Why should concerned citizens and residents, including state and local officials, care about what’s happening in Colorado’s local journalism industry?
— from the Colorado Media Project’s report, ‘Reimagining Colorado’s Public Square’, 2023.
The Colorado Media Project recently held a conference in Denver to discuss the challenges faced by news outlets in Colorado. According to a recent report, nearly half of Colorado residents (48%) described state and local media’s ability to hold leaders accountable as fair or poor.
I do not take that personally. I’ve been trying my best, and that’s all you can expect, really.
The conference was a chance for journalists to sit at tables together and talk about their jobs, and their future prospects, which are not all that great. To prepare everyone for the event, the Colorado Media Project published a report called Reimagining Colorado’s Public Square. Which you can download here.
Actually, Colorado is not exactly a square. It’s more like a rectangle. Slightly wider than it is tall.
But I know what they mean. They’re talking about the ‘Public Square’. Towns used to have public squares, where agitators could get up on a soapbox and explain — often in an angry tone — how people in positions of power are screwing us over, for their own personal benefit.
Then we got newspapers, which were, at first, square pieces of paper folded in half. So, more like a rectangle, but tall instead of wide. Unless it was sitting in the rack, folded in half again, in which case, the rectangle was wide rather than tall.
Next came radios, which were more like a box, but generally somewhat square in shape. Followed by TVs; also sort of square, or rectangular.
Now we have iPhones, which are rectangles that fit in our pockets. (A square probably wouldn’t fit quite as well.)
But the people at the Colorado Media Project are presumably referring to what happens inside the square, not the square itself.
As was mentioned, you can download the report here. If you don’t mind some mildly depressing news.
But really, isn’t that what we expect from journalists? Mildly depressing warnings about what’s actually going on?
However, according to the report, journalists are being replaced, by ‘creators’. Quote:
The rise of the creator: In large part due to this upheaval, the days when individual news outlets were the remote gatekeepers of facts and information are gone forever. “New power” media models, where individuals are actively producing, sharing, and participating in news are on the rise. Nontraditional news providers — from local politicians and government agencies to neighborhood groups, faith leaders and nonprofits — have their own multi-channel strategies and are competing with 100+ year old institutions for audiences. Especially as media outlets reckon with a legacy of harm to communities of color, the creator culture and easy-to-use technology tools have democratized who can be a storyteller – for better and for worse.
I do not take that personally, the reference to “for worse”. I usually shoot for the “for better” angle.
But it’s kind of cool, in a way, to be referred to as a ‘creator’. Since the word ‘journalist’ is on the way out, apparently, now that ‘journals’ are getting bought up by hedge funds, and ruined.
I actually wonder about “the days when individual news outlets were the remote gatekeepers of facts and information.” Maybe it’s just as well, that those days are gone forever?
Did we really need those “remote gatekeepers of facts”? Aren’t we a lot better off, now, when anyone with internet access can simply make up their own facts?
What I mean is, back in the days of newspapers and radio and TV news, we had only a limited number of facts. Now we have facts everywhere.
So many facts. Practically unlimited facts.
We can freely choose the facts we like, and ignore the rest.
Underrated writer Louis Cannon grew up in the vast American West, although his ex-wife, given the slightest opportunity, will deny that he ever grew up at all.