donald-ivana-trump-divorce-prenup-marie-brenner

I also recommend two current articles on Hillary Clinton and Libya, stemming from what is obviously weeks of work:

http://www.nytimes.com/2016/02/28/us/politics/hillary-clinton-libya.html

http://www.nytimes.com/2016/02/28/us/politics/libya-isis-hillary-clinton.html

One last thing about journalism: Margaret Sullivan is leaving her post as public editor at the Times to become a media columnist at the Washington Post. In my now-outsider’s opinion, I wish the Times had found a new gig for Sullivan, the best public editor the Times has had.

I hope these links work in your system. If not, the stories are easily looked up. As a proud alumnus, I am glad the Times values its work by charging for it on line. It costs a lot of money for the Times and Globe to cast their spotlight.

Brian Savin

2/29/2016 06:25:41 pm

Brilliantly said, and a critically important point to make, George. There can't be enough competent and thorough investigative reporting; too much material to probe these days. I have not seen “Spotlight” – pretty much on purpose. An emotional depiction of that subject will make me very angry and even more disgusted. I do not believe the First Amendment should provide cover for base criminal abuse of children. Perpetrators need to be stopped permanently and their supporting organizations disbanded and outlawed until dependably fixed.

Thinking about the future of such reporting, I suspect that investigative reporting is ingrained in our social DNA and will survive in various forms. Some of us will read the book or newspaper; some will see the movie, some may need a digital “comic book” version and some may await the future equivalent of the bubble gum cards. But it will be consumed.

Our response to unsavory revelations, however, needs a gut-check, I think. Collectively, we need to care more. The Academy can give an Oscar to an “Inside Job” but so celebrating such a tour de force is woefully inadequate when criminality was so plainly and powerfully disclosed. And when a Pulitzer Prize winning journalist and supporter of our President, Ron Suskind, painstakingly documents in his book “Confidence Men,” how little respect our President was given by a staff that seemed to own him, and his work gets ignored as thoroughly as the President himself, well, the bigger problem lies with us citizens more than with the journalists.

At last night’s ceremony, the director and co-author of “The Big Short,” Adam McKay, ended his acceptance remarks for his Oscar for best adapted screenplay by saying, “Most of all, if you don’t want big money to control government, don’t vote for candidates that take money from big banks, oil or weirdo billionaires: Stop!”
Well, there are only two candidates in the race who qualify under that test, one in each party, and one may be a charlatan. What will voters do? As the Kingston Trio sang over a half century ago, “When will we ever learn?”

Alan Rubin link

3/1/2016 06:41:09 pm

Spotlight is a must see movie that illustrates the power of and need for investigative journalism. Uncovering the many wrongs and injustices in our society will always be necessary.

Several years ago NPR interviewed journalism students at UCLA and asked why they were going into a dying industry. They were upbeat and optimistic that although the form of news delivery was in flux, there would always be a need for journalists.

When I was a teenager in the 40’s and 50’s, my mother always read several newspapers –NY Times, The Tribune, Post, PM and the Christian Science Monitor. She insisted that you needed to understand more than one point of view.

One of the tragedies of today’s obsession with instant news and targeted audiences is the loss of the curiosity to understand more than one side of an issue. Intellectual curiosity should be cultivated at the earliest possible age.

I’m optimistic that electronic reporting will grow and develop at a faster rate than the decline of print.

Although I still have the NYT delivered every day, I find that I’m frequently checking online news sources.

Elliott Kolker

3/6/2016 08:41:46 pm

"Adjusted Trust"
The Village Elliott: 3/6/16

Orange-haired scion of the Upper Crust,
Misused funds from inherited Trust;
Once those funds, he loses,
Screws those he abuses,
Then demands those he screwed to adjust.

free itunes gift cards codes link

6/4/2016 07:09:34 am

I must claim, as a lot as I appreciated reading what you had to declare,

Cara Paling Mudah untuk Menyembuhkan Chikungunya link

6/16/2016 01:55:48 am

The information you convey this very interesting, a lot of new things that I get after reading the information in this article.

Pengobatan Alami Kencing Manis Paling Ampuh link

8/8/2016 11:25:28 pm

Congratulations working again, we wait for it to be a very interesting information.

Manfaat OPC Plus Capsule Green World link

8/16/2016 03:46:40 am

Happy to be able to visit a website that is full of interesting information .

Pengobatan Alternatif Nyeri Sendi Bahu Tradisional link

11/25/2016 11:33:24 pm

Certainly provided the best way for us who always patiently? The information so mean once thanks

Pengobatan Alami Infeksi Saluran Kencing Yang Aman link

11/27/2016 09:02:08 pm

Hopefully the holidays can be fun to be able to move back the day after tomorrow .

Obat Herbal Gagal Ginjal Kronis link

1/26/2017 02:56:05 am

By praying and trying will surely produce a success thanks .
<a href="http://obattradisionalkencingmanis.com/pengobatan-alternatif-batuk-berdarah-yang-aman-dan-efektif/">Pengobatan Alternatif Batuk Berdarah Yang Aman Dan Efektif</a>
<a href="http://kiosherbal.web.id/cara-alami-meningkatkan-iq-anak/">Cara Alami Meningkatkan IQ Anak</a>
<a href="http://www.obatherbalhipertensi.stockistherbal.com/">Obat Herbal Hipertensi Terbaik</a>
<a href="http://kiosherbal.web.id/cara-alami-mengobati-kutil-kelamin-terbaik/">Cara Alami Mengobati Kutil Kelamin Terbaik</a>
<a href="http://www.ahlinyaobatambeien.apotek45.com/cara-alami-mengobati-rhinitis-paling-ampuh/">Cara Alami Mengobati Rhinitis Paling Ampuh</a>

Obat Mata Ikan Tradisional link

7/11/2017 02:27:08 am

Thank you very much for the presentation of the information on this day is quite impressive.

Cara Alami Mengobati Kelopak Mata Yang Bengkak link

7/28/2017 04:59:07 am

We will always wait for more information on tomorrow .

Comments are closed.

QUOTES
More and More, I Talk to the Dead--Margaret Renkl

NASHVILLE — After my mother died so suddenly — laughing at a rerun of “JAG” at 10 p.m., dying of a hemorrhagic stroke by dawn — I dreamed about her night after night. In every dream she was willfully, outrageously alive, unaware of the grief her death had caused. In every dream relief poured through me like a flash flood. Oh, thank God!
Then I would wake into keening grief all over again.
Years earlier, when my father learned he had advanced esophageal cancer, his doctor told him he had perhaps six months to live. He lived far longer than that, though I never thought of it as “living” once I learned how little time he really had. For six months my father was dying, and then he kept dying for two years more. I was still working and raising a family, but running beneath the thin soil of my own life was a river of death. My father’s dying governed my days.
After he died, I wept and kept weeping, but I rarely dreamed about my father the way I would dream about my mother nearly a decade later. Even in the midst of calamitous grief, I understood the difference: My father’s long illness had given me time to work death into the daily patterns of my life. My mother’s sudden death had obliterated any illusion that daily patterns are trustworthy.
Years have passed now, and it’s the ordinariness of grief itself that governs my days. The very air around me thrums with absence. I grieve the beloved high-school teacher I lost the summer after graduation and the beloved college professor who was my friend for more than two decades. I grieve the father I lost nearly 20 years ago and the father-in-law I lost during the pandemic. I grieve the great-grandmother who died my junior year of college and the grandmother who lived until I was deep into my 40s.
Some of those I grieve are people I didn’t even know. How can John Prine be gone? I hear his haunting last song, “I Remember Everything,” and I still can’t quite believe that John Prine is gone.
-----
https://www.nytimes.com/2023/01/30/opinion/death-grief-memory.html
Jan. 30, 2023