SPECIAL EVENT: Broadcast, Media Veterans Discuss 'Water In A News Desert' Sept. 27
12News anchor Mark Curtis (left), along with media executive and former publisher of The Arizona Republic Mi-Ai Parrish, and distinguished author and professor emeritus from University of Wisconsin-Madison Lewis Friedland, discuss ‘Water in a News Desert: The Reinvention of Local News,’ starting at at 1 p.m., Friday, Sept. 27.
The Integrity Project
Join KPNX 12News anchor Mark Curtis, media executive and former publisher of The Arizona Republic Mi-Ai Parrish, and distinguished author and University of WisconsinMadison professor emeritus Lewis Friedland at 1 p.m., Friday, Sept. 27, for an important and thoughtful discussion of America's growing public information void – Water in a News Desert: The Reinvention of Local News – broadcast live online and presented by The Integrity Project and the Walter Cronkite School of Journalism and Mass Communication at Arizona State University.
Register for this free event at TIPAZ.org. The virtual panel discussion begins at 1 p.m. MST / 4 p.m. EST Sept. 27. Attendees may also submit questions for the panel on the registration website.
WHAT IS A NEWS DESERT?
Media watchers coined the phrase “news desert” as a term to describe a community that lacks access to reliable and comprehensive news coverage following the closure of thousands of media outlets in the early 2000s and 2010s – mostly newspapers. The primary news-gathering organization for a town or geographic area for generations was lost, along with the editors, reporters and photographers who chronicled life in the area and held the powerful accountable.
“In the most abbreviated terms, we're essentially seeing the fallout of news-gathering contraction and consolidation brought on by changes to the news business since the introduction and broad adoption of the Internet in the mid-1990s and social media soon thereafter,” says Mi-Ai Parrish, the Executive Director of Media Enterprise at Arizona State University. “But through innovation and what we're calling a 'reinvention' of local news, there is hope. We will serve those voids and slake consumers' thirst for reliable news and information in the news deserts. Our First Amendment will survive.”
More than 1,300 communities in the U.S. are classified as news deserts. Some shuttered newspapers consolidated with others or moved their news organizations online. But not all rural areas have access to high-speed, and what news there is becomes subject to alternative narratives, conspiracy theories, and social media misinformation.
“Mis- and disinformation has become one of the defining challenges of our lifetime,” says Scott Brooks, the Executive Director at The Integrity Project. “The information vacuum created by the departure and diminishment of these news gathering organizations has allowed special interest to move in which can spread misinformation and consumers becoming less engaged with civic life.”
The Integrity Project brings together a panel of leading experts in the field, who will speak to the challenge of news deserts and the initiatives currently underway to revitalize community news in the affected areas:
MARK CURTIS, MODERATOR
Mark Curtis is a veteran journalist and anchor for 12News, where he co-anchors the 5, 6, and 10 o’clock newscasts alongside Caribe Devine. With more than two decades of experience at the station, Mark has become one of Arizona's most celebrated broadcasters. Over the course of his career, he has earned 13 Emmy Awards, an Edward R. Murrow Award, and two Associated Press Awards for Best Anchor.
Throughout his time at the station, he has covered numerous major events, including two World Series, five Olympic Games, and a range of political events from presidential primaries to inaugurations. Notably, Mark anchored live coverage of Senator John McCain’s funeral in Washington, D.C. in 2018.
Mark's career highlights also include his moving report on a terminally ill woman's decision to end her life, for which he won the prestigious Edward R. Murrow Award in 2021, and his 2022 induction into the Arizona Broadcasters Association's Hall of Fame, cementing his legacy as one of the state's most influential journalists.
MI-AI PARRISH, PANELIST
Mi-Ai Parrish leads Arizona State University Media Enterprise and is the Professor for Media Innovation and Leadership at the Walter Cronkite School of Journalism and Mass Communication. She is president and CEO of MAP Strategies Group, based in Phoenix.
Ms. Parrish served as president and publisher of The Arizona Republic/AZCentral.com and market president at USA Today Network, where the team won the 2018 Pulitzer Prize. Prior to The Arizona Republic, she held similar leadership roles at the Kansas City Star, and Idaho Statesman, and an array of newsroom roles at the Minneapolis Star-Tribune, the San Francisco Chronicle, among others. Parrish was the first Korean-American publisher in mainstream media, first BIPOC publisher in Idaho, Kansas City and Phoenix, and first woman publisher in Kansas City. She is the chairwoman of Poynter Institute Board of Directors, vice-chairwoman of Banner Foundation Board of Directors, secretary of Greater Phoenix Leadership, and serves on the boards of the Associated Press, Common Sense Media, the O'Connor Institute for American Democracy, The 19th News, Arizona Community Foundation, and others. She is a four-times Pulitzer Prize juror.
LEWIS FRIEDLAND, PANELIST
Lewis A. Friedland is Vilas Distinguished Achievement Professor Emeritus in the School of Journalism and Mass Communication and Dept. of Sociology (affiliated) UW-Madison. He is Founding Co-PI Emeritus of the Center for Communication and Civil Renewal and lead author of Battleground: Asymmetric Communication Ecologies and the Erosion of Civil Society in Wisconsin (Cambridge: 2022). He continues to publish on democracy and civil society, most recently“Recognition Crisis: Coming to Terms with Identity, Attention and Political Communication in the Twenty-First Century, Wells, C. and Friedland, (Political Communication, 2023) and “The Public Sphere and Contemporary Lifeworld: Reconstruction in the Context of Systemic Crises,” Friedland and R. Kunelius, (Communication Theory, 2023). Friedland continues his research with CCCR, and is Strategic Advisor for Civic Media, a statewide Wisconsin radio network and Filter Labs, a predictive opinion company.
He has been a consultant to Wisconsin Public Television for news and public affairs where his documentary productions have won duPont-Columbia, Emmy, Society for Professional Journalists and Corporation for Public Broadcasting Gold awards.
The Integrity Project is an apolitical 501c3 non-profit that seeks to uphold the standards of communication supporting a healthy, functioning society through education and research efforts. TIP maintains an online catalog of academic research projects, white papers, books and resources on misinformation and disinformation. For more, visit our website - TIPAZ.org
To register for Water in a News Desert: The Reinvention of Local News, CLICK HERE.