Well, the news is out. Once again I have failed to win a Pulitzer prize. I know, it’s a revolting oversight. I have shot off many a sharp-tongued email on my own behalf at the judges, and I await their apologies and explanations.
The press loves to give itself prizes, which rings a little hollow in a world where so much shabby journalism is practiced. But as I cast my eyes and ears over the writers and artists who did win a Pulitzer this year, I am feeling a great deal of gratitude for their work.
Large parts of the press are vanishing just at the moment when we need them the most. Many of the jobs lost have been in local news reporting, with smaller newspapers shuttered or hollowed out.
It’s a wild time in America. The country is gradually reopening as COVID-19 continues its deadly rampage and the federal government has predicted the daily death toll will hit 3,000 by June 1. All signs point toward an even more dangerous future. A big part of that danger is uncertainty about what is true, what is false, and what is plain old too confusing to understand. Can the press help us through this mess?
Jay Rosen, a journalism professor at New York University, thinks so. At a time when the government is seeking “to create massive confusion about who is responsible” for the pandemic, as he put it, the role of the press is magnified. He calls on journalists to respond to the President’s strategy of “flooding the zone with shit” (to use a phrase coined by Steve Bannon) with clarity and intelligence.
That’s no small task, particularly during the prolonged free fall that the industry is in. Newsroom employment at U.S. newspapers has been halved since 2008, from about 71,000 workers to just 35,000 in 2019. Now, as with so many other industries, newspapers are taking an additional blow from COVID-19. Advertising has slumped precipitously, leading to a fresh round of layoffs, pay cuts, and other changes.
Stimulus money is shoveled into airlines and other corporations while newspapers are left scrabbling for scraps. This at a time when newsrooms are officially considered “essential services” by the federal government and many city and state governments.
This year’s Pulitzer winners make for powerful reading. They include a stunning investigative piece produced by The New York Times on the bombing of Syrian civilians by Russian pilots, and a report by The Courier-Journal of Louisville, Kentucky, that documented racial disparities and other problems in the issuing of gubernatorial pardons.
Work like this functions to make us aware of the unspoken happenings that swirl around us, things in which we may even be complicit. Journalists wade through the often deliberately misleading floods of information to find the truth and make it clear.
People are still turning to newspapers when they need clear information in a crisis. In the first three months of this year, The New York Times added more digital subscribers than any other quarter since it began charging for online content in 2011. By April, the number of total subscriptions, including digital and print, had surpassed six million, a record high. The Times, like all of the others, is taking a huge hit in advertising revenue, but because of these subscribers, it has a healthier future.
Unfortunately, The New York Times is the exception. Large parts of the press are vanishing just at the moment when we need them the most. Many of the jobs lost have been in local news reporting, with smaller newspapers shuttered or hollowed out.
It’s impractical to ask for a complete return to a local physical newspaper system, but alternatives must be tested and adopted so that we know what’s happening in our community. Local politics, schooling, and culture—there are lots of opportunities to cover these issues in novel ways that preserve the institutions and ideas of local journalism.
Citizen journalism, specialized newsletters, and social media could give us low-cost access to community information. It is not acceptable to let the industry die.
As citizens we have a moral choice and as consumers we have a financial choice: Where do we place our attention and what do we pay for?
Unearthing stories and distinguishing truths is important work. We must support that work by placing it safely above the churn that tries to swallow it back up into darkness.