These observations are accurate, and illustrate a huge weakening of our nations ability to accurately investigate, discover, and disseminate important information. This example is a narrow one, but I suspect is similarly repeated across our media industry.
In tough times, the truth is critically important, and must be demanded by the citizens. It is not enough to merely hope for an unbiased, and diligent media. With hope alone, we will increasingly be reading news designed by investors with deep pockets, submitted by reporters more interested in supporting their investments than in fulfilling the public's need to be well informed.
It appears that no one in the press considers the fact that the student
loan default rate is far higher than even the subprime default rate to
be newsworthy, despite the fact that for years, all of the players
(colleges, lenders, government) persistently published "default rates"
of 4- 8 percent...this would have been headline news 3 years ago and
prior. Today, not one Higher Ed reporter has stepped up with coverage, since Nick Perry initially discovered the IG study that showed this to be the case. It is astonishing to me that for the past two years, higher ed reporters were quite happy to sit on this new information instead of informing students and their parents that across all colleges, about 1 in 3 students default on their loans. This is a bit of information that they may want to be aware of going in. Why did no one jump on this new information?
One trend that did occur was a huge press emphasis on private, for-profit colleges...(the ones you see everywhere on tv). Don't get me wrong, these colleges are bad actors, and are likely hurting as many students as they are helping, if not more. But still and all, nearly every reporter I talked to in the past 12-16 months has been focused like a lazer beam on this narrow topic...this is not balanced, and I think the public was ill served by the overkill. I know that there was pressure to do this angle from investors, advocates ( including myself), and perhaps even from within the federal government, who is finally starting to remember they are there to crack the whip on colleges.
Ok. Great...but the press responded like trained animals, not truth seekers and tellers.
The student loan beat is but one small branch of journalism, I realize, but I suspect that similar phenomena are occuring system wide. If I am correct then this is a new thing we are seeing, and something to be taken seriously. The fact that it has persisted industry wide for well over a year gives me the impression that it may not be going away...rather, this "safe zone" of gross negligence seems to have gained a foothold.
Reporters get scared of the truth like the rest of us. What they must know intrinsically, however, is that in times like these (where it is appropriate for predatory, monopolistic, or otherwise harmful business entities to rethink which master they should be serving), Reporters and their editors must redouble their commitment to practice absolutist, truth driven investigative journalism in the public interest, not according to agendas set by mega wealthy investors, deep pocketed, manipulative advertisers, etc.