[quote=Allan from Fallbrook] ….What concerns me most is that the internet doesn’t have a filter per se, and that every crank under the sun can post, without anyone really checking their facts or sources or credibility. But I also hear your argument regarding a transition phase and the cream (hopefully) rising to the top.
Reading and watching the coverage of the BP/Gulf spill shows how balkanized and polarized we’ve become. Watch Fox and get one slant; read Huffington Post and get another. What’s the answer? I have no idea. But I also feel like we’re losing something here with the demise of print journalism and I’m not sure we’re going to get it back.[/quote]
Allan, I’m aligned with you on this one. I might save time by reading a short internet column instead of a multi-column newspaper story, but quite often I am consulting a number of sources trying to determine if what I’ve read on the web is accurate and/or complete. When it turns out to be a false or exaggerated claim, I’m pissed off every time that day when someone repeats the story to me, or sends it to me via email.
I, too, am sick of getting my news delivered with the political and sociological slant. I went to school, I’ve always been a reader and consumer of a wide range of information sources, and I do that because I like to make up my own damn mind. But it is becoming increasingly difficult for me to do that.
It was inevitable that newspapers and periodicals, in their traditional forms, were doomed to eventually pass from the American landscape. The vast majority were never huge moneymakers for their publishers (and, yes, I know about Hearst), and more than a few were “vanity press” for ne’er do well scions of wealthy families. The costs of running these operations have traditionally been astronomical. The problem that exists today is not the Internet. It’s that, in an attitude eerily reminiscent of the Hollywood movie moguls toward television in the 50s, newspaper publishers arrogantly ignored the impact and potential of the Internet, and refused to believe that they could be replaced by such a vulgar and unintellectual medium.
Many of the newspapers are racing to create a presence on the Web, but it may well be too little, too late. Traditional newspaper publishers should have gotten the hint back in the 80s, with the enthusiastic response that Gannett received for USA Today, and when several dying newspapers adopted the “tabloid” presentation – larger print, shorter articles, four-color graphics, more photographs, and a move to local/suburban news coverage – and increased their circulation numbers significantly.
By the time the Web became a ubiquitous presence in many homes in all areas of the country, the large traditional city papers had permanently lost a significant part of their readership. Having experienced this many years before when a good part of the population stopped subscribing to newspapers in favor of broadcast news, one would think that the publishers would recognize the potential impact of a new medium. But one would be wrong.
Having rejected broadsheet format papers in favor of the more simply-worded shorter news stories of the tabloids, it was a logical move to the Internet. The only thing that Americans like to do less than read, is to see articles that cast an unfavorable light on anything connected to their personal philosophies. Rupert Murdoch recognized this when he re-purchased the NY Post in 1993. Say what you will about the guy (and I’ve said plenty) but he’s an astute observer of shifts in American culture.
So, no longer do you have to see unfavorable headlines about the guy you’ve admired, praised, contributed to, and campaigned and voted for. He may have been filmed walking into a no-tell motel with a male hooker on each arm, but you can turn to an Internet “news source” of your choice, and see only pictures of your fearless leader cutting the ribbon on a new nursing home that bears his name. Or your renegade political party may have sponsored a “March on the Capitol” that had 40,000 people in attendance. Wasn’t quite the overwhelming number you had in mind to inspire all your co-workers at the plant? Never fear: do a fast Google search to come up with at least fifty “reputable news sources” who have photographs of the 2.4 million who were actually there.
Yes, Allan, I share your fears. However, I’ve been experiencing them since the buildup to the war in Iraq when I kept waiting for the “investigative” reporters and the “hard news” organizations to ask questions. ANY questions. But the headlines were simply reprints of White House and DoD press releases. The publishers lost sight of the mission with which they had been charged: to educate and inform hundreds of millions about events beyond their sight and control.
They’ve been trying to play catch-up ever since. And now, it appears, they’ve lost their last opportunity to do so.
