PENNSYLVANIA: 'Wall hanging'
by Gene Collier, columnist, Pittsburgh Post-Gazette

On an exterior wall of the editor's office at the Pittsburgh Post-Gazette hangs a framed, enlarged cover of The New Yorker, the one that taps into an apparent New York perspective on the relative geography of the balance of America, the part that is not New York. It shows 9th Avenue in Manhattan in the foreground, then 10th Avenue, then the Hudson, then Jersey, then . . . Kansas City. An inch beyond, the Pacific, then presumably the abyss.

Though it might be regarded as an apt, pastel metaphor for New York's thick concentration of media and some inherent informational distortion, its significance in this office is purely decorative. Do the New York media affect what we do? Undoubtedly. And what is the significance of that? Unclear.

"It's like thinking about who produces the majority of food in your diet," said the Post-Gazette's editor, John Craig. "It's like asking what effect the plain states have on you. Well sure, most of the farming is done there. But in a way, so what? You buy what you think is best, regardless of where it comes from.

"Because you have a concentration of media in New York, do you then have a concentration of conventional wisdom? I don't see the country quite that way. I see it more as New York, Washington, L.A. The government is in Washington, and that's where most news comes from. The entertainment industry is in Los Angeles, and the large portion of that kind of news comes from there, with some of that obviously from New York as well."

While clearly no American media outlet beyond Manhattan should be habitually spoon-fed by New York, the explosive proliferation of news sources elsewhere has forever changed the equation. It might not be any easier to avoid distortion out there, but it is far easier to avoid New York's special brand of it.

Gene Collier spent twenty-two years as a sports writer for several Pennsylvania and New Jersey papers. He became a columnist in 1984.