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Opinion An Independent Attitude Indy reaches Terrible Two's This is a condensed version of a speech I gave to the Downtown Kiwanis Club Monday.
The Amarillo Independent ended its second year of publication with the distribution of the April 10 edition. When we go to press Wednesday, it will be the first edition in our third year of putting out a weekly newspaper in Amarillo. If you want to take as our birthday the date of our first issue, it was April 20, 2006. It's been a trip! Rock the boat, baby The corporatization of journalism has values that revolve around a bottom line that calls for a 15 to 20 percent return on revenue. The daily newspapers and the electronic media have those priorities that call for not rocking the boat and are part of the dumbing down of America. And, for some inexplicable reason, at least to me, the cult of celebrity has overtaken this nation. I remember one time that the CNN home page had five of its 10 main stories on "celebs." I am not saying that all dailies and all corporations are like that, but the Washington Post's recently awarded Pulitzers for uncovering the lack of treatment of veterans and some of the other well-deserved awards are the exception rather than the rule. And failures on the national level by powerful journalism corporations have serious consequences for our nation. They fail by not questioning authority. Far too often, the Washington press corps especially has been used by administrations and has been willingly manipulated. The national media in this country have treated elected officials like royalty and they're not. We as media have failed to treat elected officials, all the way up to the president, for what they are — our employees. Tip the boat over Another failure is not demanding accountability from our institutions. Look at how bad the situation became at the FAA before it got into the news that the airline industry had co-opted regulators. The recent stories about the failure of the FDA reflect a similar flaw. Then there's the failure to fight for keeping records and meetings open. One only need look at the current administration's penchant for privacy and the way it has gotten away with hiding records from the public with little battle or push-back from the big media, to see my point. A local example is a still unanswered Freedom of Information request about High Plains Hospital to the Department of Health and Human Services on Dec. 5. The success of weekly newspapers practicing long-form writing is clear. Look across the country and you'll find the Village Voice or Boston Phoenix or the Dallas Observer and Austin Chronicle doing well and doing good for their communities. So far as I can tell, these newspapers have stayed true to their mission. One of those so-called alternative newsweeklies is Westword, which started in a garage some 25 years ago and is now as much a voice in Denver as are the Denver Post and The Rocky Mountain News. I have said many times in the past two years that to know what is really going on in Amarillo on certain issues, you need to be conversant with all the local media. Reading just one newspaper or watching one TV station isn't enough. It's a happy birthday We jumped in on faith, and the Indy lives because some veteran journalists —reporters, photographers, copy editors and columnists —signed on to make sure real reporting lives in Amarillo. I have to thank them for their unstinting help as I do the advertisers who see the value the Indy provides to them and to their business and to the community. We're two years old and we plan on growing and sticking around. And as we grow, we will be of greater service to the community. George Schwarz: Editor and publisher of the Amarillo Independent. george@amarilloindy.com. E-mail
comments about this story Posted: April 17, 2008
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