In praise of journalists and good journalism

by David Safier

I gather most of my information sitting here behind my MacBook. If Google Search, Google Alerts and the newspapers somehow disappeared from the web, I'd probably fold up my laptop and go home. Except that I'm already home. So I'd just fold up my laptop and do something else.

From this vantage point at my desk, I get to take unfair advantage of others' work. I cut and paste their copy, comment on it and carp at the reporters when I feel like carping. Fortunately, I'm self aware enough to know that's exactly what I'm doing. I never think, "What do we need those jerks for?" I know how much I need those reporters, both for myself as an informed citizen and for the writing I do on BfA.

Monday, I ventured out to the Listen and Learn forum Grijalva and Duncan held at Ochoa Elementary because I wanted to see Duncan in person and hear what was being said first hand. Armed with pad and pen, I listened, took notes and posted here on some of what I saw and heard.

Rhonda Bodfield of the Star was there too. She was also scribbling notes, writing down far more than I, and talking with her photographer, and making sure to get into the proper position so she could hear exactly what everyone said and take down their names from the cards on the table in front of them. She held quick interviews with students and with PTA members. She chatted with participants. She and I talked briefly and amiably at one point.

Bodfield's article the next day was far more comprehensive than what I posted. I made some points and observations she didn't, but while I was playing to a select audience and so didn't have to explain everything, she was writing for a general audience. She had to create a narrative, give background, explain context, and so on. Though I knew everything she wrote in the article, I still gained a bit of perspective from reading it.

In other words, in terms of covering the event, Bodfield smoked me, which was no surprise. I expected it. I don't have the chops to do what she did. And she does it regularly, sometimes two or three times an issue. I've quibbled with some of her points on occasion, or criticized her for what she left out, or where she put the information in the article, but I always try to preface my comments with the respect I have for the work she does. By the time I get to the end of her articles, I usually feel I have a more global grasp of the situation than I did at the beginning. That's not true of the work of some reporters.

We need these folks who report on the news, especially the best among them. Michelle Reese and Ryan Gabrielson at the East Valley Trib, for instance, took information all the papers had on tuition tax credits and built on it to create a five part investigative series that earned them national, and well deserved, praise. Terrific work. Though I was dogging the story as well, some of the material they dredged up left me open-mouthed. Their work led to two different legislative panels looking into tax credits and the STOs that disburse the tax credit dollars. That's the power of the press.

Jim Nintzel has really stepped up this election season, mixing snark and seriousness in the way a Weekly reporter should, offering often penetrating analysis to explore and explain candidates and propositions. No one can fill the hole left by the Citizen (I sorely miss Billie Stanton's passion as well as the paper's coverage of local issues which often surpassed the Star), but I get the sense Nintzel sees himself filling part of the the void left by the Citizen's exit. I look to his discussion of political issues to distill what's been going on during the week. If you want to read a world class take-down that would make any WWF wrestler proud, check out this week's article, Bunch of Dicks: Republicans pump up a baseless art controversy, by Nintzel and Margaret Regan.

My point here, I guess, is to show that I know my place in the world of journalism and commentary. Much as I value the importance of the work done by citizen journalists in general and the blogosphere in particular, both of which surpass the MSM in their coverage of important issues (or what I consider important issues) at times, those work-a-day reporters are the ones who make it all happen. If the printed newspaper shrinks and shrivels to the point it becomes a quaint artifact of a bygone era (and I hope that doesn't happen. I don't think my morning coffee would taste right without a pile of newsprint on my lap), we damn well better find another way to pay reporters to ply their trade. There is no way we can do without them.