{"id":12298,"date":"2020-03-09T13:19:56","date_gmt":"2020-03-09T17:19:56","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.theseventhstate.com\/?p=12298"},"modified":"2020-03-09T13:20:04","modified_gmt":"2020-03-09T17:20:04","slug":"in-moco-public-media-are-replacing-private-media","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.theseventhstate.com\/?p=12298","title":{"rendered":"In MoCo, Public Media are Replacing Private Media"},"content":{"rendered":"\n

By Adam Pagnucco.<\/em><\/p>\n\n\n\n

The disappearance of local media has been a worrisome trend around the nation for years.\u00a0 MoCo is not immune.\u00a0 In the last year, three local media outlets \u2013 the Town Courier<\/a>, the Montgomery Sentinel<\/a> and Germantown Pulse<\/a> \u2013 have all gone dark.\u00a0 That follows earlier closures of the Montgomery Journal (2005<\/a>), TBD.com (2012<\/a>), the Washington Examiner\u2019s local print edition (2013<\/a>) and the Gazette (2015<\/a>).\u00a0 Many remaining media outlets are strained by over-stretched staff and frequent turnover.\u00a0 Long-time MoCo government reporters like A.J. Metcalf (formerly of Bethesda Beat) and Bill Turque (formerly of the Washington Post), both of whom worked their beat for more than four years and developed extensive source networks, are becoming rare. Even rarer are private media start-ups like Maryland Matters.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

All of that is widely known.  But here is something that has attracted less\nnotice: with the decline of private news media, the fact is that the largest,\nbest-financed entity now covering county government is the county government\nitself.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Montgomery County\u2019s government, like the huge majority of\nlocal governments, has always had a communications capacity.  That\u2019s a legitimate governmental function as\nresidents have a right to know how their tax dollars are being used.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

But the county\u2019s communications system has become larger, more sophisticated and more ambitious as the private media have become smaller.\u00a0 Ten years ago, the county government had little social media presence.\u00a0 Now, the county has multiple feeds<\/a> on Facebook, Twitter, YouTube, Flickr and Instagram<\/a> along with several blogs.\u00a0 County Cable Montgomery (CCM), which is part of county government, describes itself<\/a> as \u201cthe local cable station you’ll want to turn to for local government news, public affairs programming, live Council sessions and County Executive press conferences.\u201d\u00a0 Montgomery Community Media (MCM), a non-profit that receives more than 80% of its funding from government<\/a>, describes part of its mission<\/a> as being \u201ca valued, trusted, \u2018go to\u2019 source for news, information and programming relevant to Montgomery County.\u201d\u00a0 Both outlets pump out hundreds of professionally produced videos that look much like the work of private media outlets.\u00a0 The lines between government communications, government-provided \u201cnews\u201d and promotion have been blurred beyond recognition.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Unlike private media, government communications and media\noutlets are subject to funding decisions made by elected officials.  The table below shows budgets and full-time\nequivalent positions for five county government communications and media\nentities in FY15 and FY20.  These are\nonly partial totals as they exclude communications positions in county\ngovernment outside the Office of Public Information and funding for the\ntelevision channels run by MCPS, Montgomery College and municipal governments.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\"\"<\/figure>\n\n\n\n

While local private media have been shrinking, funding\nfor MoCo public communications has grown by 45% in just five years.  More than 60 communications staffers work for\nthe county and MCPS and that excludes employees of MCM.  With a combined budget of nearly $12 million,\nthe county almost certainly dwarfs the private sector in its production of\ncommunications and local \u201cnews.\u201d \nRevenues for these public entities are derived from tax dollars and\ncable franchise fees paid through cable bills, meaning that private media entities\nare essentially required to fund their public competitors.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

There is nothing inherently bad about the county\ngovernment having a voice.  However, when\nthe government\u2019s voice is not balanced by vigorous private media, problems\narise.  For example, many statements made\nby the county go unvetted and unchallenged for two reasons: the private media\nlacks the resources to do so and the county\u2019s posture is to present its own\nview, not necessarily the views of others. \nNews stories by professional reporters often present multiple\nperspectives on an issue.  But when a\ncounty official expresses an opinion on County Cable Montgomery, the county\ngovernment\u2019s flagship \u201cnews\u201d channel, how often are other people with different\npoints of view interviewed and allowed to disagree?<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\"\"<\/figure>\n\n\n\n

County Cable Montgomery \u201cnews\u201d program County Report This Week promotes the county liquor monopoly in an interview with Alcohol Beverage Services Director Bob Dorfman.\u00a0 Monopoly critics were not interviewed.<\/em><\/p>\n\n\n\n

Furthermore, consider that what the county wants you to know is not always what you need to know.\u00a0 Government-controlled outlets are unlikely to do a lot of reporting on stories such as tax liens filed against County Council Members<\/a>, ethics commission investigations of senior government officials<\/a>, credit card abuses by school board members<\/a>, elected officials pushing secret no-bid contracts<\/a>, construction failures on huge county construction projects<\/a>, epic failures of the liquor monopoly<\/a> and massive outflows of taxpayer income<\/a>.\u00a0 If they did, they might offend the elected officials who fund them.\u00a0 Without private media, such stories might never see the light of day.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Finally, think about what this means for political\ncompetition.  How are challengers\nsupposed to defeat incumbents when the incumbents effectively control the\ndominant media entity in the county?  Is\nthis one reason why no county-level incumbent lost reelection to his or her\ncurrent seat in either 2014 or 2018?<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Public media are here to stay but they must be balanced\nby private media.  If you agree, please\npatronize and financially support any private media outlets that you believe\noffer quality local news coverage of the county.  It\u2019s in your own self-interest to do so.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

By Adam Pagnucco. The disappearance of local media has been a worrisome trend around the nation for years.\u00a0 MoCo is not immune.\u00a0 In the last year, three local media outlets \u2013 the Town Courier, the Montgomery Sentinel and Germantown Pulse \u2013 have all gone dark.\u00a0 That follows earlier closures of the Montgomery Journal (2005), TBD.com … Continue reading In MoCo, Public Media are Replacing Private Media<\/span> →<\/span><\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":4,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_jetpack_newsletter_access":"","_jetpack_dont_email_post_to_subs":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_tier_id":0,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paywalled_content":false,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":"","jetpack_post_was_ever_published":false},"categories":[151,186],"tags":[1545,1875],"class_list":["post-12298","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-adam-pagnucco","category-media","tag-adam-pagnucco","tag-media"],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"","jetpack_shortlink":"https:\/\/wp.me\/p4mKJE-3cm","jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.theseventhstate.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/12298","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.theseventhstate.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.theseventhstate.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.theseventhstate.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/4"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.theseventhstate.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=12298"}],"version-history":[{"count":2,"href":"https:\/\/www.theseventhstate.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/12298\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":12302,"href":"https:\/\/www.theseventhstate.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/12298\/revisions\/12302"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.theseventhstate.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=12298"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.theseventhstate.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=12298"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.theseventhstate.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=12298"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}