Media misses

Please indulge, Kind Reader, and read the following list of top 2008 Arkansas news stories from the vaunted news professionals around the state. It goes like this:

The Top 10 stories in Arkansas during 2008, as selected by Associated Press-member broadcasters and newspapers, as well as AP’s Arkansas staff.
1. Bad weather including tornadoes, floods and the remnants of hurricanes Ike and Gustav rake the state, leaving massive damage and deaths in their wakes.
2. Arkansas Democratic Party chairman Bill Gwatney dies in an August shooting at the party’s headquarters, slain by Timothy Dale Johnson for reasons still unknown by detectives.
3. Anne Pressly, a morning anchorwoman for Little Rock ABC affiliate KATV, dies after a brutal attack at her home in October that sparked worldwide interest in the 26-year-old’s slaying.
4. Arkansas voters pass a constitutional amendment allowing for a state-run lottery, ending a long-standing ban on the games in place since the 1800s.
5. Former Gov. Mike Huckabee becomes the last Republican standing in the long presidential primary, finally stepping aside for Arizona Sen. John McCain and later becoming a talk show host on the Fox News Channel.
6. Evangelist Tony Alamo faces charges he took young girls across state lines for sex after federal agents and state troopers raided his Fouke compound in September.
7. Arkansas’ natural gas reserves keep the state’s economy afloat as lawmakers increase the severance tax and those with land in the Fayetteville Shale play see dollar signs.
8. The Green Party wins its first-ever legislative seat as Democrats kept control of both the state House and Senate despite small Republican gains.
9. Verizon Wireless buys Alltel Corp. for $5.9 billion and assumes $22.2 billion of the Little Rock-based carrier’s debt, likely dooming many executive jobs based in central Arkansas.
10. The University of Central Arkansas becomes embroiled in criticism over its scholarships program and a bonus paid to President Lu Hardin, who later resigns.

Growing up in Johnson County, Arkansas, and with nothing more than diplomas from a public high school and a public college, there is the frequent fear that I’m missing something. The adoration of the President-elect, for example. He’ll probably be a good president, but enough with the breathless hype already. If he turns water into wine, call me and we’ll get all awestruck as we drive our 500-gallon water truck to the White House.

But this list from THE Associated Press found me doubting my senses. Have I failed to understand the socio-economic impact of religious nuts, green party candidates and slain journalists? The Pressly death was certainly tragic, but more important than the economic harm to Arkansans from a summer of $4 a gallon gas?

It was as if someone issued a report on historical military activity of June 1944 and never mentioned a thing about Normandy. This list makes one think a contemporary journalist could walk through the Louvre and, when asked about the artwork, respond with, “Didn’t see no artwork, but you have to walk through a lot of big open rooms with pictures on the walls before you get to the bathrooms.”

So I thought to ask the AP how they came to decide that more than 9,000 job cut announcements in Arkansas, $4 gas, a double-digit decline in Arkansas home sales and the virtual elimination of the payday lending industry in Arkansas could miss the list.

“Just curious as to how Pressly, Alamo and a green party success could rank higher than the loss of thousands of manufacturing jobs, the high gas prices, double-digit declines in the state’s housing market, and the exodus of the payday lending industry from the state — stories, by the way, that didn’t even make your top 10 list,” I noted in an e-mail to the AP’s Little Rock bureau. “Thanks in advance for addressing my curiosity.”

Ironically, the folks who depend on quality answers to their quality questions sent this response: “The top stories list is determined by a vote of AP members.”

Well, that explains it. (And I thought getting an informative answer from U.S. Sen. Mark Pryor was difficult.)

Having worked among journalists, it’s easy to speculate as to their line of reasoning: “The stories generated the most buzz. Folks around the world are talking about Anne Pressly and Tony Alamo. Headlines about tragedies to pretty and popular people and crazy bastards — and we’ll have team coverage if it’s a pretty and popular person who becomes a crazy bastard — are what the people read. It’s what gets the ratings.”

Franz and Helga in Stuttgart, Germany, might find Pressly and Alamo more interesting than our state economic issues, but I bet Frank and Helen in Stuttgart, Ark., don’t interrupt their time budgeting family finances to read or hear reports about a fake preacher who finds God with the help of teenagers.

To be sure, the point of this essay is less about my perceived inadequacies of a top 10 list and more about why the mainstream media continues to lose readership and trust.

And it’s a damn shame the traditional media continues to move further out of touch with what really impacts Americans. The media’s role as a civic and business watchdog diminishes each time they tell us one crazy preacher is more newsworthy than the economic and cultural ups and downs of the hard-working people in your community.