A Little Founding Statement About STL Media Works
As I’m writing this (June 30, 2017), the meta-journalism world is abuzz with President Trump’s ongoing feud with the hosts of “Morning Joe,” Joe Scarborough and Mika Brzezinski, that latter of whom the president targeted in a more-misogynistic-than-usual tweet. It’s been the most talked about attack on the media this week, but it hasn’t been the only one. The New York Times and The Washington Post are Fake News; cameras are being barred, albeit on-and-off, from the daily press briefing; quasi-journalistic suckbag James O’Keefe dropped a tape of some CNN bro offhandedly saying they should maybe not do so many stories about Russia just to juice ratings. Oh, also, yesterday a bunch of NYT staffers walked out of their office to protest the recent firing of copy editors and other staffers, holding signs that seem perfectly lame. As long as we’re talking about layoffs, we should probably mention that there are still a couple dozen Huff Post staffers who are newly searching for jobs. It’s been a shitty June.
It’s a dyin’ industry, folks. That’s what people told me when I started my journalism classes four years ago. That’s what Gregory Moore, the former editor (he was fired) of my hometown paper, the Denver Post, told me in one of those classes. That’s what Rustan Burton, the publisher of the Columbia Daily Tribune, my paper for the last few years, suggested in what was possibly the shittiest justification for laying off journalists anyone has ever written. That’s what any number of public figures have suggested over the last year as they’ve criticized the press and found ways to workaround the journalists trained to gather, vet, and disseminate information for the public good. That’s what people have been saying for the last couple decades, and there’s a pretty compelling argument to be made that they’re right.
Despite the anti-journalism attitude that found a new voice over the course of the last presidential campaign, and the co-opting of journalism by profiteers slinging fictional article at an unbelievable pace out a village in Macedonia, the last few months have been really, really, really good for some media companies. Ratings are crazy high. Subscriptions are up. Certain companies may finally be figuring out digital revenue. The view from New York and DC isn’t as bleak as it once was for journalism. For every citizen who’s seemingly cast off any kind of legitimate work by any news organization, there’s been another nice, young liberal #resistance member who has newly discovered the value in a well-funded and responsible media. There’s hope!
But you know where journalism is still pretty fucked? The middle of the country. The money isn’t coming in here. The few newspapers that we have left are getting bought out and gutted by conglomerates, and the local advertisers that have supported community journalism in the Midwest for decades aren’t really buying ads. In Midwestern cities like St. Louis, the need for thorough, deep reporting is as present as ever, if not more. There are still people who are being exploited; there are still people in power that aren’t being held accountable; there are still incredible stories — those things that remind us how to be a person and what it means to live here — waiting to be found and told. And there’s fantastic work being done, to be sure. But the readers are fewer, the distribution is harder, and the money is scarce. That sucks.
I moved to St. Louis a month ago after starting my journalism career in Columbia. (I’m also marrying a born-and-bred St. Louisian soon, if that helps my cred at all.) I want to have conversations with other journalists, news makers, and news readers about how we can make journalism work better in St. Louis. And, eventually, I want to turn those conversations into action. I want to help increase access for readers and opportunities for journalists. I want to help celebrate great work, and I want to call out bad work. In short, I want to do a little part to help St. Louis media work the way it’s supposed to.
On this page, you’ll find blogs and links that help tell the story of St. Louis as viewed through our media. In the next few weeks, we’ll be launching a bi-weekly podcast to work through some of those questions I asked above. And, hopefully, once we have the resources, you’ll be able to contribute to STL Media Works to help fund access to news and original reporting projects for journalists with an idea. If you have ideas for anything else, hit me up — STLMediaWorks@gmail.com.
— Matt
