A former mainstream journalist, who shared a Pulitzer Prize in 1993 for coverage at the Orlando Sentinel of unconstitutional contraband seizures, spoke up today at the National Conference for Media Reform in St. Louis saying line reporters need criticism in order to keep heat on corporate owners.
“Up until about two years ago, I was a dyed-in-the-wool member of the mainstream media at the Los Angeles Times,” said Stephen Berry, now a journalism professor at the University of Iowa in Iowa City. “I want to congratulate [media watchdogs] and say keep on keeping on.”
Journalists need the public to pressure them to do better, said Berry, because that gives the journalists and line editors ammunition to take to corporate managers and owners.
We long for, we desire the type of criticism that you bring,” Berry said. “Our line editors and reporters are in a constant battle day in and day out with the constraints of the growing corporate ownership of our profession. And the only way to change it is not through diatribes, but through well-researched, trolled criticisms pointing outour mistakes, pointing our the stories that we missed. We crave that kind of criticism. It gives us material that we can use to fight our own managements.”
Other conference blog coverage -- HERE.
Link to upcoming STREAMING AUDIO/VIDEO.
Link to Democracy Now! story on community broadband.
Link to Pacifica Foundation's coverage of St. Louis conference.
OTHER LINKS:
Institute for Public Accuracy links to available media-reform contacts:
http://www.accuracy.org/newsrelease.php?articleId=1048
MORE COVERAGE: From the St. Louis Post-Dispatch. . . .
From MediaChannel's Danny Schecter . . .
From Be the Media blog . . .
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