I’m just as over-saturated with Jon Stewart / Daily Show stories as you are at this point, but there’s one long-ago moment that relates pretty directly to education journalism that still needs pointing out:
It’s Stewart’s blistering 2009 interview with CNBC host Jim Cramer about the role of the financial press in contributing to what would be called the Great Recession.
I wrote about this when it first aired (see The Jim Cramers Of The Education Press) and it’s worth revisiting now. Now as then, let’s be clear: I’m not suggesting that the education press has been as bad as the financial press seems to have been, or done as much damage.
But there are both a slew of technical issues — accuracy, disclosure, balance, and transparency — and also deeper, structural concerns — the appeal of controversy, fascination with the new, influence of advocates — that sometimes make me think that the narrative being presented to the public by mainstream media outlets may be seriously off the mark.
For all the amazing and voluminous education news coverage of schools out there right now, there’s a real question in my mind about whether mainstream education media are doing a good job describing what’s really going on in schools.
Related posts: The Special Education Narrative That May Not Be Right; What If Education Journalism Has Gotten The Narrative Wrong?; How To Handle Complex, Contradictory Information
