Daily I awaken and examine how the media is reporting of the world around me by scanning the morning print and online newspaper editions over coffee. On days of snowy weather I might tune the radio dial to news-radio WHMP for cancellations, but don’t generally listen-in as the station doesn’t feature much authentic reporting anymore. Unlike earlier days when Ron Hall roamed ‘Hamp, today radio personalities comment on the same newspaper stories that I’m reading and often serve as a launch point for Northampton City Hall public relations initiatives. Of course some of it is appropriate, but often personalities do nothing more than loft soft questions to incumbent officials who are frequent guests and are likely stopping by on their way into work. Recent featured visitors have included the Mayor, Planning Director, Economic-Development Coordinator, Parking Czar, and a requisite City Councilor or three. The tilt towards incumbents exemplifies how alternate views seem under-represented and difficult questions are reserved for naysayers of the local status quo, who it seems must provide legal briefs and case studies in order to support their assertions while officials seem to get by on opinions and buzz-phrases. I don’t care for the lack of balance personally as sophomoric barbs and name-calling are broadcast safely toward national conservative politicians and this is put forth as “progressive radio.”
Frankly, though my beliefs lean towards the left, my views on national policies aren’t so staunch. C-SPAN can only take one so far and friends and relatives across the country have different viewpoints than I, many for valid reasons. At times I’ve read op-ed articles written by various conservatives or liberals and analyses produced by different think tanks, and find much of it written and cited to seem intelligent. Living in our Pioneer Valley enclave, how does one decide who comes closest to revealing the truth and whose truth is it? Should rationales employed here also apply across the nation, or the globe for that matter? I’m not so sure.
Local issues I view differently however, because these we can focus more clearly on, though details may still remain a bit obscure. After my glances at the local headlines the other day I resigned myself to the fact that the local media is reporting of the world around me while living in the world around me. Media personnel are not suspended in animation separated from us while attempting to report on current events, at least not to my knowledge. On the contrary they live among us, shop the same stores, vote in the same polling places, worship in the same houses, eat in the same restaurants, drive on the same streets, walk on the same sidewalks, and ride on the same bike paths. They socialize with persons of their choice while raising families and form subjective opinions on civic matters, as we all do. It’s a small irony to me that my particular perspective of an event and what has transpired is often different from what is reported and delivered to tens of thousands of readers and listeners through local media outlets daily. At some point though, we have to ask ourselves what is local reporting and how does it impact our local policies? Is what you read, hear, or see accurate or biased? Does it help or hinder, and to whom specifically does it do these things?
There is a notable difference between daily reportage and investigative reportage. Unlike the investigative reports like Green Street Runs Dry by Valley Advocate reporter Kendra Thurlow that might take weeks to compile, we get a differently derived product from the local mainstream newspapers and radio stations. For the print media, a reporter attends a meeting or gets on the telephone, jots down some narrative-including some words of an official perhaps, attempts to write a coherent story, submits the copy to an editor who might change a word or two and affix a headline, then off it goes to the printers. While a daily reporter might accurately portray the commentary of some, whose statements get repeated and how often can alter public perception. It’s not called a ‘city-beat’ for nothing, there’s a rhythm to it, a reciprocal ebb and flow of exchanges. Likewise when officials wish to disseminate information, a telephone likely chimes on a trusted media personality’s desk and a subsequent ‘interview’ transpires. (Evidently no one’s phone rang when Northampton’s Director of Central Services resigned recently, after less than a year of service. It wasn’t deemed important to get that story out and inform the public of why this employment failed prematurely, and still isn’t apparently.) These methods form a routine that is a way of life for a few at the forefront of civic affairs. It provides jobs for other members of our communities too, for those who operate the computers and presses and work to distribute the processed wood pulp and ink products around the region, and even includes part-time bloggerists like me who have joined the public discourse, for better or worse.
Let’s dissect this further: I went through eight Gazette issues from March 19-27 and found Mayor Mary Clare Higgins’ name mentioned about 35 times (13 in one article regarding her surgery). Other public officials were quoted as well: Fire Chief Duggan, School Superintendent Rodriquez-Babcock, Academy of Music Trustee President Crystal, Council President Bardsley, Finn-Ryan Road School Principal Riddle, WGBY President Poetter, Planning Director Feiden, School Committee Vice Chair Hartry, Parking Director Letendre, Councilor Narkewicz, Chamber Director Beck, Planning Board member Wilson, Treasurer Zimmerman, and Finance Director Pile. Between the radio station previously mentioned and this paper there was a smattering of others mentioned but for the most part it appears these media outlets in some respects have become a fourth branch of our local government, disseminating talking points from the viewpoint of public officials almost exclusively, and in the process shaping public opinion. But this is nothing new.
I’ve been reading from Barack Obama’s book, The Audacity of Hope recently. Like many books I’ve started I seldom read through them completely any more due to a lack of time and because they seem to contain a generous amount of ‘word salad’ to borrow a phrase from a friend. I skip around chapters culling information to use as source material for op-ed articles like this one. I’m not endorsing Obama, but he does make some interesting points regarding the media which he describes as a “third force that pushes and pulls” at politicians (the first two being money and special interests) and “shapes the nature of political debate and defines the scope of what he feels he can and can’t do, the positions he can and can’t take.” He outlines how he was the beneficiary of “unusually-and at times undeservedly-positive press coverage.” He acknowledges he is “almost entirely dependent on the media” to reach his constituents. He writes, “It is the filter through which my votes are interpreted, my statements analyzed, my beliefs examined. For the broad public at least, I am who the media says I am. I say what they say I say. I become who they say I’ve become” and thus Obama outlines a force with the power to afflict or grace the lives of readers and authority figures alike, or at the very least attempt to. He goes on about the perceptions that editors and reporters add to their stories and why. It’s interesting reading and could be easily applied locally.
Take for instance Northampton’s new three-year ambulance pact (finally-I know) that received a bold headline running the width of the Gazette March 27, 2007 reading “Mayor inks 3-year ambulance pact.” One might think that the Mayor did something particularly noteworthy and out of the ordinary. Well in one sense maybe but in another, not really. Part of her job function is to enter into contracts on behalf of us residents. Someone at City Hall called the paper apparently and asked when they could get a press release published and a competent reporter wrote about it as news and interviewed the Mayor and Fire Chief, probably over the phone. In relation to the pact, the words “stringent reporting requirements” and “stronger city oversight” were likely designed to convey a meaning that the Mayor and Fire Chief are in firm control of our emergency safety and that we citizens should rest assured and go back to what we were doing. An official of some sort probably emailed the details of the contract to the reporter and this comprises a very neat and tidy process indeed, performed by rote nowadays.
Oddly enough, not a year ago the Gazette was reporting on the issue with a different tenor. In May 2006 it published how “one month before the city renewed its ambulance contract with American Medical Response last year, state inspectors filed a report describing the company’s headquarters as ‘a disaster.’” The reporting continued, “Inspectors cited a multitude of deficiencies at the AMR headquarters, then located off Conz Street: from inadequate personnel and ineffective management to poor sanitary conditions and inventory control. City officials had not seen the 20-plus pages of inspection documents at the time of the contract renewal, because they do not routinely review ambulance inspection reports.” In quoting a councilor: “Asked whether he would have recommended granting a two-year contract extension to AMR had he seen the AMR’s most recent inspection reports, City Councilor James M. Dostal, chairman of the Public Safety Committee, said: ‘Absolutely not.’ ‘I would have been looking at other avenues.”
For what it’s worth I thought this was good investigative reportage for a daily and the Gazette editorial staff followed up with this a short time later: “it is troubling that the latest contract between the city and AMR was signed without a close look at the firm’s inspection records.” Thus it was clear that public officials had unapologetically failed to examine relevant report details prior to signing the contract with AMR and the Gazette had performed a vital community service that will hopefully benefit us all in the long run. However in my view, the recent report should have stated that city officials have reversed previous negligent oversight practices and have now acted the way they should have in the first place. The headline I might have chosen, “Higgins rights wrong on ambulance pact” would have carried a far more accurate description regarding the history of the ambulance service in town.
Essentially in order to function efficiently, public officials and media personnel have formed partnerships and work together as interdependent units, leaving peripheral civic observers like me to note from afar the marriage of the local daily media with the establishment of our public policies. With the accelerated pace of ‘first world’ life prevalent locally, learning to ‘read between the lines’ has never been more important than it is today. To follow Governor Patrick’s lead and become civically engaged one must reach beyond the local media and bloggerists, attend events in person, and form independent opinions. With all that is transpiring around us though, how we are to do that I don’t know. If only 35% of Northampton’s electorate chooses to vote, and only a portion of those are paying close attention, a very small political minority is making decisions for the rest of us, and we label this ‘democracy.’ This is not what I hope for.
