JeffK wrote:I have been beating this drum for at least the last 5 or 6 years, to no avail. The Inquirer has a couple of reporters who do part-time reporting, but that's about all.
I'd give them a little more credit than that--Jere Downs does definitely have SEPTA on her beat, but it's probably unrealistic to expect the Inquirer to put someone on a beat where all they do is transportation: they just don't have that many people because Knight-Ridder is using the Inquirer as a cash cow. The same criticisms can be made lots of other places--how can they try to pass themselves off as a major national paper if they can't have a full-timer writing on wine, frinstance.
And this isn't new: fifteen years ago when Mark Bowden was covering SEPTA, it wasn't his only beat. But after Bowden left and Gambaccini was in place, the Inquirer largely ignored SEPTA despite its importance to the region and its being a target-rich environment for any enterprising journalist (I'd love to get paid to kick over rocks at 1234 Market St). It was only after Metro was announced that the Inquirer decided to get serious about covering SEPTA again, at which point Jere got the assignment.
The DN has been a bit more willing to get scrappy about SEPTA issues but they seem to have dropped the regular blasts from their Phantom Rider. No one has a full-time transit beat.
Well Fr^H^H Phantom retired a few years ago, but the various city desk writers who've covered SEPTA since (Phantom didn't actually do much news coverage) have done more than a respectable job, especially Bob Warner. What you're seeing is that the News is more willing to intentionally embarrass SEPTA.
One more consideration is that a lot of the really bad stuff is on the railroad side and in planning, rather than in transit operations, and the Daily News still holds to the (incorrect) stereotype that the railroad isn't for city people.
I've made repeated suggestions to various personnel at the Inky that they could get a lot of mileage if they launched one of their investigative reports, but all they do is listen politely and go on to some other story.
Baffles me too. All I can do is keep saying "target-rich environment." It cries out for some good old-fashioned newspapering, but that is pretty undervalued in modern journalism: the road to success nowadays is through trying to nail the President, or writing sports and getting a gig on the radio.
What disturbs me most is an incident that happened about 5 years ago: I did manage to get the ear of one Inquirer reporter and spent about 2 hours on the phone detailing everything from EPA violations to fare-gouging. They listened, seemed very interested, and promised to get back to me for more information and contacts. A couple of weeks later, they called and said, sorry, I've been told not to pursue the story any further.
I can report a similar thing happening to a story I had helped with research on. I'm speculating here, but given the editorial attitudes and the fact that it's the stories that make management look bad that disappear, that someone on high is of the belief that criticizing SEPTA management is the same as criticizing public transportation, and somehow constitutes disloyalty to the cause. Never blame SEPTA when you can blame the stingy pols in Harrisburg. It's been like that ever since Lou Gambaccini was in charge, and Uncle Lou had a mesmerizing effect on the media.
