Yesterday I heard a news radio guest blame the media for something. I think it was the way Amanda Knox's friends and family were able to bend it towards their will. It doesn't matter. The point is this: we get the media we deserve, the media we demand, and the media we want.
It's always been this way. But now with citizen journalists (like, say, me writing this) anyone with an internet connection and a computer can publish anything with impunity (the button above to put this on the web is labeled "PUBLISH"). No longer must you amass the wealth to build or buy printing presses and distribution channels. Citizen journalists don't see their keyboards as an access point to a sacred public trust they way Editors and Journalists (cap "E", cap "J") did in the past. Remember how the White House press corp during FDR went to pains to help him hide his wheelchair-bound presidency? They believed the public good would be ill-served by promoting his handicap. Publishing photos and telling stories of his infirmity would violate the sacred trust of serving the public good.
Yet even way back then when everything in America was great (smell the sarcasm?) newspapers gave people what they wanted. The stories of Capone were irresistible to read and therefore to print. Never-mind the bloodshed, tell us more! People wanted it. The media delivered. But pre-internet, pre-cable news, pre-24/7-always-on-media-era there existed a nobles oblige culture among Editors and Journalists that tempered stories (now called content) to serve, as much as possible without hurting profits, the public good.
The democratization of media through the web has bypassed that tempering culture, crushed it under billions of free form websites. We should've seen this coming when Springsteen sang "57 channels and nothing on". Cable lowered the news media standards. With the cable laid and the infrastructure built the operators went searching for stories...I mean content. Among the takers? Cable news shows that could now reach a ready-made audience without assembling a network of local stations, stations who themselves had had to invest in distribution infrastructure and programming. The web and cable media are all competing for one thing: your eyeballs. And print media needs to compete with them too for subscription and ad dollars. So print has to lower its standards too (see: USAToday--aka McPaper; The Week--cliffs notes of everyone else; and the decimation of nearly every other print brand unwilling to drop their standards). Nobles oblige? Standards? Fact-checking? The public good? A sacred public trust? Huh???
We have the media we deserve. So stop blaming them -- by which I mean us -- for over-reporting Chris Christie, salacious stories from Hollywood, or ruining the occasional innocent reputation. Don't like it? Change the channel.
Great post, Paul. Question for you. Do you think the public good is better served now that the walls have come down for "citizen journalists"? Or do you think traditional media did a better job? Do we need traditional media "organizations" anymore when everyone can report and learn from each other these days? Curious what you think.
ReplyDeleteNope, this experiment in citizen journalism is fun but it no better serves the public good than a college taught by students would serve the student body. Knowledge, insight, wisdom, just like good fashion sense, are things everyone thinks they have...but not everyone can possess. We have always needed gurus, guides, Editors, and leaders. Just because everyone can be heard doesn't mean everyone should be listened to.
ReplyDeleteOr...maybe I'm just getting grumpy as I approach age 50 on Jan. 30, 2012!
What is the place and the value of an editor in a time when people demand immediacy and lack the attention span for depth?
ReplyDeletePart of what bothers me about the industry is the drive-by nature of most editorial decision making. We flit to the hot story, then abandon it for the next one, driven like coach horses to the scene of the next momentarily gripping tale.
I guess weeklies that used to feature their longer perspective on stories have felt that more than daily newspapers, which have long competed directly with TV and the online aggregator sites.
On a related matter, I haven't seen the movie "Contagion," but there's a very intriguing sub-plot in it about a blogger who poses as the truth-teller and is later unmasked as a scam artist. Interesting turn about, since bloggers have acquired a largely unearned reputation for reliability.
There have always been those who demand immediacy and lack the attention span for depth. It's just that they used to be illiterate and rely on gossip. Education is supposed to bring Literacy writ large replacing intellectual laziness with a thirst for higher truths.
ReplyDeleteThe Daily Prophet exists to sell itself.
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