09 dezembro 2002

VITAMEDIAS
Journalists losing touch with the man on the street: In other words, many big-city journalists -- especially those who set the agenda for what gets covered in the rest of the media -- have moved away from much of the largely middle- and working-class audience they purport to serve. At best, they're out of touch. At worst, they've become elitists.
The natural sympathy that most journalists feel for the underdog and for the downtrodden prevents the media from ignoring the poor. The fascination that the American public has with the rich and famous prevents the media from ignoring the upper strata of society. But newspapers seldom write about the middle class, the working class -- white- or blue-collar.
"We don't write about them because we no longer live like them," says Martin Baron, editor of the Boston Globe. "We live in other neighborhoods, and we don't visit theirs. And I fear that there is a subtle disdain for their lives, their lifestyles, their material and spiritual aspirations."