Media Musings: Higher education is a priority
There’s no doubt The Tennessean, the region’s major daily newspaper, has walked away from any meaningful coverage of higher education and the budget crisis.
As this column is being written, Channel 5, which has given solid coverage, and Channel 2, which aired part of the governor’s call for empowerment to continue essential services, is reporting the deadlock is continuing.
But it’s The Tennessean that must bear the responsibility for its failures, because broadcasting in Nashville is so mediocre overall compared to its glory days we shouldn’t expect much.
My journalism students, who really do read area newspapers, are amazed at the absence of coverage. They cannot figure out why and there’s no answer that is suggested that suffices.
One possible approach is because the legislature no longer cares about higher education any more than The Tennessean. Whenever they speak, they speak of K-12 and “the children.” If that’s true, then the paper should have put higher education on the agenda and let the devil take the legislature.
Also, when you talk with some of the Rutherford County representatives you hear such remarks as “I never get a call about higher ed” or “I got some calls from faculty saying there is waste at the university.”
Education, by its nature, is complex and what a few malcontents call waste should have been confronted in news reports. There are literally thousands of students in higher education who now realize that no matter what the legislature does, it is finally getting to the point it no longer will set aside the dollars for higher education. When you tell a student who has worked his or her way through the university that they are facing a brutal 25 percent tuition increase, you actually see the pain on his or her face.
What the legislature is doing is passing the financial obligations to the students and parents and that means more borrowed money, more time at the university to complete a degree, more delay in starting a career rather than a job.
The bitterness is so palpable the student’s report more and more how they will leave the state upon graduation because of its failure to support them in their quests for economic freedom and success.
They feel, as does this column, The Tennessean has missed so many obvious opportunities to tell higher education’s story. Why did not the paper plan such coverage? Michael Cass, who’s a fine young reporter, does a good job of coverage but he’s only one reporter.
Why did not the paper spend the time and energy to talk to the presidents of the institutions at length? Why did it not explain the top jobs are not going to be available to a person with a high school diploma? Why did the paper not talk about how no Tennessee university is considered outstanding? Why did it give voice only to UT in terms of dealing with the crisis?
When the essentials-only budget was passed, higher education, now enrolling thousands of students, was not on the list. With no big media pressure, it was easy enough to ignore the students planning on August graduation. And that’s the point. The public case for higher education has gone virtually untold.
Put this into perspective: The quality of a society is the way the heart of the democratically established power center treats its young, its voiceless, its needy. The only way the people can know when that center is failing its young is from newspapers, at least in this area.
That’s why The Tennessean’s failure is so painful. It, too, walked away from the young.
(Ed Kimbrell is a professor in MTSU’s School of Journalism.)