Some Thoughts on Journalism

A couple of random comments on journalism in the year 2012.

I have been reading Sports Illustrated for at least the last 40 years or so, and have been a subscriber, off and on, for that long as well. I am starting to wonder if the magazine is still relevant in this Internet age. Always a news magazine, SI has fallen into a situation where it needs to reinvent itself because, as anyone with a home computer and an Internet connection knows, the "news" arrives instantaneously these days. This week's cover story offers the perfect case in point. It is Peter King's story on the New Orleans Saints and their payment of bounties for hits that injured and took out opposing players. The story broke last Friday, March 2. King himself summarized his own story on SI.com in his Monday Morning Quarterback column. It had been discussed endlessly on all of the sports TV shows. By the time the magazine arrived in the mail on Thursday, March 8, it was old news. Why bother reading it?

I always said that it was worth subscribing to SI for the the half dozen times or so each year when the lengthy feature story that they always feature at the end of the magazine would just be so good, it would almost knock you out. The need for a "wow factor" I these stories becomes even more important to SI in an age when news reaches the audience so quickly.

On another journalistic front, I spent close to two hours watching Channel 2's coverage of the Western Psych shootings yesterday afternoon, and it was not something that would make Edward R. Murrow proud. The loathsome Marty Griffith was the worst offender. He seemed to be most upset that there were "only" two people killed and "only" five others injured in the shootings. It seemed liked Marty (whose career highlight was a story that was teased so sensationally by KDKA that it caused a local minister to commit suicide a few years back) was disappointed that the shooting spree at Western Psych didn't surpass the death toll of the Virginia Tech shootings a few years back. Then of course we had other KDKA reporters badgering people who might have been witnesses and trying to put words into their mouths when they were clearly upset and did not want to talk about what they had seen inside the building. Finally there was Susan Koeppen, recovering from open heart surgery three days before, calling in on her cell phone from her hospital room at Presby. "Always a reporter, that Susan," said Stacey Smith and Kim Gabriel at the anchor desk.

I don't expect any Pulitzers to be handed down to KDKA after this performance.