You think Tuesday was bad…
Al’s Loupe
You think Tuesday was bad…
By Alvaro F. Fernandez
alvaro@progresoweekly.com
This weekend I ran into an old friend. Someone I see occasionally. We worked together in a small newspaper in the 1970s. He was a firebrand back then. He used to chase bad cops.
I remember a North Miami Beach police chief calling it quits because of our work – he was the reporter; I was his editor. It had something to do with a strange helicopter purchase. A shady deal made with city funds… For years after that I remember driving very carefully in North Miami Beach. In fact, I avoided the area. You just don’t mess with cops…
Willy, I practically hollered inside a Lincoln Road store when I caught a glimpse of him. He looked old. I do too, I suppose. We spoke for a while. Imagine that: we were both in our 20s back then. We thought we’d grab our world by the… well, anyone who’s been 20-something and in a position of power knows what I’m talking about.
He is now a big honcho in a major newspaper. Been working there since 1980. He explained that the paper’s managing editor was retired. I don’ think he had a choice. My friend and another editor now run the newspaper. His new managing editor, his boss, runs several newspapers from somewhere else.
I was glad to see Willy. In fact, I’m always glad to see him. We run into each other once every few years, sometimes in the strangest of places. But our discussion this Saturday drove me to thinking.
The newspaper business is not what it used to be, I know. In his case, after 30 years in the same (big) company, my friend is looking forward to a comfortable retirement. His words, his attitude, struck me though. This guy used to drive me crazy. He’d chase every lead. It’s what made him a good reporter.
Now, I understand that time wears us all down. But our conversation revolved around making it through two, three more years, and then he’d retire comfortably. The fire that drove him, the vibrancy I admired was missing. His focus was making it, keeping his job, for three more years.
Yes, the work was important. I would never doubt that from my friend. He is a professional. But in the order of importance… the work, the news, seemed to come second: bad cops, corrupt politicians, underpaid and/or bad teachers were not a priority – at least not during our conversation. And that… is not the person I knew.
Let me emphasize that this column has very little to do with my friend Willy. It is what he represents that worries me.
I remember going into the newspaper business at a time when a president was driven from office for lying to the American people. A time when a major newspaper, owned by one family, believed more in what this country stood for than how much their media business stood to gain (or lose) because of Watergate. They risked it all and won – and the country was better for it.
Stories like Willy’s worry me. Newspapers – once this country’s fourth estate – are drowning in debt and more worried about surviving economically than chasing politicians who are stealing from us, for example. Which, by the way, does not mean, there are still not first-rate reporters doing what good reporters do. It’s just that there are fewer of them. And the few willing to take on the corruptible establishment are often times veered away from the real story by media outlets more worried about THEIR bottom line.
That is why I am not surprised with the results of Tuesday’s elections. What should worry us most, though, is a trend that’s moving faster than most of us realize. So if you think Tuesday was bad, hold on to your hats.
In the end it’s all about the money. And with control of it becoming more concentrated, who knows what hoops they’ll have us jumping through next.
