Local news - to a fault?

by Brian Allen of of Best Southwest Citizen

We learn a great deal about our favorite media outlets during election time. The Terrell Tribune and Oklahoma’s Sapulpa Daily Herald have come under fire for not even mentioning the historic election of Barack Obama last Tuesday.

Both newspapers’ brass have offered up the defense that they were more concerned about presenting local perspective than national news. The Daily Herald mentioned McCain carried the county and the Terrell Tribune led with the local commissioners’ race. In the Tribune’s defense, the winner of that race was African-American.

Both newspapers seemed shocked by the community outrage that this historic national election didn’t receive what people felt was fair coverage. Allegations of racism are running rampant in both places.

I have to pause and chuckle at that whole “liberal media” concept I am always hearing about. While a large portion of reporters are liberal, owners of newspapers and TV stations are often very rich and very Republican. I once had to write an editorial opposing a minimum wage increase while working for the minimum wage. I was told what my opinion was, in this case, by that paper’s very well off and Republican leadership. I don’t think anyone is accusing the Terrell Tribune or Sapulpa Daily Herald of being too “liberal” today.

I don’t suspect racism or media bias in either of these cases. I think it’s more indicative of a “tunnel vision” running rampant in community news. Most small papers are hamstrung by budget constraints, small staffs and an economic climate that won’t see either of those trends reversed any time soon. They cling to the chant of “local, local and more local” with a sort of fanaticism. They can’t logically challenge the big papers, TV stations or *coff coff* the Internet in breaking news so they focus on the minutia with at times disastrous results.

Some community newspapers are beating the local drum so loudly they would ignore a nuclear strike if it landed more than 75 feet away from city hall.

Many media experts are predicting that community newspapers will survive because of that hyper-local focus. The problem with that theory is that newspaper readers, TV viewers and talk radio listeners want it all. To survive in these hard economic times, media outlets are going to have find ways to give it to them. They’ll also have to figure ways to give news seekers something they’re not getting elsewhere. The race is on.

I can’t begin to predict where the news industry is going but I am eager to see where it turns out five, ten and God willing 15 years from now. And if nothing else we’ve learned that for all media outlets, at least a cursory mention of the election of the first Black president might be a worthwhile story.

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