Newsroom emergencies

In my first years as a reporter at a Massachusetts newspaper I occasionally filled in for the city editor when he had to step out of the newsroom.

One day when I was on the desk, the phone rang and I grabbed it to hear a very anguished voice say: “Sir, my newspaper didn’t come this morning. I read it every day on the toilet and when I can’t read my newspaper, Nothing Happens!”

I said: “We’ll get you a paper right away, sir” and then called circulation and asked them to rush the guy a paper so he could start his day the right way.

That long-ago incident comes to mind when I read about what is happening in the news business. I’ve spent half my working life in journalism. The other half was in public relations, which the way I did it was essentially using journalism skills to make things happen.

I made a pretty good living at PR and only gave it up when Bill Tobin called in 2000 and asked me to become an editor and columnist at the Voice of The Times. I loved that job and went to work every day with enthusiasm I hadn’t experienced in a long time.

Bill had hired me to work for The Times when I came here in 1967 and I left for a PR career two years later when ARCO offered me a job after its discovery at Prudhoe Bay. Going back to journalism in the twilight of my working life was a pleasure I couldn’t resist.

That’s where I met Paul Jenkins, who was the third editor at The Voice of The Times and today is my editor at The Anchorage Daily Planet. My other editors are at The Mat-Su Valley Frontiersman, where this column also appears.

I mention these things because I’m saddened at what is happening to journalism on the national front. Journalism jobs are disappearing — and the nation is a worse place for it. As newsrooms are shuttered or downsized and the number of reporters and editors declines, the space given to mainstream journalism is shrinking and, no surprise, government is growing.

The problem is being caused largely by the growth of the Internet, which is a mixed blessing. At one extreme you have legitimate traditional news organizations like The Planet and online versions of The Frontiersman and The New York Times, and at the other end you have the junk news outlets that so many morons frequently quote.

The Internet is spewing bad information into the public mind and we are the worse off for it. A dangerous situation is developing that could have disastrous consequences, both political and economic.

It’s important that readers and other consumers of information learn to distinguish quality reporting and commentary. Hopefully what we are going through now is a transitional phase that we will outgrow.

And eventually the public, at least those conscientious enough to vote and contribute to their communities, will grow to understand the difference and gravitate to quality journalism sources like The Frontiersman, The Planet and other good information sources, both in Alaska and nationally.

But let me leave you this week with a frightening thought suggested by my first days in journalism: if the electric grid ever goes down, the presses stop and the Internet goes dark, we could be looking at worldwide constipation.