ARTICLE
Media for an Informed Electorate Never has the electorate been asked to make so many life-defining decisions on so little information. The precondition of success for democracies is an informed electorate. We depend upon well-informed, independent journalism to provide us with facts and challenge us with informed commentary before we vote. But, as John Oliver’s commentary on Last Week Tonight has poignantly and hilariously pointed out, the quality and quantity of professional journalism has shrunk dramatically over the last twenty years. While troublesome at a national level, the shortage of information and insight can truly bedevil local governance. The Chamber will host a lunch conversation August 24 to talk about how we are adapting as a community as “traditional” media evolves and, more importantly, how we can best inform the electorate prior to this fall’s election. Michael Turpin, EVP of the Bay Area News Group, and Zach Friend, Santa Cruz County Supervisor will discuss our vulnerabilities in this evolution and how as a community we can overcome them. Oliver’s piece was criticized by a few but embraced by many in the journalism field. Margaret Sullivan summarized the problems in her Washington Post column Monday: the shrinking staffs, the abandonment of important beats, the love of click bait over substance, the deadly loss of ad revenue, the truly bad ideas that have come to the surface out of desperation, the persistent failures to serve the reading public. Much attention has been focused on national impacts, especially the Trump/Clinton battle for president. But Oliver’s piece used the movie “Spotlight,” the dramatization of the nonfiction book, Betrayal, as the model of what we have lost. “Spotlight” described the work of Boston Globe reporters investigating child abuse in Boston. Locally, the Sentinel has an illustrious history of investigative excellence, uncommon for a small market newspaper. J.M. Brown’s series on water in Santa Cruz County, or the 2010 stories on the purchase of the Union Pacific rail line, or this June’s much smaller story by Jondi Gumz on gaps in dental care affecting the poor and their children are all examples of the sort of journalism that focus attention and inform the electorate. But these kinds of stories are labor-intensive efforts. Staff reductions mean that fewer issues are studied and reductions in page count means that stories are less comprehensive. Of course the Sentinel and newspapers in general are hardly to blame. It is the economic model that has failed. Supported almost exclusively by advertising revenue, their income has been vastly reduced by competition with targeted online ad placement through providers such as Google and Facebook as well as the simplifying of search and evaluation for consumers through the internet and services such as Angie’s list and Trip Advisor. How are these media groups responding? As the Chief Revenue Officer of the Bay Area News Group (including the San Jose Mercury News and the Sentinel among other papers) Michael Turpin is at the center of the evolution of “traditional” media. Turpin will describe both the impacts and the resulting strategies that newspapers are undertaking to address these changes. From the point of view of public decision makers the key issues relate to informing the electorate and organizing support for government action. Zach Friend, a Santa Cruz County Supervisor, former staff member of national and state elected officials (including the Obama campaigns) and the author of a book On Message describing communications methods to help organizations succeed and issues to be resolved, will describe means for getting key messages to decision makers, from customers to the electorate. The underlying issues to be discussed are how Santa Cruz as a community can insure that voters are both engaged and well informed. With critical issues from funding transportation and education infrastructure, to the election of local City Councils and an array of board for fire districts and education institutions, we must insure that those who vote have a clear understanding of what is at stake and how candidates and measures propose to address our collective issues. We hope you will join us at the August 24th luncheon.
Never has the electorate been asked to make so many life-defining decisions on so little information. The precondition of success for democracies is an informed electorate. We depend upon well-informed, independent journalism to provide us with facts and challenge us with informed commentary before we vote.
But, as John Oliver’s commentary on Last Week Tonight has poignantly and hilariously pointed out, the quality and quantity of professional journalism has shrunk dramatically over the last twenty years. While troublesome at a national level, the shortage of information and insight can truly bedevil local governance.
The Chamber will host a lunch conversation August 24 to talk about how we are adapting as a community as “traditional” media evolves and, more importantly, how we can best inform the electorate prior to this fall’s election. Michael Turpin, EVP of the Bay Area News Group, and Zach Friend, Santa Cruz County Supervisor will discuss our vulnerabilities in this evolution and how as a community we can overcome them.
Oliver’s piece was criticized by a few but embraced by many in the journalism field. Margaret Sullivan summarized the problems in her Washington Post column Monday:
the shrinking staffs, the abandonment of important beats, the love of click bait over substance, the deadly loss of ad revenue, the truly bad ideas that have come to the surface out of desperation, the persistent failures to serve the reading public.
Much attention has been focused on national impacts, especially the Trump/Clinton battle for president. But Oliver’s piece used the movie “Spotlight,” the dramatization of the nonfiction book, Betrayal, as the model of what we have lost. “Spotlight” described the work of Boston Globe reporters investigating child abuse in Boston.
Locally, the Sentinel has an illustrious history of investigative excellence, uncommon for a small market newspaper. J.M. Brown’s series on water in Santa Cruz County, or the 2010 stories on the purchase of the Union Pacific rail line, or this June’s much smaller story by Jondi Gumz on gaps in dental care affecting the poor and their children are all examples of the sort of journalism that focus attention and inform the electorate.
But these kinds of stories are labor-intensive efforts. Staff reductions mean that fewer issues are studied and reductions in page count means that stories are less comprehensive.
Of course the Sentinel and newspapers in general are hardly to blame. It is the economic model that has failed. Supported almost exclusively by advertising revenue, their income has been vastly reduced by competition with targeted online ad placement through providers such as Google and Facebook as well as the simplifying of search and evaluation for consumers through the internet and services such as Angie’s list and Trip Advisor.
How are these media groups responding? As the Chief Revenue Officer of the Bay Area News Group (including the San Jose Mercury News and the Sentinel among other papers) Michael Turpin is at the center of the evolution of “traditional” media. Turpin will describe both the impacts and the resulting strategies that newspapers are undertaking to address these changes.
From the point of view of public decision makers the key issues relate to informing the electorate and organizing support for government action. Zach Friend, a Santa Cruz County Supervisor, former staff member of national and state elected officials (including the Obama campaigns) and the author of a book On Message describing communications methods to help organizations succeed and issues to be resolved, will describe means for getting key messages to decision makers, from customers to the electorate.
The underlying issues to be discussed are how Santa Cruz as a community can insure that voters are both engaged and well informed. With critical issues from funding transportation and education infrastructure, to the election of local City Councils and an array of board for fire districts and education institutions, we must insure that those who vote have a clear understanding of what is at stake and how candidates and measures propose to address our collective issues.
We hope you will join us at the August 24th luncheon.