This piece has been making the rounds on blogs.
It makes some interesting observations about the death of what some call “high-end” journalism and the vacuum it’s leaving in important news centers such as the Capitol in Hartford.
For a while I’ve been wondering what kind of online news operation would be practical to make out of the remnants of the Courant staff. It’s part exercise in futility, part wanting to get back at the company for laying off so many people, and part wanting to do journalism because that’s what we do well. (And I probably shouldn’t refer to remnants, since the cast off part is as large as the remainder, and just as qualified.)
Anyway, I ask myself what kind of narrowly focused web site could we develop that would have a chance of being financially viable, attractive to advertisers and still have a sizeable audience. Here’s what I’ve come up with so far — a news organization focused solely on Connecticut state government and politics.
Here’s my idea: a dozen reporters cover everything that crawls, limps, speaks or sneezes in the Capitol, the state administration and related politics. The idea would be to be the definitive , authoritative news agency, out-reporting the Courant, New York Times, NPR, JI and anyone else who covers the capital. There would be a modest investigative unit, columnists and daily news reporters, whose mission would be the classic one: setting the agenda and influencing government action. The idea would be to generate news pieces that the other media could not ignore. That would, in effect, give the reporting its initial public clout even if actual readership was small.
The site would use all the tools available to modern media — text, video, still photos. The emphasis would be on first-generation news, coupled with smart analysis of that news. The underlying principle would be unremitting credibility and accuracy.
The site would not aim to serve a wide general audience, but rather stakeholders in state business (including voters and taxpayers.)
The management would be co-operative in style. That is, the managing editor would earn the same starting $45,000 salary as the reporters, columnists, producers, designer and photographers and ad salespeople. There would be no profits, per se, because the organization would be a 501(c)3 non-profit. The start-up funding would come from some sort of grant, or a benefactor willing to invest $1 million for a one-year trial. Ad sales people (nonprofits call them “developers” or something, don’t they?) would seek “underwriters” as do public radio and TV.
Here’s the startup budget:
8 reporters at $45K. they supply their own laptops.
2 editor/columnists at $45K
3 videographer/photographers at $45K
3 producers/tech support at $45K
4 ad sales/business administration at $45K
computer and camera equipment, software, miscellaneous costs and crappy office space: $100K
That’s $1 million and I’m sure I’m leaving something out. But you get the idea. For not a terrible amount of money (if you are a multi-millionaire), you could launch an operation that would have the state government scrambling and the competing media chasing your stories.
So there.
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A question about your proposal:
You say your goal would be “setting the agenda and influencing government action.”
I don’t see any statement of values there.
Yes, the public needs more information and more news in certain areas (and in other areas, we probably need less!) But honestly, with limited reading time and infinite reading options, I for one am looking for something more — for CRUSADERS. Objective, smart, thorough, professional, crusaders. Crusaders for ethical government. Crusaders for the state’s 325,000 uninsured. Crusaders for those who have lost their homes or will lose them soon. Crusaders for those who must attend under-funded, horribly-managed schools.
Corny as it sounds, Connecticut needs crusading reporting that forces government (and the private sector!) to act in the interest of those who are NOT wealthy, who CAN’T fill the lobby with lobbyists, who feel the recession the hardest, who were hurting bad even BEFORE the recession.
Who needs still more information, more text, more words? What’s truly lacking in the media is passion, vision, COMpassion, and the courage to force change.
That – I’d pay to read.
By setting the agenda, I mean raising issues and uncovering problems so regularly and effectively that government spends half its time responding to the those concerns, rather than making up an agenda of its own.
I didn’t state any values explicitly, perhaps because I automatically assume there are some built into the process of covering government critically anyway. Those values are honesty, transparency, fairness, respect for individual rights, good financial stewardship… Good reporting stems from fundamental values like those, though not necessarily from the pursuit of a more specific agenda.
Certainly the constituents of any news orgranization that covers government are the individual citizens who need information in order to make informed judgments about the government’s activities. The coverage has to align with the constituents’ values, or else the constituents don’t value it. News reporters mostlyare the eyes and ears of “the people,” aren’t they? Isn’t that the concept the framers of the Constitution had in mind when they protected the press?
Reporters as crusaders (I would call them propagandists) …. I don’t think so. But with good information and fair and balanced reporting, crusaders can take care of themselves.
Didn’t mean to venture into the arena of propaganda . . .
The “crusading” element comes in when each editor, each reporter, decides which story is newsworthy, which sides (there are always more than two!) must be interviewed, how hard to press a story, where to place the story, when and how to follow up.
WRONG: the Courant now runs these 4-6 graph “mini-stories” that perhaps are intended to pass for reporting, but mostly feel like press releases with (big!) photos. Empty of meaning, of big-picture, of point.
Say Dodd has a press conference on his credit card bill. OK, quote Dodd. He’s CT’s guy. (But who needs a hagiography . . . ) Quote a DC policy wonk on why the bill is heaven on earth. But here’s the extra step. We know Dodd’s still taking donations from the guys he’s regulating. So are there loopholes in this wonderful bill? What national experts would know? Call them. Scan the Net for criticisms. Read the bill thoroughly and check them out (In this particularly case, for example, all the provisions to protect college students are moot if the kid takes some kind of “credit card class” . . . courtesy of Master Visa?).
Who’s doing this kind of reporting now in CT???
Take the time, ask the questions, watch out for the little guy (in this case, he’s the 18-year old kid who’s a ripe target for debt-pushers . . .)
I think the person who does it best at the Courant now, actually, is George Gombossy . . .
We could sure use a dozen more!
Not a pipe dream Paul. Just gotta figure out how to pay for it. That quote in the story was on the mark: It is the future!
I think we’re on the same page then.
Hey, Paul. I like your idea for a refugee-staffed CT politics site. I know where to find a DC reporter for it.
How about: PolitiConn.com?
I’ll search my couch cushions for $1 million …
Like the name. I was thinking “Connecticut Un-Spun.”