Jeff Marks
“What We Should Demand of Local Journalism.”
Jeffrey Marks, recently retired from a 45-year career as a broadcast journalist and manager, says that journalists are under pressures that make it difficult to do their real job: investigation into the truth.
Jeff started as a radio reporter in Kentucky, later managing television news organizations in Washington, DC, New Jersey, Maine, Georgia and Virginia. He held a variety of management positions with Maine Broadcasting Company when it owned the NBC affiliates in Maine. He spent the last decade of his career as president and general manager of WDBJ Television in Roanoke, Virginia.
The factors that weigh on local journalism today include the economics of the publicly traded companies that own most of the newspapers and television stations, the reduced commitment to investigative journalism, a reduced sense of local responsibility and the readiness of young journalists to do the hard work of the profession. Jeff will address them all.