opinion

I was struck this week by two inside-baseball journalism stories following Monday’s Mueller investigation bombshells that spoke, tangentially but notably, to what I have often said about a main obstacle in our industry’s ability to regain the trust of the public: The conflation in many information consumers’ minds between responsible journalism and the opinion media.

New York University Professor Jay Rosen about how journalists can handle polarization when covering politics: “Instead of trying to stay in the middle between polarized extremes and avoid criticism, political journalists and their bosses could recognize that there is no escape from charges of bias because these charges are just a further aspect of polarization.”

The Seattle Times editorializes: “Lax FCC enforcement makes a mockery of regulatory intent to preserve and promote competition, localism and diversity of viewpoints in local TV news. Case in point: Sinclair Broadcast Group’s ownership of KOMO Seattle.”

The daily deals arena may have had some well-publicized knockouts lately, including the firing of Groupon founder and CEO Andrew Mason, but that doesn’t mean that deals don’t hold a wealth of opportunities for local media. Matt Coen (pictured), president and co-founder of Second Street: “Local media companies are well positioned to own a large piece of the deals market thanks to their unique assets of loyal audiences and established brands, local sales forces and multimedia promotional reach. Today, it has become apparent that local media companies enjoy another key advantage over pureplays: economies of scale.”

Terry Heaton: “Local broadcasting is in the midst of a perfect storm with only two opportunities for tomorrow: a successful MDTV strategy with the digital broadcasting chip in smartphones, and figuring out how to monetize local unbundled, on-demand content. Let’s be real; the day is coming when program makers will distribute their stuff directly to consumers and share money with no network, and we’ve got to be ready.”