With a Little Help from Our Friends

Much ink and many pixels have been spilled over the news media industry’s contraction in recent years and likewise how this slow-motion disappearing act impacts American life: Democracy dies in darkness, corruption festers in shadow and so on and so forth. While I agree with the basic contours of this argument, I’m not here to linger on the problem which, by the way, is essentially intractable at this stage in the proceedings. 

Rather, I’d like to spotlight a solution — one that has very much animated how we’ve grown and improved New Mexico in Focus. (I’ve written about this approach and some of its fruits before for this newsletter.)  

Our thinking goes as follows: If everyone’s newsroom is shrinking, why not combine forces and do together what none of us can do alone? One hurdle: Journalism has historically been terribly competitive, with reporters and their respective news organizations looking to shank each other in the kidneys for “scoops,” “exclusives” and the like. But we believe that sort of thinking will only hasten journalism’s path to the proverbial dirt nap. 

As such, we’ve sought to broaden the canopy and build partnerships, thereby expanding not just what we can provide to our audience, but also the coverage of those who choose to link arms with us. 

For this week’s episode of NMiF, we clicked the kaleidoscope a couple of times for a slightly different view on this collaborative approach, bringing in journalists from three different news organizations for in-depth conversations about stories they’ve spent considerable time and effort in reporting out. These are stories we don’t have the resources to cover in a meaningful way but believe you should know about. 

The reporters are Carina Julig of the Santa Fe New Mexican, Source New Mexico’s Patrick Lohmann and Albuquerque Journal Staff Writer Justin Horwath. Each of them deserved to have their work held up and amplified, and we’re grateful for both their reporting and their time this week.

Look for more partnerships in the weeks, months and years ahead! 

– Jeff Proctor, Executive Producer