Time to Move Beyond Steiner

I have doing quite a bit of headshaking and eye-rolling over the recent outcry over the sacking of WYPR icon Marc Steiner.

I understand that people had a strong attachment to him. It’s understandable. The guy has been with us for years, sharing our lunchtime errands, or hanging out with us for a couple of mid-day hours at the home office. We listen to talk radio when we are alone, and as a result we find a way to bond with our radio companions that kind of defies normal. Think about it. Do you really know Marc Steiner, the person? Is this someone that you should defend to the point of signing petitions or protesting on the sidewalk?

There are plenty of sordid office tales of Mr. Steiner that I am not going to go into. But I think we can all guess that his personality, while potentially great for the airwaves, was probably less charming in the office setting. It takes a certain ego to host a show, and that ego was certainly boosted by years of canonization as Saint Marc, the savior of Baltimore. While I am not going to defend the way in which he was removed, I can imagine that there were more than a few happy WYPR staffers that next morning.

Don’t get me wrong. Baltimore—or any city—needs a Steiner. But it’s not that they need Steiner specifically. What is needed is something that has been lost in the idiocy of newspaper profit-hunting: Public Accountability. While I will maintain my Sun subscription to the bitter end (mine or theirs), the paper is nothing like it was even five years ago. The Post isn’t that much better, really, especially on state issues. It is critical to subscribe and support the paper because the real news media (and I specifically exclude anything that claims to be either Live, Local, Late-Breaking, or all three) because good reporting is a critical check on the activity of government.

Without good reporting, City Hall, Annapolis, and Washington can do anything they damn well please. The New York Times basically took the President at his word over claims of Iraqi WMD’s. How did that one turn out? On my favorite state politics issue (gambling, in case you missed it), the papers have pretty much completely neglected the reality that the entire slots debate is special-interest driven and without million after million in lobbying and campaign money, this issue would have been dead years ago.

But back to Steiner. I was a guest on the show more than once. I thought he did a passable job. But the most important thing he did was offer a forum where boring yet important issues could be explored in a modestly detailed kind of way. But at least it was something in a world where real consideration of complex issues is non-existent. And while I think most people don’t quantify it that way, that is what we are outraged about. The loss of one of the last bastions of real analysis and dialogue is a serious blow in a world of talking points and sound bites.

What we need, what we must demand, is not the return of Steiner, but the preservation of the forum. WYPR needs to absolutely guarantee that the opportunity for dialogue and real discussion of complex and important local issues is preserved.

I would ask the hordes of angry Steiner-istas is this: would Saint Marc himself lead a grassroots uprising to save a talk radio host from temporary unemployment? Let’s face it—Baltimore has problems. Lots of problems. You could pick one out of a hat and make a real difference with an effort of one hour a week. Seriously. If you decided that Baltimore’s school buildings were a crumbling mess, you could organize a group of thousands of BCPS parents to lobby Annapolis for a real solution. I could list ten examples of critical issues and get you started in any number of directions. And you could be a major force for real change.

Saving Marc Steiner is not in my list of top ten causes, or my top fifty. Should it be in yours?