Delve into one of our local papers. What is the balance between hard and soft news? What kind of topics are being covered? Are they still the watchdogs they used to be?
I spent some time in the Deseret News (online) and most of the front page headlines were hard news giving details and facts about what is going on in our community and world. There were a few features, or soft news, stories that were listed under "Top Stories." There were three articles covering the effects of the trouble we are seeing in the economy, from high grocery bill prices to fewer flights over Thanksgiving. The top story that showed up was about the holes in the ground from the former Cottonwood Mall. There were articles about the Utah Jazz, and Utah's football rankings. There was an article about the Church's relief in Lousiana, and about Latinos getting help from a UVU program. Then was an article about picking the right pumpkin and one about the sale of vinyl records coming back. The local newspaper covers a varitey of different topics, but all seem vital to our little Utah Valley community.
I think the newspapers are still the watchdogs they used to be. They are on the lookout for anything that the public would want or need to know about. For example, this article (http://www.deseretnews.com/article/1,5143,705256560,00.html) was about a secret fight of Freddie Mac and gives the public an insider view concerning some vital issues. I found an example on Wikipedia, "In recent history, a notable example of watchdog journalism was the exposure of Dan Rather's investigative segment which cast George W. Bush's military record in an unfavorable light. The segment was based on the Killian documents, which blogger journalists exposed as being insufficiently verifiable as authentic."
http://www.niemanwatchdog.org/ - Questions the press should ask
http://www.ncpa.org/ - National Center for Policy Analysis
http://www.fair.org/index.php?page=100 - National media watch group
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