Our discernment of media needs to change

Media failure is a huge part of what got us here, and they are continuing as usual to fail to communicate the bigger picture–as journalist and writer Rebecca Solnit sharply conveys in her latest piece on Ghost, "Please Shout Fire, This Theater Is Burning."

Something I want point out as a comms professional that even folks who are paying attention and who generally understand the scale and know the stakes of what we're facing may not realize: Traditional media in this country is massively dependent on government-provided information being abundant, transparent, and accurate (at minimum in a broad sense about what programs exist, what they cost, who they employ, and generally what they are doing) and that is no longer something we can count on. Ever more so in the past 10-15 years, as newsrooms were slashed and investigative reporters all but eliminated even at major publications, news organizations relied on government information to do their jobs. And to be fair, it was something we could (largely) count on being reasonably accurate until 6 months ago.

The hard truth is that for more and more publications, if information isn't handed to them in an easily digestible, ready-to-run way, they no longer have the time, resources, expertise, or in some cases (depending on their political leanings), the interest to seek it out, let alone fact-check it.

Government-initiated press releases, press conferences, interviews of senior officials, and general proactive media engagement have been more crucial than ever in recent years to you getting your news at all. To say nothing of government-funded science, databases and regular reports, from weather satellites to the U.S. Department of Labor's monthly jobs report and regular crop reports from the USDA, to massive databases like NOAA's climate.gov which will soon be taken offline, to half the nation's hurricane detecting satellites getting shut off next month, right at the start of hurricane season.

And now, virtually overnight, the information coming out of the federal government is highly suspect, propagandized, or nonexistent--at the same time as many of our most skilled investigative reporters have been forced out of the profession due to layoffs and lack of decent pay.

Say what you will about political spin in the past, but this is new. Those of us who think of ourselves as "in the know" and who pay attention to news and current events need to understand that now more than ever, our not hearing about an event from a major news source doesn't mean it's not happening.

Yes, think critically about sources of information, and no, definitely don't trust everything you hear online. But understand that this government is not going to be hosting press conferences about a lot of its activities, and in this environment, that means traditional media may not cover them. If you are hearing consistent information about local or national events and goings-on from community members you trust/trusted networks and organizations, it is crucial you take it seriously. And know that understanding the truth will require more work and more discernment than ever before.

For Nebraskans, the Nebraska Examiner and Flatwater Free Press are doing a good job of covering events in the state, including recent ICE raids of meatpacking plants in Omaha. They are both nonprofit newsrooms, and that's not a coincidence. Neither the ad model nor the subscription model is working to keep newsrooms alive, vibrant, or capable of providing a complete and honest picture of current events.

For national news, the Philadelphia Inquirer--which has also been owned by a nonprofit trust since 2007--is doing a far more thorough and fair job of covering the national landscape than either the Washington Post or the New York Times, which are both owned by conservative billionaires eager to cozy up to you know who.

Independent journalists are arguably doing an even better job, like Marisa Kabas at The Handbasket, who has generally been running circles around the major publications on covering this administration–by practicing good journalism, having an unapologetic pro-democracy bias, and not being a coward.

From her kitchen table in Brooklyn, Kabas scooped all the major publications on the initial OMB memo in January which signaled the administration was going to begin illegally withholding federal grants. If you have the funds to subscribe to quality journalism, these publications and journalists are the type to invest in.

These times are requiring us to change a lot about how we operate--and how we obtain, process and discern information is no exception.