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A Perfect Holiday Gift: Subscribe To The News

A Perfect Holiday Gift: Subscribe To The News

If you’re stressing over what to give friends and loved ones during this holiday season, I’m here to help.

Consider giving them print or digital subscriptions — or both — to news organizations you regularly count on to provide strong journalism. That includes national newspapers and magazines, as well as regional papers that anchor your communities. Keep in mind public radio and television stations, too, which always need more financial support.

Now, I understand how you might see this request as self-serving on my part. I am a journalist, to state the obvious; worse, to state the god-awful for some, I am a columnist paid to give my opinion. Surely, I have a vested interest in the survival of my profession.

The thing is, so do you.

Regardless of whom we supported for president, it should concern all of us that we are about to enter a period of alarming uncertainty regarding media access to the White House and to the coming administration. So far, we have no reason to believe that Donald Trump will not continue his campaign practice of abuse and avoidance.

Democracy cannot thrive without journalists who hold accountable those elected to protect it.

No recent president has been fond of the media, but President-elect Trump has taken this wariness to new lows. He has made clear, repeatedly and loudly, that he hates us and sees no reason even to speak to us.

Days after his election, he accused the media of “inciting” protests against him. This was a lie. During his campaign, he banned a growing list of reporters and repeatedly mocked the journalists standing in front of him. He also encouraged supporters at his rallies to taunt the media and call them names.

One photo at a rally showed a Trump supporter wearing a T-shirt promoting lynching of journalists. Do I think Trump supports that? No, but it’s troubling that once the photo went viral, he didn’t denounce this. It’s indisputable that his behavior inspired it.

Journalists and the news organizations that employ them are not about to cave. For all the complaints about media coverage, many of them justified, a large number of journalists, mostly for print organizations, brought close and relentless scrutiny to Trump’s campaign. In this era of increasingly influential “fake news” sites, they are now doubling down on efforts to provide sound reporting that will still include the fact-checks that Trump so loathes.

How he loves his Twitter account. Never stops bragging about the freedom to push out whatever misinformation and outright lies that catch his fancy. He thinks he can get around the media by tweeting, with no apparent concern for the potential harm to Americans and countries around the world. Even if you find his addiction to Twitter entertaining or dismiss it as a mere distraction, please ask yourself this: Why doesn’t the next president of the United States think he should have to answer any questions that don’t come from a family member or a sycophant? What is he hiding? What does he not want you to know?

Doesn’t it make you feel a little bit better to know that journalists will keep trying? Wouldn’t you rather have all the information and decide for yourself what matters?

If you’re holding a newspaper right now to read my column, it’s possible that I’m the only liberal on this page. Many editorial pages skew more conservative, yet here I am.

Think what that says about newspapers and the people deciding what goes on their opinion pages. They may not agree with me, but they publish my opinions anyway because they value the wild tumble of ideas over an echo chamber. I am grateful, of course, to these newspapers and every online site that runs my column. Keeps me writing for a living. But you, too, are the beneficiary of this policy that trusts you to keep an open mind. This is democracy in action — and isn’t it nice to be so respected?

Less than an hour ago, I finished up my last journalism class for this semester as a professional in residence at Kent State University. It is impossible to be cynical in the company of these millennials. They care about journalism and their future in it, and they care about our country, too.

Many of my journalism students were alarmed by the outcome of the presidential race, but they have quickly rallied. They understand their role in keeping our country free, and they are eager to join the profession. I take heart in knowing that soon enough, they’ll be out there.

Let’s support them, shall we? Let’s invest in the future of journalism, while we still can.

Connie Schultz is a Pulitzer Prize-winning columnist and professional in residence at Kent State University’s school of journalism. To find out more about Connie Schultz (con.schultz@yahoo.com) and read her past columns, please visit the Creators Syndicate webpage at www.creators.com.

IMAGE: NS Newsflash via Flickr

Want To Save Investigative Reporting? You Can Help

Want To Save Investigative Reporting? You Can Help

If you’re reading this column over the holidays, then you’re probably concerned about the future of American journalism. And you probably know all too well that the dwindling fortunes of the newspaper industry, the devolution of television news, and the rise of Internet news sites have raised big questions about where and how our trade will continue to underwrite and produce quality reporting – especially investigative reporting that takes on social issues too often neglected in our media.

Exactly how to preserve and promote investigative reporting in a changing world is a complicated problem that has preoccupied publishers, reporters, readers, and concerned citizens for years now. While the news industry sorts itself out financially, solutions are under construction in the non-profit sector, where advertising, clicks, and infomercial media don’t overwhelm journalistic values.

That is why, during the last few days of 2013, I ask you to consider supporting an important institution that ensures the kind of journalism we value most can thrive: The Investigative Fund. (Here I should disclose that in addition to my other work, I have served proudly at the Fund for several years as editor-at-large.)

With donations from individuals and foundations, the independent and non-profit Investigative Fund supports the craft of investigative reporting across a broad swath of American media, from magazines like The Nation, The Washington Monthly, Harper’s, Mother Jones, The New Republic, Glamour, Elle, GQ, Time, and The New York Review of Books to major broadcast and Web outlets such as NPR’s Marketplace, Slate, The Huffington Post, PBS, and Fusion-TV, to name only a few.

Over the past year, its grants have again produced stunning stories – including an undercover probe of the sickening conditions suffered by children who work in this country’s tobacco fields. Yes, there are kids too young to buy cigarettes who are hired to harvest the killer crop for a pittance – and get poisoned by the nicotine leaching from its leaves under the broiling sun.

The Fund has sent reporters into all kinds of places where the light of serious journalism rarely shines – such as the shipping warehouses where holiday temp workers toil en masse for low wages until their hands bleed; or the homes where orphaned children are abused by the dozen under the stern oversight of devoutly “religious” adoptive parents; or the obscure places along the U.S.-Mexico border, where innocent people have been wounded and even killed by the Border Patrol for no apparent reason at all.

Since its founding as a pilot project in 1996, the Investigative Fund’s stories have sparked resignations of public officials; triggered FBI probes, grand jury investigations, congressional hearings, and federal legislation. Still others have changed the debate around a key issue or exposed previously hidden forms of abuse and exploitation. Investigative Fund stories have won some of journalism’s top prizes: the George Polk Award, the National Magazine Award, the Sidney Hillman Award, medals from Investigative Reporters & Editors, and many more.

Gratifying as recognition from peers is, what matters more is how the Investigative Fund serves the enterprising reporters who now often struggle to practice their craft. At the Fund, they can obtain the kind of support they need to work on the kind of stories we need. Along with grants for travel, research, reporting, and other expenses, the Fund’s editors provide professional editorial guidance and, when necessary, legal support too.

When a young reporter probing suspicious deaths in New Orleans in the aftermath of Hurricane Katrina ran into a stonewall at the parish coroner’s office, the Fund hired local counsel who sued for access to hidden documents – and won. When police in Fiji suddenly arrested another young reporter, who was investigating the depletion of that country’s resources to produce luxury bottled water, the Fund reached out to U.S. diplomats – and ensured her safety.

While fearless in its choice of stories, the Fund is rigorous, too, with every article or broadcast fact-checked before distribution. In an era when uninformed and scabrous opinion too often overshadows real reporting, upholding traditional journalistic standards is a critical part of the Fund’s mission.

Should you wish to support the Investigative Fund’s work with a tax-deductible contribution, please visit www.theinvestigativefund.org — where you can first read some of the hundreds of stories made possible by such donations, and learn about their impact as well. This is an investment in the kind of journalism that remains vital to democracy and decency.

Photo: Allen Ormond via Flickr