Press Club panelists give opinions on news

Four  panelists at Wednesday afternoon's Akron Press Club roundtable agreed there are more news sources than ever for the public to sample.

Here are some of their opinions

Doug Oplinger, managing editor of the Akron Beacon Journal:

''Our readership [newspaper and online] has gone up dramatically in the last seven years in the Akron area. We now penetrate 80 to 90 percent of the homes in the Akron area. That's huge.''

Dr. Stephen Brooks, associate director of the Bliss Institute of Applied Politics at the University of Akron:

''Good political coverage at the local level is important. Our system works best when people are informed.''

Mark Williamson, director of communications for the city of Akron and a former news director at now-defunct WAKR-TV (Channel 23), relatING a story Fred Anthony, former news director at WAKR radio, told him:

''Get it right before you get it first. It's just got to be right. Truth is a casualty of speed.We are getting a lot of big things wrong. We are getting away from stenographic reporting. We need to just tell what happened. Just tell the truth.''

 Ed Esposito, news director at WAKR (AM-1590):

"Immediacy is demanded,  The news cycle works faster. Everything is faster in life. You want to know the story, and you want to know it now.''

Esposito said there was another dangerous aspect of new media, which extends to Facebook and Twitter.

''The most unfortunate casualty of new media is that we take opinion as fact,'' he said.

Brooks added that ''being first isn't as important as it used to be. Being there when it happens is important.''

''One of the things that makes us confident is people going online are not stopping at one place,'' he said.  ''They will go to four or five places and decide what is reliable.

''If [news sources] get it wrong all the time, people won't go back.''

Brooks said that while the avenues of information have expanded, today's readers are no more or less lazy or busy than in the past.

''What has changed is there is no longer the hierarchy that tells us what is responsible and what is not,'' he said. ''We are responsible for discerning that. The truth is very elusive

''And there is a big difference between being informed and being aware. We have a lot more people aware today.



Click on the headline to read Bill Lilley's story in the Beacon Journal.