The Houston Chronicle Editorial Board has decided to praise the movie Spotlight for winning an Oscar and showing why "journalism matters".
Hurrah for Spotlight. HoustonChronicle.com ($$$)
Of course, the elephant in the room is that the Chronicle, and most Hearst-owned publications for that matter, have transitioned from being legitimate journalism outlets to operating like gossip-sites such as TMZ.
The leadership has taken the focus off of journalism of the type everyone likes to romanticize and toward click-bait focused on implied side-boob, gross-out and shock-value pictures. Want to know what Johnny Manziel is doing, or who he's dating? Chron.com is the place for you. Want to read about how bad the region's largest employers really are? FuelFix.com. Want to know why Houston could be great if only it transitioned to become just-like every other city at great taxpayer expense? HoustonChronicle.com.
Want solid, watchdog journalism that focuses on issues of local/regional import? You might as well turn to ABC 13 and KHOU 11 because they are just about the only ones doing journalism of that type any longer.
Newspapers like to romanticize their role in society. The problem is the type of journalism they try and make people pine for only exists in very limited cases. For the Hearst media empire, it's all but non-existent.
So, hurrah for Spotlight, but boo to the Houston Chronicle.
A city as great as Houston deserves much better.
