First of all, there is the obvious betrayal of the journalistic ideal of objectivity. I know, I know--no one buys the notion that such a thing exists. But running unedited press releases from a government public information office is an obvious abdication of even newspaper.jpg the pretense of presenting a rounded view of things, or acting as any kind of a watchdog.
Secondly, this is just one more incident that blurs the line between supposedly objective news providers and outright propaganda. It's gotten harder to know whether something you're reading is the product of the LA Times or the NRA. By the time an article reaches your Web browser or cell phone, it may have been filtered through a variety of blogs or a large group of cross-platforming corporations--Times to Yahoo! to SBC.
Finally, this little experiment probably won't serve its apparent purpose of making people believe the Newark city government is doing wonderful things. There's an eternal debate about why good news doesn't get more coverage. In government, one big reason is that people in executive agencies tend to be wary of talking with the press. They worry that they'll be cast in a poor light.
That's not an irrational fear. But as a result--and in contrast to, say, technology companies--most governments have never mastered the art of framing their good news in a way that is at all compelling. Outsourcing the dissemination of press releases to the Newark Weekly News won't make them any more engaging.
If any city councils are interested in having me write nice stories about them, do me a favor--don't hold a public vote about how much you're going to pay me.
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