Public service news co-op leaves out public
It was simply astounding. The Oct. 22 press release left me speechless, and that takes some doing.
"Public Service News Cooperative Is Launched in Chicago: A group of Chicago journalists committed to public service journalism announced Thursday the formation of the Chicago News Cooperative (CNC), an organization designed to provide high-quality, professionally edited news and commentary to the Chicago region on the Web, in print and over the airwaves."
Led by former Chicago Tribune Managing Editor Jim O'Shea, the cooperative will be paid to provide Chicago-related content to the New York Times. In early 2010 the group, a for-profit/nonprofit hybrid, also will launch a new Web site, that "will provide news, commentary and investigative reporting about the city and the state."
It was a striding-down-the-mountain-with-stone-tablet-in-hand pronouncement. The four-page release was chock-full of lofty declarations. No huge surprise, considering that the "group of journalists" is chockablock with alumni of the Tribune.
The news unleashed a deluge of critiques in the blogosphere. The naysayer who really nailed it was my brave friend Andrew Patner, the arts and culture critic and WFMT host.
"So the all-white, all but one-male Chicago Tribune alumni club will start a 'news and commentary service' to be overseen by an all-white, largely suburban board," Patner wrote on his blog, The View From Here.
"No younger people [except a board member, Michael Davies . . .], no blacks, no Latins, no one from the Chicago Sun-Times, no investigative reporters, no one from the Reader, no one who doesn't already know everybody else from other boards or service in the Tribune Tower."
Amen, Andrew. Now that I have regained my voice, I'll join you in the chorus. I have nothing against the Tribune. The Sun-Times' chief newsprint rival does fine work and they have a pretty Web site. The co-op's staff and board include Tribune alums such as cable talking head Jim Warren, business columnist David Griesing and Ann Marie Lipinski, the Trib's former top editor and now the University of Chicago civic engagement impresario.
Nearly every staff member they have named so far is white -- and male. The co-op's board is white, all but one male. I would venture there are vast swaths of the city they don't know and rarely traverse.
"Old farts with money and connections," is how Mike Miner, the Chicago Reader's media columnist, put it.
Big brains at the New York Times, Columbia Journalism Review, the University of Chicago, the legal behemoth Winston and Strawn, philanthropic foundations and news operations were all at the table.
What were they thinking? All the wealthy, upper-middle class elites have assembled a cozy club to decide what the masses should know.
If these reporters and editors check with the U.S. Census, they will discover that Chicago's racial and ethnic base is majority-minority. There are far more people of color than whites. Latinos are Illinois' fastest-growing minority group. A good half of the Chicago region is female.
Some might call it arrogance, hubris or just plain racism. I don't know about that, but to me it's just plain folly.
This new boys' club is correct -- hard-hitting, independent investigative and public service journalism is a fading species. But this new club is just like the old club.
Public service journalism has to know and talk to the public -- all of it. Not just Wilmette talking to Winnetka. The news must reflect the community. To do that you have to include everybody, not just a small group of people who think they know everyone they need to know. That's good business. That's public service.