Having a PhD doesn't make a person wise or even knowledgeable. Take Dr. David T.Z. Mindich, author and chair of the Journalism and Mass Communication Department at St. Michael's College in Vermont, says that young people are "more tuned out than we think," even though a Knight Foundation survey of high school students suggests that just over half of the students surveyed (much higher than I would have guessed) check the mainstream news at least weekly. Of course, Dr. Mindich is the author of Tuned Out: Why Americans Under 40 Don't Follow the News (Amazon.com Sales Rank: #416,912), and book sales won't go up if he admits that young people do follow the news.
Mindich spoke at Plattsburgh State's (NY) annual Media Ethics and Law Conference, this year's theme was bringing young audiences back to the news. Mindich and his cronies: Plattsburgh State's Center for Communication and Journalism Co-Director Ron Davis, and vice dean and professor at Columbia University's Graduate School of Journalism David Klatell, seem to be purveyors of conventional wisdom when it comes to young people and the news. Their suggestions for news improvements included such things as bringing passion to the news with Fox News cited as a prime example (although it also was referred to as a "terrible propaganda factory," and praising The Daily Show for treating viewers intelligently.
The PhDs involved may or may not deserve the criticism suggested here, but coverage in the Plattsburgh Press Republican and at PoynterOnline does what modern media coverage often does: dumbs down the debate.
The final quote from Dr. Mindich in the Press Republican story gets to the heart of the matter. He says that young people should insist on quality journalism. Unfortunately, the definition of quality journalism is up for debate. The two extremes seem to be giving the audience/readers lowest common denominator news to get a big audience, or spinach news - what the editor thinks is good for you.
What's really happening to news is that we have many more sources and many more definitions of quality. News is no longer a homogenized product with - more or less - the same thing on every channel and on every front page. Too many academics are invested in what was, and so can't see clearly what's happening. Not unusual, just sad.
More later,
Russ
