If local officials (whether elected or appointed) want to be successful, they’ll have to set higher standards for themselves than our local press sets for them.
Successful leaders have been, are, and will always be those who set a better standard for themselves. There’s no partisan ideology in this – the same applies to those of left, right, and center.
I grew up enjoying newspapers, and look fondly on some even now.
We’ve two local dailies nearby, although none from within the city. It’s undeniable, to my eyes, that those papers have covered government officials poorly. For me that means that they’ve not really reported on local politics at all, but instead have fawned over elected politicians and appointed managers. It’s no surprise to any long-time reader that I feel this way.
And yet, and yet – the problem isn’t how I feel, but the damage that sycophantic coverage does to officials, themselves: mediocre coverage creates mediocre leaders, and mediocre leaders produce mediocre work. It encourages them to do less and try less, to settle for shoddy arguments and flimsy claims. Worse, it plays to the vanities of weak-minded officials: they eagerly lap the syrupy concoctions that toadying reporters too gladly serve.
A newspaper story should have some better use than as a page in an official’s scrapbook.
As a rule, local press analysis is poor, the scourcing that newspapers claim is their advantage is non-existent or laughably inadequate, and their quality of composition is wanting.
Coverage of major political initiatives, of policies supposedly worth vast sums, receives no careful review and assessment, but only the most cursory and unthinking acceptance.
It’s not true that this is the best newspapers can do.
Thousands of residents throughout our city, and millions of Americans across this continent, easily meet a higher standard each day than the flimsy coverage our politics receives in the traditional, local press. Americans are among the hardest-working and most competitive peoples in all the world. We are at the forefront of humanity’s accomplishments in science, technology, industry, and art.
Those accomplishments are not the works of a few, but the achievements of over three-hundred million of us, cooperating in countless transactions each day.
Why would any elected or appointed official set aside America’s high standards for the low standards of a local press?
Everyone is free to choose for himself or herself, but not all choices are equally beneficial. Looking outward to the best practices across America (and beyond) is our only sensible, productive, and prosperous approach.
No one in should settle for anything less.
