Siding with the lame stream media

by Thomas Mills, Politics North Carolina, December 8, 2015.

This weekend, a screening of the film “Spotlight” hosted by the new North Carolina Newsroom Cooperative emphasized the importance of an independent press in our society. The movie told the story of how the Boston Globe exposed the systematic cover-up of child sexual abuse by the Catholic Church. The existence of the Cooperativereminds us that the press, as we’ve known it, is struggling to survive.

In “Spotlight,” a group of investigative journalists took on one of the most powerful institutions in Boston, the Catholic Church, and shed light on practices that have had international repercussions. Without the financial support of an organization as large as the Globe and its parent company, the New York Times, the story might never have been told. Without independence from the political and social establishment, the abuse and its coverup would almost certainly have continued.

In North Carolina, we’ve seen similar, if more regional, stories without the global implications. The News & Observer uncovered the athletic and academic scandal at UNC despite the opposition of alumni, some of whom are among the most powerful people in the state. The media found waste at the North Carolina Rural Center that led to a major restructuring. They exposed corruption in the office of former House Speaker Jim Black and sent him to prison. They found petty abuse in the administrations of Governors Bev Perdue and Mike Easley that led to Easley surrendering his law license. And the list goes on.

Clearly, an independent press is crucial to keeping corruption in check and combatting abuse of power. The demise of newspapers and the loss of well-funded investigative journalists threatens the chief deterrent to pay-for-play politics and the accumulation of power and influence by power brokers of all stripes. The Newsroom Cooperative is trying to stop the bleeding and find a new formula for making journalism both profitable and independent. Everyone should be cheering for their success.

In this environment, Pat McCrory’s campaign has launched an attack on the credibility of News & Observer. It’s one thing to take on the editorial board, which writes opinions, and another to say the journalists are lying and biased. McCrory is trying to obscure an emerging scandal over pay-to-play politics by claiming that the same journalists who exposed the so-called culture of corruption that he ran against are now partisan hacks. They’re betting they can piggy-back on the partisan disdain, from both the left and right, with the so-called mainstream media.

If McCrory is successful in convincing the public that the investigations are politically motivated, then we’re losing the ability to hold our public officials accountable. I think, though, he’s picked a fight that he will lose. To paraphrase Shakespeare, me thinks thou dost protest too much. I still believe that mainstream Americans will believe the mainstream media instead of siding with partisan apologists that pass themselves off as journalists. McCrory will eventually have to deal with the facts instead of the spin.

http://www.politicsnc.com/siding-with-the-lamestream-media/