But the frustration goes deeper than this, mostly because Panorama is legitimately gorgeous, and because Eggers and his team brought together such a ridiculous amount of talent.
It's hard not to see Panorama as a wasted opportunity. "What bugs me the most," a Manhattan media pal wrote to me, "is that all the work Panorama put into design could
actually have been really useful if it had been aimed at online
publications. Because online newspaper and magazine sites, even the
best ones, are still totally hideous."
Instead, Eggers and Co. spent a year fetishizing print -- which is fine if you believe, as he does,
that paper "is still the most viable model" for delivering news. For
the rest of us, reading Panorama is like participating in some ancient death ritual for the papers we grew up with. Farewell to the comics page. Farewell to the lifestyle section. Farewell to the pull-out book review section -- I'll miss you most of all.
As Gina Chen
pointed out last year, the current angst over how Americans consume
news is a lot like the ongoing angst about they consume other stuff, like food.
Observers worry that Americans are no longer interested in the
wholesome stuff, like hard-hitting investigations and watchdog
reporting. Instead, everyone's eating out at the world wide web
McDonald's, and it's starting to show. Look at our discourse. Look at
our democracy.
Now into the melee comes Dave Eggers, playing the role of the annoying guy who preaches the obvious.
"You
know," he tells us, kindly, "you would be so much happier if you sat
down every night with your neighbors and ate a delicious, carefully
prepared meal of locally sourced organic ingredients."
To which we reply, "No shit, Dave. Too bad we end up eating takeout at the office."
But
he's not listening. He's going to prove how much better our lives can
be by producing Panorama, the most exquisite media meal in history. He
recruits his pals, Michelin-star chefs from around the country, to
prepare the food. He has interns build a magnificent community dinner
table from scratch. He orders artisanal tableware and beeswax candles
produced by well-adjusted bees. It all takes nearly a year.
Finally, he invites us to the table."Eat!" he tells us. "This is what you should be doing every night!"
But
no, McSweeney's, the world doesn't work that way. We don't have the
time, or the money. Thanks for dinner, but this does not solve the
problem in our lives.
What we really need is not a magnificent sit-down meal, but the journalism equivalent of Apple Dippers: You know, one of those "healthy options" McDonald's introduced after the shaming it got from Supersize Me and that obsese children lawsuit.
True, I've never actually ordered the Apple Dippers at McDonald's, but I
feel the world is a little bit healthier just because they're there.
I'll probably feel the same way when Perez Hilton pulls a HuffPo and creates an investigative fund
dedicated to more worthy media causes. Ten years ago, the idea of
embarrassing McDonald's into serving more salads would have been
ludicrous. But if it can be done in fast food, maybe it can be done in
journalism.
I don't want to go too far with this "Apple
Dippers of journalism" metaphor, but I do think the place to focus our
attention is in this category. Not reporting for gourmands, but how we
create better everyday media options for the average American. In a
world of I Can Haz Cheezeburgers, we want something with a little more substance, but we still need to get it fast.
The Bay Area is a great place to make this metaphor, because fast-and-delicious food is a huge part of the culture here. Think Little Skillet or Bake Sale Betty or Gregoire.
These are local places that only serve a couple of things, but they
don't charge a lot and they make them supremely well. With the right
target group, small, high-quality fast food outlets can thrive, which
bodes well for hyper-local news sites like MissionLoc@l or Voice of San Diego.
Of
course, not every town supports this kind of food culture, and that's
why we have to go back to Apple Dippers, even though they're kind of
gross. It figures the reason McDonald's didn't used to serve many fruits
or vegetables was because they were harder to keep fresh, and because
they didn't think anyone wanted them. But when McDonald's started
offering marginally healthier options, it turned out people would buy
them after all. People would even pay five or six bucks for a McDonald's
Premium salad instead of two or three bucks for a burger. Find a
journalism equivalent for that kind of
willingness-to-pay-a-little-more, and we'll definitely be on the right
track.
Which doesn't exclude the occasional candlelit dinner, of
course. But the priority needs to be on creating the kind of journalism
we can consume every day.
***
I should note again that Panorama's partly community-funded Bay Bridge
investigation (a collaboration with SF Public Press and Spot.Us) is an
exception to my general criticisms of the paper. This is exactly the
kind of journalistic experimentation that we need. And they just beat out traditional newspapers to win a local journalism prize.
Want to check out our previous Dave Eggers/Panorama coverage?
Panorama Writers Aren't Retiring on Their Paychecks
Purported Newspaper Lover Dave Eggers Coy About Newspapering Past
