Arizona Republic's latest layoffs

While the mainstream media was busy beating Michael Jackson's death and funeral to death (if such a thing is possible), here's what went largely unreported:

• President Obama's first meeting with Russian Prime Minister Vladimir Putin;

• Missiles fired by North Korea into the Sea of Japan;

• Overthrow of Honduras' President Manuel Zelaya ;

• Ethnic riots in China;

• Congress's debate over changes to health care and energy policy; and

• Our ongoing wars in Iraq and Afghanistan.

[Thanks to Bob Garfield of "On the Media" for this rundown.]

With journalism in such a sorry state, I'm not surprised that my local newspaper, the Arizona Republic, just announced another round of layoffs – 100 people, including 20 from the newsroom. Not surprised, though sad.

What does surprise me, though, is the lack of public comment or observation from ASU's Walter Cronkite School of Journalism and Mass Communication. From the outside looking in, it's business as usual at our local J school: Teaching students how to become journalists.

That's fine, but unless someone starts teaching non-journalists why they should value news, access to information, and the First Amendment, pretty soon we're going to have way more journalists than we need.

Wouldn't it be great if the Cronkite School expanded its involvement with the community? Right now there's the annual Paul J. Schatt Memorial Lecture, and outreach to high school students. What about something more daring? How about taking on the challenge of creating a state-wide program to raise the news literacy of citizens?

Why not a project that educates citizens on the value of journalism, the difference between news and opinion, the importance of fact checking, what makes a source reliable, figuring out where information originates, and on and on. Let's include news judgment in there: Why would a newspaper or TV news report lead off with one story and not another? Why might one event be covered in depth (or to appalling excess), while another event might be ignored? What are the ramifications of corporate ownership of media?

Journalism needs more than practitioners to thrive; it needs critical consumers. It's like Broadway: Not everyone can be on stage; someone's got to be part of the audience.

If the Cronkite School can figure out a way to get Arizona's citizens talking about what's news and what isn't, maybe there's a chance that today's working journalists can learn the difference, too. And if we're lucky, they'll learn it before the next big celebrity death.