Local Mainstream Media: Garbage In, Garbage Out

Awwwww. The "pundits" and "reporters" had to attend a press conference with NM Dem Party Chair Brian Colon and others when the final results of our caucus were announced last week. They're leaking complaints with the usual suspects that it was too long and held them up from their important duties, which often appear to entail a whole bunch of gossiping and groaning amongst themselves. Don't you feel sorry for them? They actually get paid to report on politics, while local and national bloggers struggle on as freebie public service outlets and writers for alternative outlets eek out a living.

I guess the insider word is that they've been devoting so much of their precious time to the caucus story that they're all tuckered out. They wanted the results immediately from a contest that was one of the closest in the nation to date. They wanted it yesterday despite a record turnout and more than 17,000 provisional ballots to qualify -- and a complex negotiation required to balance the demands of Party and the campaigns on qualification standards. With all the grunt work done by volunteers.

Not The Facts, Maam
Many local mainstream media outlets wrongly but continually compared New Mexico's Party-run caucus with contests in other states where the margins weren't even close. Sure, quick results are much easier when the time-consuming tasks of qualifying and counting provisional ballots aren't in the picture because they won't make much difference in the outcome.

Sadly, in many cases daily coverage of the story consisted almost entirely of complaints about delays and childish mockery of all those working to deal with a myriad of complexities. Guess what? The unofficial results of the regular paper ballots were pretty much ready the day after the election. Minor point, I know, when you're spinning for the opposite team or concentrating on creating "controversy." Much easier to mindlessly repeat words like "debacle" and "disaster" than to report the facts as they emerged. Or, better yet, to use the situation as an opportunity to educate the public on the finer points of voting, vote counting and the strengths and weaknesses of today's election processes.

Old fashioned, I know, yearning for the days when The Press was viewed as a powerful and important Fourth Estate, and journalists focused on providing clear, accurate and fair answers to Who? What? Where? How? Why?

Many of our local reporters obviously had no interest in pursuing rumors to their source, researching the source of problems with voter lists or compiling documented info on which caucus sites experienced problems -- and which ones didn't. Instead of following leads and pursuing facts, too many were all too content to make judgments based on heresay and tsk tsk about the "embarrassment" of it all. On any given day, the coverage in the Albuquerque Journal and on TV news shows seemed to have more in common with crime tabloids, Wonkette or COPS than anything to do with genuine journalism.

So many of the trad media writers have grown quite comfortable serving as stenographers for Republican and corporate interests. Those running TV "news" organizations seem more concerned with packing the screen with garish graphics and screeching sounds than thoughtful content. It pains them to have to listen to a Democratic point of view or anything more complex than red light camera laments. Their ears hurt. Their fingers cramp. They get all figgety and crabby.

Protectors of the Status Quo
Of course they've been assisted in this whine-fest by the usual online suspects who serve as loyal mouthpieces for "anonymous" sources like former State Party Chair John you-know-who and others who can't stand that it isn't them on the podium or in the SCC seats. Times like this are perfect for avengers to pile on, with the implicit message that they'd be doing so much better in handling everything. Well I guess that's true if you like sneeky opaqueness vs. transparency, sneering arrogance vs. openness and dissembling more than the facts. Accountability is a concept foreign to the status-quo bunch. The governor, the "tipsters," and the "Dem insiders" all spent most of their time since the caucus pointing fingers away from themselves -- a familiar M.O. regardless of the controversy.

The New Ambulance Chasers
What about accountability on the part of the local mainstream media? A major criticism about the Dem caucus has been that adequate information wasn't available to the public. Many people have reported that they didn't know where, how or when to vote, or didn't know they had to be registered Democrats to do so. Of course the Party could and should have done a better job of getting the word out, despite their pinched budget this time out. But do our newspapers and TV "news" outfits share any blame on this count?

Detailed, informative and nuanced coverage of local political and governmental news is almost nonexistent in our local mainstream media. Why bother when you can just point your cameras at the latest car crash or substitute photos of monster truck rallies for reporting? Do local media and news outlets have any civic or journalistic responsibilty to serve the public and provide educational and informative coverage about things like the political caucus?

I know for a fact that these outfits routinely receive news release after news release about such topics, but refuse to provide any decent coverage or to show up at press conferences unless there's a scandal involved. If it's something they can mock or distort into at least a pseudo-controversy, they're there. If it's something to edify the public, they're mostly missing in action. Certain types of lawyers are often labeled as no more than ambulance chasers, trying to make a profit off of misery and suffering. But I think today's most blatant ambulance chasers have to be some of our local reporters and news "editors."

Murder, mayhem and mockery rule their days -- all to pump up the bottom line and sell more ads. Even worse, they feel perfectly justified making fun of people who work on real problems in the real world.

Of course there are exceptions, but I have to say that the overall coverage of New Mexico's caucus was often inaccurate, lazy, repetitive and juvenile -- like the MSM reporting about many other aspects of politics and government. Our democracy suffers.

Given all the years we've had to endure the suffering inflicted by certain tabloid-addicted tribunes and their shallow, lead-balloon jokes, I think it's only fitting to give them a dose of their own medicine for a change, don't you?