Related Stories
Garrett of 'Newsday' Rips Tribune Co. 'Greed' in Exit Memo
Key Excerpts from Article on Website of Editor and Publisher (Leading Media Trade Publication)
Posted: December 16th, 2006
http://www.mediainfo.com/eandp/news/article_display.jsp?vnu_...
Laurie Garrett, the prize-winning Newsday reporter, left the Melville, N.Y., paper Monday with a blistering memo to her colleagues that may provoke debate elsewhere in the newspaper industry. "The leaders of Times Mirror and Tribune have proven to be mirrors of a general trend in the media world: They serve their stockholders first, Wall St. second and somewhere far down the list comes service to newspaper readerships. Garrett won a Pulitzer Prize in 1996 for her reporting on Ebola. Shes also won a Polk Award and a Peabody and was finalist for another Pulitzer in 1998. The deterioration we experienced at Newsday was hardly unique," she wrote.. "All across America news organizations have been devoured by massive corporations, and allegiance to stockholders, the drive for higher share prices, and push for larger dividend returns trumps everything that the grunts in the newsrooms consider their missions. Honesty and tenacity ... seem to have taken backseats to the sort of 'snappy news', sensationalism, scandal-for-the-sake of scandal crap that sells. Profits: that's what it's all about now. This is terrible for democracy. I can attest to the horrible impact the deterioration of journalism has had on the national psyche. But giving up is not an option. There is too much at stake. Now is the time to think in imaginative ways. Opportunities for quality journalism are still there, though you may need to scratch new surfaces, open locked doors and nudge a few reticent editors to find them. Your readers desperately need for you to try, over and over again, to tell the stories, dig the dirt and bring them the news."
Note: If above link fails, click here.
Related Stories
Latest News
Key News Articles from Years Past
