Slipping Through the Cracks\u00a0<\/p>\n
\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0 We have two wars going at the moment.\u00a0 We have a defense budget of between $600 and 700 billion<\/a>, depending on how you count.\u00a0 We have approximately 1.5 million active-duty service men and women<\/a>.\u00a0 No one would dispute that the Pentagon, where all this is centered, is a beat full of important stories.\u00a0\u00a0<\/p>\n \u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0 There are many Pentagon-accredited journalists to cover all this activity for domestic consumers of print news.\u00a0 But according to one published estimate<\/a>, U.S. newspapers and wire services are fielding only twelve true Pentagon bureaus, fixed locations with full-time staff.\u00a0 And this number may be generous.\u00a0 A friend who staffs one of those bureaus says that only three daily newspapers (the usual suspects, the Washington Post<\/em>, the New York Times<\/em>, and the Wall Street Journal<\/em>) are really on-site in consistent and significant numbers.\u00a0 Lacking such commitment, he believes the others are not significant players.\u00a0<\/p>\n \u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0 At best, three to twelve-ish bureaus cannot possibly cover it all.\u00a0 There are 23,000 employees in that building alone.<\/a>\u00a0 The question is not whether we are missing stories, but what stories we are missing.\u00a0 Think military strategy, procurement, the social role of the Armed Forces, Guantanamo detainees. Then think of a hockey goalie tending a mile-wide net.\u00a0 And that\u2019s just on the Pentagon beat.\u00a0<\/p>\n \u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0 To give you a larger sense of what\u2019s being missed, consider just one missed tale from another beat, the Bernie Madoff scandal.\u00a0 This was really two scandals for the price of one.\u00a0 There was the biggest Ponzi scheme in history (that we know of yet, at least), and the failure of the Securities and Exchange Commission to catch Madoff all the while he was raking in Gargantuan portions of investor money and claiming absurdly winning results.\u00a0 This story was handed to the Wall Street Journal<\/em> by Harry Markopolos, not once, but repeatedly. <\/a>\u00a0Markopolos, then portfolio manager for Ramparts Investment Management Company, a Boston investment and hedge fund house<\/a>, kept tipping off an ace investigative reporter for the Journal, the late John Wilke, giving him what should have been adequate information to begin the investigation<\/a>.\u00a0 Reportedly, Markopolos was able to show that what Madoff claimed to be accomplishing was literally impossible.\u00a0\u00a0<\/p>\n \u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0 Wilke had two problems.<\/a>\u00a0 One was management at the Journal<\/em> which would never give him the green light to investigate Madoff.\u00a0 The other: Wilke had his hands full<\/a>; he was writing about another alleged fraudster, Mario Gabelli<\/a>, and Congressional earmarks \u2013 both worthy stories. So there was a legitimate reason for Wilke<\/em> not to investigate Madoff.\u00a0 But for the entire Journal<\/em>?\u00a0\u00a0<\/p>\n \u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0 The Journal<\/em>, in fairness, was off pursuing the backdated options scandal, reportage which would ultimately win a Pulitzer<\/a>. Still, the Journal<\/em> doubtless has the largest fleet of correspondents covering the financial markets of any U.S. newspaper.\u00a0 If they were stretched too thin to handle this story, which turned out to be a matter of financial life and death for thousands, then who could possibly have had the resources?\u00a0 Well, we know the answer for that: nobody.\u00a0 And that wasn\u2019t even the biggest missed story: the then-upcoming mortgage meltdown would come to dwarf it.\u00a0<\/p>\n \u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0 It wouldn\u2019t be such a problem if anyone could get newspaper-style coverage elsewhere.\u00a0 But as I pointed out last time, it\u2019s not readily available in today\u2019s media universe.\u00a0<\/p>\n \u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0 Oddly, this does not exactly mean the death of print journalism.\u00a0 We know from a February report<\/a> issued by the Pew Research Center for Excellence in Journalism that the number of press passes issued by the U.S. Senate, for instance, has grown somewhat in recent years.\u00a0 But the new passes are for media outlets like industry publications, trade journals and foreign news organizations, not domestic newspapers.\u00a0 For Senate newspaper and wire service accreditations, by contrast, there was a 17% drop just this past year<\/em><\/a>.\u00a0\u00a0<\/p>\n \u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0 Print journalism is not disappearing; it\u2019s just being put on retainer (and a short leash) by private interests.\u00a0 In a piquant example from the report<\/a>, Bloomberg News went from zero Senate-accredited reporters in the mid-1980s to 112 in 2008.\u00a0 And if you can afford the $18,000-a-year rental on one of their machines, you can read all of what those 112 journalists write (some is otherwise available to the public).\u00a0 Or if you want to read the Platts<\/em> newsletter on the Nuclear Regulatory Commission, one of 15 Platts<\/em> products, come up with $2,495 and it\u2019s yours.\u00a0 Can\u2019t afford it?\u00a0 Ah, well, your misfortune.\u00a0<\/p>\n \u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0 That privatization of the journalists working the national beats will have political consequences.\u00a0 They have disappeared first from the regional newspapers like the Detroit Free Press<\/em> and the Cleveland Plain Dealer<\/em>.\u00a0 And we know, for instance, that it was a by-word in the George W. Bush White House that no one cared what appeared on the front page of the New York Times<\/em>.\u00a0 It was felt, rightly or wrongly, that the Times<\/em> had little persuasive force with the voters Bush\u2019s handlers wished to persuade.\u00a0 Instead, White House concern focused on the front pages of the \u201cregionals.\u201d\u00a0 The Bush team cultivated the journalists who wrote for those pages.\u00a0<\/p>\n \u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0 That attitude and strategy would fail today.\u00a0 If the regionals cover national stories at all, which is increasingly not the case, they will probably be reprinting copy from the New York Times<\/em> or the AP.\u00a0 Losing regional reporters covering national stories doesn\u2019t just hurt liberals, then; it also preempts messages right-wingers would like to send.\u00a0 Democracy requires more voices.\u00a0<\/p>\n \u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0 Regionals filled another important function: keeping local readers informed of what their particular Washington representatives were doing.\u00a0 But now, as the Pew report recounts<\/a>, when Washington correspondent Jonathan Kaplan was laid off from the Portland, Maine paper in 2008, he was writing an in-depth story about the relations between Maine\u2019s two senators, reportedly an interesting tale.\u00a0 No one will provide that kind of coverage now.\u00a0 Maine\u2019s voters are permanently the poorer.\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0<\/p>\n \u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0 Which is not to say that the regionals are doing a good job of covering their own turf either.\u00a0 For just one instance among multitudes, legend has it that my local paper, the Baltimore Sun<\/em>, once employed four full-time reporters literally<\/em> covering the turf: Maryland\u2019s horse industry and racing.\u00a0 Now the task is kind of shared between a couple of multitasking reporters who also have other duties.\u00a0 Horse breeding and racing is in decline, but is still a major Maryland industry.\u00a0 Is The Sun<\/em> doing more on this important subject with less? Well, of the last four horse racing clips posted on the Sun<\/em> website before I started to write this (October 19), two were from the AP concerning racing elsewhere, and two were simply raw results sent by the Maryland Jockey Club.\u00a0 This isn\u2019t even doing less with less; it\u2019s doing nothing<\/em> with less.[1]\u00a0 Nor is The Baltimore Brew<\/em><\/a>, the blog positioned as a \u201cSun<\/em>-in-exile\u201d for former Sun<\/em> reporters, covering racing.[2]\u00a0 Racing coverage is just\u00a0 about gone.\u00a0<\/p>\n \u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0 Big and little, stories slip through the cracks, and the cracks keep getting wider.<\/p>\n \u00a0<\/p>\n [2]<\/sup><\/sup>\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0 A keyword search of their website on 10\/19\/09 for \u201cracing\u201d came up with no hits.<\/p>\n Copyright (c) Jack L. B. Gohn<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":" Print journalism is not disappearing; it\u2019s just being put on retainer (and a short leash) by private interests.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[3],"tags":[801,824,823,810,835,828,804,816,820,809,800,819,805,807,825,832,827,808,831,830,834,829,780,176,818,802,811,817,826,814,813,806,821,822,833,812,803,779,815],"class_list":["post-751","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-bigpicture","tag-active-duty-service-persons","tag-ap","tag-associated-press","tag-backdated-options","tag-baltimore-brew","tag-baltimore-sun","tag-benie-madoff","tag-bloomberg-news","tag-cleveland-plain-dealter","tag-congressional-earmarks","tag-defense-budget","tag-detroit-free-press","tag-harry-markopolos","tag-john-wilke","tag-jonathan-kaplan","tag-magna","tag-maine","tag-mario-gabelli","tag-maryland-horse-breeding","tag-maryland-horse-racing","tag-maryland-jockey-club","tag-maryland-racing","tag-new-york-times","tag-newspapers","tag-nuclear-regulatory-commission","tag-pentagon","tag-pew-research-center-for-excellence-in-journalism","tag-platts","tag-portland","tag-press-accreditation","tag-press-passes","tag-ramparts-investment-management-company","tag-regional-newspapers","tag-regionals","tag-thoroughbred-tracks","tag-u-s-senate","tag-wall-street-journal","tag-washington-post","tag-wire-service-organizations"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/thebigpictureandthecloseup.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/751","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/thebigpictureandthecloseup.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/thebigpictureandthecloseup.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/thebigpictureandthecloseup.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/thebigpictureandthecloseup.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=751"}],"version-history":[{"count":4,"href":"https:\/\/thebigpictureandthecloseup.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/751\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":757,"href":"https:\/\/thebigpictureandthecloseup.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/751\/revisions\/757"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/thebigpictureandthecloseup.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=751"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/thebigpictureandthecloseup.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=751"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/thebigpictureandthecloseup.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=751"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}
[1]<\/sup><\/sup>\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0 In fairness, on October 20, there were two stories by local journalists about the bankruptcy of Magna, owner of the two Maryland thoroughbred tracks, and local regulatory response.<\/p>\n