There's a story that's running currently in a well-known American paper that is exactly the type of thing that critics of modern journalism -- which is most of us, nowadays -- have been arguing has been missing in today's world of shrinking newsrooms and warped priorities.
It's investigative reporting on an issue that is locally important to its readers. It's pointing up major flaws in the hometown police department. What's more, the story is a good read that's presented with all the high-tech bells and whistles that you'd want in 2008 -- in an era when news organizations need more Internet traffic to survive, it is driving a ton of traffic to their site. Rather than dump a ton of information in a large unreadable blob, like newspapers did in the 1980s when circulation started dropping, the story has been neatly re-packaged into 12 bite-sized parts.
If you've read this far, and you're one of the handful of readers around here who cares about journalism reform, you'd probably be saying "awesome" and "right on" to the newspaper involved.
Now, what if I tell you that the local city is America's city, Washington, D.C.?
And that the murder victim is Chandra Levy?
Did your heart just drop? Did your opinion instantly change? Based on the amazing amount of scorn that's being heaped on the Washington Post for running this series, it probably did. Because the Levy story was so overcovered in 2001 -- not in the Washington Post, which should be covering an unsolved local murder, but foisted on national viewers by CNN, MSNBC -- and became shorthand for the national (again, not local) media obsession with sensationalism in the months right before 9/11 -- people judge her case on emotion now, not on reason. (The other criticism, which is why is the Post writing about Levy when most unsolved murders involve blacks, is a more valid one, in my opinion,)
Reason states that an a botched probe by your local police -- and check out who was D.C. chief in 2001; it might interest Philadelphians -- is worthy of investigative reporting. But when a young murder victim becomes political shorthand for the national media's failings, it's harder for that individual to get justice. I feel bad for Chandra Levy's family.
The Inquirer has been running its multi-part series on the homeless...reminds me of the last season of The Wire.— Captain Awesome
Comment removed.- Comment removed.
What suprised me about this case is that the media put a Democrat Congressman, Gary Condit under such heavy and intense scrutiny. It would be interesting to review all of the reports on the case and see how may times Condit's party affiliation was mentioned. My guess is probably not too often.— jmc- Quick Google search on Gary + Condit = 133,000 results. Quick Google search on Gary + Condit + Democrat = 11,700 results. Gary + Condit + Democratic = 30,600.— Captain Awesome
- Gary + Condit + (D) gets 69,900.— SteveMG
- Comment removed.
- SteveMG, that's not really accurate. Searching for "(D)" in Google will match any individual letter "D" or "d", with a space or punctuation before it. For example, it matches "'d", such as "he'd". Too broad of a search to be statistically meaningful. It's well proven that news organizations leave out party affiliation when a Democrat gets into trouble. A key sign is when you see a member of congress referred to as "US Rep.". If John Smith is a Republican, it would read "Conservative Republican Congressman John Smith (R-PA)". If John Smith is a liberal Democrat, it would read "US Rep. John Smith". Get Lexus-Nexus and do some research. It's eye opening.— MiddleNameHussein
- SteveMG, if you want a quick example, read the first article in the Washington ComPost's series. Look down a few paragraphs: "The reporters discovered that the police investigation was overwhelmed with the white-hot media coverage fueled by the possible involvement of Rep. Gary Condit, a congressman from California.". What party? Doesn't say. Wonder why...— MiddleNameHussein
- I remember only a few hours after 9/11 my roommate saying to me, "They'll never find that girl (Chandra Levy)" now...— Grill
- Chandra Levy is clearly on the Iraq/Pakistan border. (oh, and MNH, yeah we *never* heard about "Democratic State Senator Vince Fumo" - but, hey, I like what you've done with the tin foil).— E.Plebnista
- I could care less about the Chondra Levy series. It's just that when an elected official, Representative, Senator, Mayor, whatever, is mentioned, his party affiliation generally takes that form: (D), (R), even (I). They don't often spell out the word, which deflates the number of appearances you'll see in you searches which include "democrat" (or -ic). Also once somebody leaves office (I think Condit lost in 2002), they usually stop listing his party. Just for the halibut, I did Larry Craig. Larry + Craig gets 1,770,000, Larry + Craig + Republican got 770,000, Larry + Craig +(R) got 853,000— SteveMG
- This is news ?/ another Jewish female intern hurt by goyum democrat power playas. same old same old. I mush prefer the news that is being hidden about the Obamassiah telling everyone he's in charge of ..Out of bounds! Obama falsely claims to be Banking Committee member McClatchy Newspapers, by Steven Thomma.. we return you to the 58 state tour of the obamassiah without robes— takisha
- Steve, Type in larry + craig + conservative and you get 1,730,000 articles.— fgreene71
- Obamassiah, , never was a member of the banking committee. He was the chairman of the Foreign Relations Committee for which he NEVER called a meeting. Isn't that special? bold a face lie along with Hitlery's "sniper fire" incident.— takisha
Will Bunch, a senior writer at the Philadelphia Daily News, blogs about his obsessions, including national and local politics and world affairs, the media, pop music, the Philadelphia Phillies, soccer and other sports, not necessarily in that order.
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