This is a funny article from the Atlantic, featuring the words of various media folks, warning that the internet has wrecked journalism. “It has blurred the line between opinion and fact and created a dynamic in which extreme thought flourishes while balanced judgment is imperiled.” Balanced judgment, we can gather, is what prevailed before 1995: three sources of news all saying the same thing.
Source link: http://blog.mises.org/9773/internet-hurts-journalism/
Internet hurts journalism?
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Oh, the irony.
Aside from the notion that critical analysis isn’t as productive as status quo stenography, it’s ironic in the extreme that a “media insider” would have such a nuanced view of production — especially since from every vacuous corner the major media’s mimidic mental midgets promote consumption as the primary economic driver.
Lets see who would feel that their products although not favored by consumers are superior to someone elses:
1. Employees of GM.
2. Northern European cell phone manufacturers. (US cell manufacturers said the same thing as well.)
3. Wooden golf club manufacturers.
4. Niagara Falls wedding planners.
5. US Major League Soccer, more than once.
6. Network nightly news broadcasts.
The only difference here is that these old media folks have an old media audience. The best solution is for them to innovate or go find jobs someplace else.
But look out, Obama is out there with the tentacles of the federal government trying to get into every business. Old media is an easy target.
Wow, that’s so idiotic. News consumption depends on life and events that result in, uh, news.
That article is self-serving trash. Like most of what old media is serving up, it is incorrect, badly reported and illogical.
For the most part, I used to believe in the “fourth” estate. I felt that they were an imperfect but decent source of information the majority of the time. That perception changed during the run up to the 2nd Iraq war. At the time, very few were asking the right questions. For the entirety of the Bush II term, very few did what I consider real news. If real content was provided, it was also bundled with well disguised partisan hackery. In the past 9 years, outside of the coverage of Hurricane Katrina and the tragedy that followed, none of the big networks and big papers got anything right. I felt the Daily Show, a comedy show, had better content than most networks were providing but they were only supplemental entertainment rather than information.
I asked myself if this was isolated. Looking back, I noticed that since the mid to late 1990′s news seemed more tabloid. The final straw was at the last half of 2007. What little faith I had left in conventional news sources was utterly destroyed during the Ron Paul campaign. His positions were either reported incorrectly or painted as evil and/or insane. (To be sure, I expected Paul to lose. And no, I didn’t expect anything remotely close to the kind of favorable coverage that Obama got, but I did expect a minimum of unbiased and honest reporting.) There was so much incorrect information and so many partisan attacks, it became unwatchable. It wasn’t for lack of openness. His voting record, speeches, video clips, interviews, mp3s, books and PDF’s were all on the internet, less than 4 mouse clicks away. I asked myself, “Can they even say they did ANY research?” If they couldn’t even correctly report on a man that was as open and spoke as plainly as possible, what else were they missing?
Taking the past 10 years into account, I decided that CNN, Fox, NBC, ABC, CBS and the Associated Press were to be avoided as main sources. On occasions that I want to know what the current (badly reported and sometimes incorrect) news is, I check old media. If I have to use an old media source, I now use only local affiliates and local newspapers with local reporters as my outlets. My current informational diet is internet based and decentralized across several countries. There are 7-8 stops along with a half dozen web-blogs.
And in regards to the “evil bloggers” many of the older media decry: They decry them because they are, as a whole, better. Most bloggers, while definitely partisan, are more upfront about their partisanship and also have much more insightful commentary than the usual suspects in regular media. Another great thing about the internet is that if something is reported via regular media and you question it, you can more easily verify it through a quick search. The web-blogs I frequent, for the most part understand this, and tend to act accordingly. Whereas old media either doesn’t or is slower to act. Also, the bloggers are far more personable and accessible, you can comment on their stories/posts and if your comment is good, the blogger responds publicly. On top of that, there are many more points of view in contrast to old media, which usually has, at most, 2 or 3 party lines that cannot be deviated from. In my mind, there’s no comparison at all.
I hope all the major media companies that perpetuate total nonsense to go bankrupt. I wish for the New York Times and the Washington Post to cease to exist. I hope CNBC goes under. I want to see Time Magazine, Newsweek and National Review stop publication forever. I can’t wait to see the day Fox News is liquidated. Of course, if those companies fire most of their staffs and start providing accurate reporting and good product, I’ll change my mind, but until then, I want none spared.
Internet unfortunately still depends very heavily on the old sources of news. Even much blogging in the libertarian secotr is based on reactions to news items made up by the old media (and statistics collectors). So old media actually dominate the internet, even if they’ve lost control over the analysis of the course of events they direct.
The core of old media power now lies in the news agency activities with staff making reportages, interviewing people, taking pictures, citing speakers, being there first. Then that selected content from the world outside is bounced back and forth (with succesively new comments attached) inside the can which is the internet.
Those folks don’t have much support for their arguments.
Journalists stopped delivering news a long time ago. Everyone who has to watch the news knows that what they actually deliver is:
* an outlet for the reporter to feel important instead of the news
* commentary which is not news but opinion, often whiny, often preachy, often interventionist
* lifestyle issues which obviously non-news, which are just personal preferences
* sensationalism, easily observed by the amount of puns, fake banter, scorn at situations you don’t understand, false empathy, or biases which should be nowhere near news
That said, I get the feeling they’ll work out a deal with Google and other online advertisers who will pay with their ads on the site for doing “journalism.”
It is so much more hilarious in Europe, where many news publishing houses openly declared their affiliation to some political party or other while they whine about the demise of “professional” journalism. Of course, the ritual conjuration of “independence” and its crucial importance for the “democratic process” is somehow compatible with begging for permanent state alimentation. Hilarious I tell you.
Apart from its obvious advantages, I hope the rising unemployment of media quacks will serve as a reality check to journalists of every coloration.
“It has blurred the line between opinion and fact.”
“Is the alleged categorical distinction between fact and opinion itself a fact or an opinion?” (Hoppe)
“It has blurred the line between opinion and fact and created a dynamic in which extreme thought flourishes while balanced judgment is imperiled.”
They’re crowding them out!
I love pithy Hoppe quotes.
Anyone read Johann Hari on this?
“The internet has …created a dynamic in which extreme thought flourishes while balanced judgment is imperiled.”
That’s a testable hypothesis. But why bother when you think you know the answer already.
Competition is good.
People also forget about the symbiotic relationship between mainstream journalists and government. As one involved in the infamous Duke Lacrosse Case, I can see that the professional journalists really were the source of a lot of the trouble.
These “journalists” were buying the leaked lies of the prosecutor and the police and reporting them as fact. For all of the “we really care about the facts and bloggers don’t” nonsense in this article, I can tell you that the “professional” journalists cared most about getting stuff from the government officials. The last thing that they cared about was whether or not the “facts” they received were true. In fact, the bloggers turned out to be better connected to the sources that mattered: the people who knew the truth.
Most journalists pretty much are shills for government. They claim to be government “watchdogs,” but lapdogs is more appropriate.
This commenter points out that the idea of “balanced” (neutral, objective) journalism is a relatively new phenomenon:
In other words, the reason we have “Objective journalism” is that one of the factions defeated the others and crowned itself objective.
You can get your news wherever you want. In my opinion most news lacks substantiation or fact. It is comprised of opinions, which as we all know, when repeated enough, become truth. This is especially true on the internet when a false story can begin and become viral within hours. Most people do not have time to fact check the news they read. In my opinion, a good news source is one that reports on facts and their trends, but leaves the interpretation largely to the reader.
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