Readers Are Just Not That Into You: Education Reporting and “Stakeholders.” The reaction to last week’s Brookings Institution report and panel on the state of education journalism helped illustrate the problem the organization was trying to address. Virtually all of the commentary came from people employed in the business. The rest of the media, never mind the public, never noticed.

Alexander Russo at This Week in Education was skeptical even before the panel met, and there’s still a back and forth going on about what he wrote. Flypaper was more positive, but noted the ground had been covered recently. Gotham Schools said, yes, there’s a problem; help us fix it. And the Education Writers Association doubled down with a two-part post (here and here) headlined “Everything that’s wrong with us.” NEA sent a staffer to observe the proceedings. He no doubt noted the absence of a single mention of unions, and went home happy.

The Brookings report noted that the biggest “education” stories of the year were actually not about education at all. They touched on presidential politics, or health, or scandal, or some other topic more appealing to a mass audience. Ay, there’s the rub.

For while there are many great education stories and great education reporters and great education coverage, education news remains a very tiny niche in a vast panoply of topics for Americans to read and care about. As tough as it may be to hear, education news just doesn’t make the cut.

How else to explain that many years after the fact, the public is ignorant and/or apathetic about the No Child Left Behind Act and charter schools, among many other subjects? We can blame it on reporters, editors, the economy, lack of access to classrooms, or whatever else you want. But the real issue is the general public just doesn’t care.

There’s a chicken/egg element to why this is so, but education coverage – along with much education policy – is designed with “stakeholders” in mind. That is, we write about education for people with a vested interest in education – employees, elected officials, lobbying groups and parents. The rest – a large majority of the total public – have no direct and immediate stake except for the taxes they pay to keep the system running.

If that seems harsh, take a look at any nice balanced story about teacher contract negotiations. There’s a quote from a school board spokesman, there’s a quote from a teacher union spokesman, and there might be a quote from a parent about the effect a possible strike would have on her and her children. Anything from property holders? Consumers? Small business owners? Retirees?

The funny thing is these people are the real “stakeholders,” according to the origins of the term. The stakeholder is the guy who holds the money bet by two other guys while they determine who gets all of it. When the game is over, the stakeholder is left empty-handed.

There’s nothing wrong with reporting that way. As someone who writes about a niche within a niche, I’m limited to readers who already hold an interest in the topic – just as I did when I wrote about Byzantine history. (There are more similarities than you might imagine.) You can only expand into a general audience incrementally that way. But the Brookings study laments education’s “invisibility” in the major media and among the general public. That’s a problem easily remedied: Write about what they care about, not what you think they ought to care about. Otherwise, embrace your small, dedicated audience of “stakeholders” and write for them.

But is it really correct that no one else is saying much? Paul’s separate post about union political spending describes how the status quo speaks to policy makers. Their form of speech attracts lots of attention.

The imminent demise of the DC Scholarship Program, (positive research notwithstanding) suggests to me that NEA/AFT still speak quite loudly to policy makers.

This skeptical assessment is not intended to diminish the indispensable contribution made by Ed Next and other outlets cited by Paul. Absent their efforts things would be truly discouraging.