In Nashville, five speakers, five messages for the Knight Commission on Trust, Media and Democracy
Themes of local trust, community, and the importance of literacy fill public hearing
The grand ballroom in the historic Hermitage hotel was the site of a public meeting of the Knight Commission on Trust, Media and Democracy on April 27, 2018, where commissioners heard from experts in literacy, media and local affairs. Below are takeaways from five speakers: Gov. Bill Haslam, Penelope Abernathy, Jim Brown, Michael Cormack, Jr., and Dana Coester.
Gov. Bill Haslam: A lot of news but no editors
In a keynote address, outgoing GOP Gov. Bill Haslam lamented the decline of civil debate in an era dominated by social media. “I worry about a world in which there is a lot of news but no editors,” he said. “The news gets ahead of the facts and that’s a problem.” He told stories from his own experience as governor, such as controversy this past week on school testing when new online tests hit technical snags, and another involving the announcement of a new coach for the University of Tennessee football team.
Penelope Abernathy: Margins are thin out there
A former Wall Street Journal and The New York Times executive turned academic at University of North Carolina, Penelope Abernathy warned that with old business models for journalism collapsing, news deserts are growing nationwide. While some small papers remain profitable, barely, margins are thin and errors are fatal. Abernathy argued that local journalism must continue to receive funding and support while business models are being developed.
Jim Brown: Don’t believe everything you think
Jim Brown, Tennessee’s state coordinator for the National Federation of Independent Business (NFIB), talked about challenging events in his own life and how they inspired him to seek out opinions different from his own. After being mugged by a homeless man, he determined to volunteer for a local homeless shelter. This opened his mind to understanding that they faced their own challenges, such as mental illness. “I’ve got bias, we’ve all got bias,” he said, but it’s important to remain open to other points of view.
Michael Cormack, Jr.: Vast majority of parents want what’s best for their children
Michael Cormack, Jr., CEO of the Mississippi-based Barksdale Reading Institute, spoke about his organization’s work with parents and schools to build literacy with their young children.
“We have to change the prevailing narrative about low income parents and families,” he said. “I’ve met very few parents knowingly negligent of their children. The vast majority want what’s best for their children.” His program encourages parents to bring their kids to the grocery store, cook with them, and do other activities, all the while explaining what they are doing and nothing things like colors and shapes. Encouraging basic literacy in such kids is essential, he said, because “The ability to read and write proficiently is the building block for other literacies.”
Dana Coester: Democracy needs journalism more than it needs Facebook
”At the moment, my love affair with tech is waning,” said Dana Coester, a professor at West Virginia University and executive director of “100 Days in Appalachia,” told the commission. In the 1990s, as an early adopter of technology in the 1990s, she launched a multimedia project, and even climbed a pole to jerry rig a dial-up connection to the internet. “I was in the camp of all information wants to be free.”
But now, she said, “we’re not winning.” Traditional media is disrupted, iwth local media outlets disappearing; racist, anti-Semitic, and other hate-filled content fills social media platforms such as Instagram and YouTube; and journalists “mostly talk to each other about what fresh hell has befallen the industry.”
The way forward, Coester stressed, was to return to the values of journalism. “Democracy needs journalism more than it needs Facebook,” she said, “and Facebook needs journalism more than we need Facebook.” Before journalism can fix its revenue problem, she said, journalists must fix the trust problem, by doing reporting that serves communities. Philanthropy should support journalism, she argued, while journalists demonstrate the value of a strong news media for democracy.
The public meeting in Nashville is the third in a series of meetings around the country, as commissioners hear from experts in technology, media. Other public meetings have taken place in New York City and Palo Alto. Knight commissioners also met in in Miami. Next month, commissioners will gather in Racine, Wisconsin.
The members of the bi-partisan commission will continue working throughout 2018 to develop a report and recommendations on how to improve trust in media and democracy. Find the first draft chapter here, and please share your thoughts in the comment sections on this Medium site. (Here’s how to post comments.)
