Romer event a yawner for the media
Friday, August 15, 2008Written by: Todd Engdahl
If former Colorado Gov. Roy Romer wants to draw the attention of politicians and the public to the failings of American schools, holding a Capitol steps news conference may not be the best tactic.
The ever-energetic Romer and a phalanx of Colorado education and political worthies lined up on the west steps Thursday to raise awareness about the need for education reform. (See story here.) The event was part of Romer’s nationwide Ed in ’08 campaign, sponsored by the well-funded Strong American Schools group.
Several reporters lurked on the steps to listen, and a row of TV cameras was rolling. But, the event seemed to yield little coverage in Denver’s MSM (mainstream media, generally used as a term of derision on journalism blogs and discussion groups).
The Denver Post used only two smallish photos and a copy block on page 2 of its second section. There was a sparse four-paragraph story on the paper’s website. The Rocky managed to squeeze a somewhat more substantial story into print – way in the back of the tabloid.
I’ll confess I didn’t watch any local TV news Thursday evening (hey, the Olympics were on), but the Romer event only had a 1-for-5 showing on station websites. Channel 9’s site had a text story with no video; there was no mention on the sites of channels 2, 4, 7 and 13.
To be fair to the local MSM, the news value of the event was as thin as the proficiency levels of some schools, given that it announced no new study, action plan, financial contribution, office opening or anything else concrete that reporters could hang a story on. And there was plenty of other local news Thursday, like the Roan Plateau leasing story and the latest dump of DNC stories. (Come to think of it, how much of that is news?) Finally, times are tough for the MSM – disappearing ad revenue, shrinking staffs, fewer pages in the papers. There’s less room for borderline stories that might have been more fully covered a decade ago.
So, the lesson for Strong American Schools (and every other group trying to raise the profile of education issues) is that names – Romer, Lamm, Ritter, Brown, O’Brien, Hickenlooper, et al – don’t necessarily make news on their own.
