30 outubro 2002

VITAMEDIAS
Lax media let legislators hide ties: Washington has about 1,900 accredited newspaper and wire-service journalists watching Congress. The typical state has only 10 newspaper reporters keeping their eyes on its legislature. There used to be more.
Charles Layton and Jennifer Dorroh follow this issue for the Project on the State of the American Newspaper. They reported this summer that the 510 newspaper reporters now assigned to the 50 state capitols represent ''the lowest number we have seen and probably the lowest in at least the last quarter century.'' [...]
James Madison, one of the Constitution's authors, was well aware of the important watchdog function when he said, ''Knowledge shall forever govern ignorance.'' But the decline of newspapers is intensifying the problem of unequal distribution of knowledge.
Newspaper influence peaked in the 1920s, when, on a typical day, sales of daily papers equaled 130% of the nation's households. By last year, that number had dropped to 53%.