Not waiting for the asteroid, a dinosaur evolves;
Linda Parker has a memo for professional journalists: Contrary to the fear rippling through newsrooms, citizens don’t want your job. They don’t want to interview obscure officials to write boring stories about arcane changes in local zoning laws. As online communities editor, Parker should know. A GetPublished! button features prominently on many Enquirer Web pages, and the submissions land in Parker’s queue. They almost never resemble anything commonly considered journalism.
“It used to read, ‘Be a Citizen Journalist,'” Parker says. “And no one ever clicked on it. Then we called it ‘Neighbor to Neighbor,’ and still nothing. For some reason, ‘Get Published’ was the magic phrase.” Parker, a cheerful woman in her mid-fifties, will pore over several dozen submissions from readers today. These will range from a local custom-car builder trumpeting his upcoming appearance on the BET show Spring Bling to an emotional notice about a play being staged to raise funds for a fifth-grader’s bone marrow transplant. Contributors submit to one of 233 neighborhood Web sites, each aimed at a town or community in the Cincinnati area. Parker approves the submission (“I almost never reject one,” she says), scans it for “the F-word,” and posts it to the site. “A few years ago, these would have come across the transom as press releases and been ignored.”
There’s a valuable lesson here — and not just for newspapers. Citizens are desperate to broadcast their message to their communities; they just aren’t going to employ the conventions of journalism to do so. “One of our most popular categories is called First-Person,” Parker says. “People really love to reminisce about the 1937 flood. We got great stories on that.” The reader submissions do more than provide the Enquirer with additional content to sell ads against. “Our 27 suburban papers could never fill their pages without this material.” One of the common criticisms levied against Gannett is that it is crowdsourcing content in order to cut staff, but this charge misses the point. Crowdsourcing enables the publisher to expand: more Web pages, more niche publications, more ads.
While much of the citizen-produced writing is about church picnics and school sports, readers are also contributing to serious journalistic investigations, breathing new life into a genre that is increasingly considered an endangered species at metropolitan newspapers. Last spring, The News-Press, a Gannett paper in Fort Myers, Florida, heard that readers from a new housing development were being charged up to $45,000 to connect to the water and sewer system. Rather than assign a conventional investigative reporter to the story, “we asked our readers to help us find out why the cost was so exorbitant,” says Kate Marymont, News-Press executive editor.
The response overwhelmed the paper, which had to assign additional staff just to deal with the volume of tips, phone calls, and emails. The News-Press posted hundreds of pages of documents to its site, and readers organized their own investigations: Retired engineers analyzed blueprints, accountants examined balance sheets, and an inside whistle-blower leaked evidence of possible bid-rigging. “We had people from all over the world helping us,” Marymont says.
The information firehose illustrated.
If mainstream journalists and their editors would pause to absorb that first sentence quoted, the relationship with news consumers might mature into something useful. Allow the channel of communication to flow both ways, and the quality, accuracy and authoritativeness of journalism can only improve. How do we know? See here.
They may even coax back some former readers.
Contrary to popular media mythology, bloggers don’t want your jobs.
We’d just like you to do yours.
Vancouver, B.C. and New York, NY – July 30, 2007 – NowPublic.com, the world’s largest participatory news network, today announced that it closed a $10.6 million Series A financing, led by Rho Ventures, based in New York and Palo Alto and its affiliate Rho Canada, based in Montreal.
…
NowPublic.com is a crowd-sourced, participatory news network that mobilizes an army of reporters to cover the events that define our world. In its short history, the company has become the largest news organization of its kind with more than 100,000 members in over 3,600 cities and 140 countries. This year, The Guardian named NowPublic.com one of the top five most useful news sites on the web and Time Magazine named it one of the Top 50 Websites for 2007. The company has received funding from Rho Ventures, Rho Canada, Brightspark, the Working Opportunity Fund, managed by GrowthWorks Capital Ltd. and members of the New York Angels.
http://www.nowpublic.com/nowpublic_com_closes_10_6_million_series_financing_let_rho_ventures_and_rho_canada
Kate, that is SO right on. I completely don’t want to wade through 47 blogs to find out what happened yesterday, but that’s what I’m presently doing because the MSM WILL NOT TELL ME. They either produce agenda driven propaganda or “good news” drivel.
I want to know what Mr. McGuinty has been doing about the hydro infrastructure that’s teetering on the point of failure. I want to know if there’s a bridge in Hamilton waiting to fall down like that one in Minnesota. (I’ve driven over that bridge too. Gawd!) I want to know if Mr. Harper is ever going to kill the gun registry or if he’s going to wuss out.
If there is one thing we have learned from the blogosphere, it is that I am never ever going to get the answers to those questions from the MSM as it is currently run. No way, no hope, no chance.
So if they are going to last the next ten years, they better get busy and do something about that. Or Small Dead Animals and the host of others is going to end up doing the job by default.
Mr. Phantom writes, “I completely don’t want to wade through 47 blogs to find out what happened yesterday, but that’s what I’m presently doing because the MSM WILL NOT TELL ME. They either produce agenda driven propaganda or “good news” drivel.”
You say this as though blogs aren’t equally agenda-driven. And really, you get your news from SDA et al.? Oh, brother…
Smoke:
The difference between blogs plus Drudge etc and the MSM is that bloggers proudly announce their bias while the MSM tries desperately to pretend they don’t have one.
You prefer liars and propagandists to honest people I guess, eh? Being a Leftard that probably comes naturally.
Where have investigative journalists gone?
I called the StarPhoenix to tell them about a toy that my daughter received at Ruckers. The tea set tested positive for lead (Made in China!) and I thought that others should know. The reporter I spoke to said that he didn’t know much about home lead tests and that I should look into having it professionally tested then call them back if that test is positive.
I said I thought that was their job. Apparently, they just regurgitate press releases.
C’mon Smoke, quit trying to project what one’s reading curricula is. I for one probably read as many blogs on a daily basis as Phantom does, in order to make some sense out of what I’ve just read or heard on the MSM. Being a person of average intelligence, I read blogs of all persuasions and with the combination of common-sense and a healthy application of my built-in Bulls**t meter, attempt to come to the real truth regarding a particular news item.
Two way instant published communication with the media is OK but that isn’t why I swore off the MSM.
For me it was their herd mentality in defending status quo politics and their notorious uninquisitive nature…to accept politicos word at face value and not investigate.
If the nation had a vital investigative nonpartisan watchdog MSM we wouldn’t be saddled with the degenerated democracies and kleptocratic regimes we endure.
You can blame the electorate for getting the governments they deserve but I blame the media for not giving them the information to make informed, responsible decisions in the polling booth.
“I want to know what Mr. McGuinty has been doing about the hydro infrastructure that’s teetering on the point of failure. I want to know if there’s a bridge in Hamilton waiting to fall down like that one in Minnesota. (I’ve driven over that bridge too. Gawd!) I want to know if Mr. Harper is ever going to kill the gun registry or if he’s going to wuss out.”
And you think bloggers, sitting in their basements, with no education, no training as researchers, no money and no expertise are going to give you factual answers to those questions?
Well you certainly won’t get them answered in the MSM…alternate information source is wider than bloggers. Many true investigative journalists blog or run their own web-zine because their editors won’t publish what they find.
I just got off the phone with (not the real) Graham Greene, Ottawa Citizen editor. I drew to his attention the following outright fabrication in today’s Citizen:
“Mr. Harper’s last budget effectively gutted the accords, and his handling of the resulting fallout — threatening to sue Atlantic premiers who challenged him –“
http://www.canada.com/ottawacitizen/news/story.html?id=25c9c821-a019-4433-828e-6839a09305fc
With reporting like that it’s no wonder the Tories have tanked in Atlantic Canada. Anyway, Graham was very pleasant, and very pleasantly assured me that he will “see what (he) can do” about it.
My own view is that such reporting is no accident and can reasonably be described as an act of war against Canadian taxpayers.
Bourrie- That is rather arrogant of you to suggest
all bloggers sit in their basements, are uneducated, and have no research training or money. Perhaps you are describing yourself.
A while back Kate ran a list of her posters and their occupations. Had you scanned it, you would have been disabused to make such an ignorant remark.
Mark said:
“And you think bloggers, sitting in their basements, with no education, no training as researchers, no money and no expertise are going to give you factual answers to those questions?”
As opposed to journalists siting at their desks, with a 2 year journalisim diploma, no training as researchers, no money and no expertise are going to give you factual answers to those questions.
Phantom: The difference between blogs plus Drudge etc and the MSM is that bloggers proudly announce their bias while the MSM tries desperately to pretend they don’t have one.
Are you kidding? First, any media-literate individual knows that all newspapers have their particular slants, readily revealed through a quick reading of their editorial pages. Second, nowhere on SDA is there an explicit declaration of Kate’s biases. These are discernable only through a (very brief) reading of her posts. Ditto with any MSM publication. So, blogs are no more likely to “proudly announce their biases” than are the MSM.
Another difference between blogs and the MSM? Professional accountability, in principle if not fully in practise. There is a code of ethics for journalists. True, it is often ignored, but at least it exists, which is more than one can say about the blogging community. When the MSM gets facts wrong — which, as a human enterprise, they often do — a standard protocol exists to remedy the error (printed corrections, etc.). No such humility is required of blogs. When these errors are printed intentionally for the purpose of misleading the public, the journalist(s) responsible face professional sanctions, including possible termination. Again, no such penalty for bloggers, who post whatever they like, whenever they like, and are answerable to nobody. Which of course is entirely their prerogative, but to claim that bloggers are but “honest people” while the MSM are but “liars and propagandists” is an incredibly naive generalization to make.
You can insult mme all you like, but I still would like to know how any blogger could answer, with any authority, those three questions.
Don’t confuse cut-paste-comment for investigative journalism, which often requires the investment of significant resources and specialized training.
meeshir asks, “Where have investigative journalists gone?”
A good question, one that dedicated professional reporters are also asking themselves. Back in journalism’s heyday (I’d say roughly the 1950s-1980s), investigative reporting was highly respected, well-funded, and undertaken seriously. Today, in the era of celebrity gossip, hyper-personalized columnists, and more newspaper pages dedicated on average to, says, sports than to world events, the resources simply aren’t there to fund investigative reportage.
rattfuc: C’mon Smoke, quit trying to project what one’s reading curricula is. I for one probably read as many blogs on a daily basis as Phantom does…
Well, that’s great for you. The fact remains, though, that The Phantom stated explicitly that he wades through “47 blogs to find out what happened yesterday” because the MSM produces only “agenda driven propaganda or ‘good news’ drivel.” So, I’m not projecting your reading curriculum; I’m merely questioning The Phantom’s.
“Professional accountability, in principle, if not in practice,”
“Code of ethics for journalists. True it is often ignored, but at least it exists”
WOW! I can’t believe youactually typed that! First of all there is no such thing as a “professional journalist”. Journalists use the term “professional” to give an air of reliability and authority to thier work. Please tell me what professional agencey dictates the standards and ethics by which journalists are educated and practice.
*REAL** professionals have such an agencey. If they don’t meet certain standards of education or ethical behavior they aren’t allowed to practice.
There is the other, less restricitve use of the term professional which means “whatever one does for a living. If journalists are using the term in this manner then they share the meaning of the term with such “professionals” as hookers, drug dealers, porn merchants and thieves who perform their actions to earn a living as well.
If journalists are using the less restricitve use of the term professional but hope it still creates a air of authority and trust amoungst the public that a *REAL* professional gets then they are being misleading.
Please let me know what professional agencey “disbarrs” journalists for illegal or unethical behavior. YOU CAN’T because there is none. A journalist can lie in a story and be fired and yet be working at another newspaper the same day. DON”T SAY IT HASN’T HAPPENED.
As far as enforcing ethical behavior, why aren’t the supposed “journalists” from such publications as The National Enquirer censured? Maybe you “professional” journalists have nothing to say about that.
I too think that the MSM is failing because it has turned its back on objective reporting.
Blogger like Kate are upfront about their bias. For example, she is under the Blogging Tories umbrella. Most readers would therefore conclude that she is a conservative blogger but independent of the CPC.
Meanwhile, the Canadian MSM is also independent of the LPC but most are clearly progressive in their bias. Yet, they do not openly declare this bias like the Blogging Tories. On the contrary, they present themselves as objective news agencies and get upset and deny any bias.
while i don’t agree with the popular notion around here that the MSM are the agents of a leftist satan, i do agree that much of the crap presented as news (from across the entire spectrum) is pretty weak. so, i take kate’s point.
however, i really can’t believe anyone needs to wade through 40 blogs to get the daily news.where do you reckon your favourite bloggers get their content anyhow?
of course, if your goal is to find reasonable political discourse, yes indeed, you’ll need to read many blogs to find it.
I shouldn’t have been so quick to dismiss all journalists. There are some investigative journalists. They’re just not here.
Des Moines Register reporters uncovered a major scandal involving politicians and money (big surprise). They asked questions and pursued answers.
So many reporters just report.
The bloggers I read ask questions and look for answers. Often, those answers come from other readers which is one of the strengths of an independent, interactive medium. Unedited is even better.
A quick thought … wouldn’t it be interesting to see ALL of the letters-to-the-editor received by a newspaper instead of just a few selected letters?
Meanwhile, the Canadian MSM is also independent of the LPC but most are clearly progressive in their bias.
have you read the toronto sun or the national post lately?
it flows both ways.
“And you think bloggers, sitting in their basements, with no education, no training as researchers, no money and no expertise are going to give you factual answers to those questions?”
Posted by: Mark Bourrie
Mark – I posted a quote that gave you an explicit example of the information firehose that is available to media, if they only would turn on the valve.
It’s a template developed and proven effective by bloggers – and somehow you still didn’t notice it before you wrote.
In other words, “It’s the readers, stupid.” Bloggers give their audience a voice. They open their pages to instant correction, revision, context, opinion, experience, eyewitness reports and technical expertise.
The audience has always had at their disposal knowledge, information and experience that outstrips the resources of the best funded MSM outlet by several orders of magnitude. Until the internet came along, the ability of that information to poke above the filter was minimal – if you were lucky, a heavily edited letter to the editor might appear. Or a small correction placed deep in the back pages.
Today, that’s no longer the case, and it’s one reason for the collapse of circulation. The people who once read a story and noted glaring errors of fact are now comparing notes with thousands of others, and coming to some pretty basic conclusions: the industry is deeply flawed. It is not a reliable source of information and often willfully devoid of context.
Until mainstream news realizes what has happened and makes the changes necessary to improve the quality of their product, more people will simply drift away and rely less and less on traditional reporting for their information. That’s neither better or worse. It’s a consequence of industry malpractice.
IMO the article Kate posted on is the perverbial 2X4 over Warren Kinsella’s head.
WK’s Nat Post;
http://www.canada.com/nationalpost/columnists/story.html?id=2657eecc-7dce-4522-a64a-d10de1a2ea51
We all know WK reads sda regularily as his article tries, “tries” to refute the ‘reason-for-being’ of sda. Ignoring, of course, the example of CTV yesterday.
Back in the “good ole days” when the major medias where ‘the only game in town’, Canadians would read the newspaper, watch TV and lump it. Warren and others were happy that the Natural Governing Party would be in power forever. (Even WK could stomach the fedreal Liberals no longer and jumped into McGuinty’e frying pan.)
In this era of many websites it is different. Yes the CBCs and CTVs of the world are out there too. But along side them are the Kates and Drudges of the world.
Now we can all compare. Instantly !! — THAT is the difference. And the Warrens of the world do not like it one bit. The jig is up and they know it.
The USSR, with Pravda feeding the “news”, would never have survived as long as it did in an Internet era.
That was my point Jeff. I wasn’t referring to a
“dog bites man” or “bridge collapses” story, but rather the ones that can be spun, depending on the bias of the spinner. An example of that would be Obama’s recent speech. One side of the MSM is claiming he said he would send US troops to invade Pakistan if need be, when in fact he said no such thing. He merely said-” if Musharref won’t act, then we will.” The examples are legion and I for one would like to get the unmitigated truth when it comes to items like this. Hence the 40 some odd blogs, websites etc.
Tell you what Smoke, you go check out the pictures from the blogger on the scene of the bridge collapse yesterday, and see if maybe his hasty posts are as good as any of the bilge and helicopter shots on CNN.
Mark Bourrie, you think guys who work for Ontario Hydro don’t blog? You think they don’t know their stuff? My question to you is, when was the last time the Toronto (Red) Star had an informative, well researched and accurate story on the electric infrastructure? In fact, when was the last time it was even mentioned?
I find that at least half of the blogosphere consists of fact-checking their sorry MSM crap. The other half s stuff they didn’t deem advantageous to print. Like anything good from Iraq or Afghanistan.
Why do the major media think their job is to ‘dumb-down’ the news ??
They have transformed into Tabloids, pure and simple. ‘simple’, alright.
Actually,I think we have much more to blame the press corps for than investigative laziness and partisan bias.
I have long believed now that their ‘soundbite journalism’ has created this current generation of meely-mouthed politicians.
Scared sh*tless to say the wrong thing,yes even accidently,as they know ANY utterance can and will be used against them to CREATE news.Context be damned.
Going as far back as Stanfield,I wonder how many voters knew he caught every pass before that fateful photo of him dropping one.
That’s not journalism….that’s marketing.
John, clearly I’ve chosen the less restrictive usage of the term (although national professional organizations do exist). As well, there is a clear set of normative minimum standards that society expects the journalism profession/trade/occupational field to abide by. Even Kate and others allude to this, for instance when she writes “Contrary to popular media mythology, bloggers don’t want your jobs. We’d just like you to do yours.”
The fact that these standards are seldom fully realized in practise is a separate issue. My original point stands — as imperfect as the systems of accountability and balanced reporting are for paid journalists, bloggers are subject to even less of it (the fact that the vast majority of bloggers are still ANONYMOUS should suggest as much).
It may indeed be true that reading the MSM alone is insufficient to obtaining a balanced view of the world, but supplementing — or worse, substituting — it with a selective trawling of the blogosphere, however, is hardly a corrective measure.
That’s the point exactly. What society expects is one thing. What it gets is quite another.
What is so hard to understand about the words;
COMPARISON !!??
ACOUNTABILITY !!??
QUALITY !!??
We practice it every day of our lives. All day long —– why should the media industry not be subject to it !!??
After all the media is powerful — can even drive world-wide agendas. Ever heard of Maurice Strong ??
Regarding the CTV biased story, and the G&M biased coverage of “ottawa won’t close loophole”
http://www.theglobeandmail.com/servlet/story/RTGAM.20070802.wdonations02/BNStory/National/home
‘Still, Liberal officials acknowledge that the loophole was created by their 2003 reform to the Elections Act.’
Loop-holes created by liberals for liberals…
I made three comments at the G&M earlier this morning, all were deleted, yet all the liberal/ biased comments remain.
Is that what smoke, bourie and others consider
professional jounalism?
Kate, I’m not so sure that an information firehose is necessarily a good thing, or that “the quality, accuracy and authoritativeness of journalism can only improve.” Such a collaborative approach may work for highly localized and morally and ethically unambiguous (relatively speaking) stories where the public interest is well-defined, like the possible bid-rigging incident from your quoted post. This sort of citizen-led investigation seems to work only when everyone involved agrees on the underlying premises — the $45,000 fee is unreasonable, and that corruption may be involved — and is hence working from the same starting point.
This may not be so with more complex, highly controversial topics (global warming, Afghanistan, Iraq, Darfur, same-sex marriage legislation, Toronto’s “Summer of the Gun,” Native affairs, and so on and so forth). I’m not saying that we as the consuming public should just sit back and wait for the New York Times to tell us what to think, but I’m not so sure that elevating everyone to the effective rank of Junior Contributing Editor will lead to any greater clarity on these issues. At the very least, some sort of accountability and fact-checking system will need to be devised to vet the inevitable cacophony of voices — which sounds rather like the precursor to professionalization to me. Or do you envision another way that the bid-rigging example could work on a grander scale?
Also, do we know if the decline in newspaper readership is mainly, or even partly, due to disillusionment among consumers? Or is time a contributing facto, i.e., the average working individual no longer has the time to sit and read an entire paper anymore, so s/he either grabs one of those free mini-papers on the subway, or else consume the MSM via TV, radio, or the internet?
Well smoke and jeff,
I would reconsider my feelings towards the MSM if they did something that showed balance on complex issues. Like air both “An Inconvenient Truth” and “The Great Global Warming Swindle” back to back. Follow this with a debate with leading proponents of both sides. Then let the public make their own decision.
If they did this with all of the issues that you list as complex then I would consider the MSM more credible and balanced.
“As well, there is a clear set of normative minimum standards that society expects the journalism profession/trade/occupational field to abide by”
Society has been severely short changed on that one. It would take a whole day just to list in “most egregious” or alphabetical order all of the journalistic breeches of that code of ethics/practice….the omissions, the agenda driven drivel, the factually inaccurate, the altered photos, bogus stringers, from Dan Rather to Jason Blair to the Green Helmet Guy to the BBC’s self-admission that they are biased, yadda, yadda, yadda.
Internet news as it morphs to blogs is updated, linked, corrected and commented upon in real time. That’s more valuable rather than the stale print etched on dead trees.
Sorry, Smoke, but, there just aren’t any “complex, highly controversial topics” that the general public can’t be equal or better participants than a roomful of journalists with less science/economics/history/life experience backgrounds. Look at the clueless boobs struggling to cover global warming. Journalists are too often poorly educated in most of what they are assigned to write about, stylists at best most of the time.
Most newspapers are declining in spite of the same amount of bus commute time, an increased amount of leisure time because most content stinks and they aren’t a news monoply anymore. I make time everyday for my WSJ because it’s a damn good paper. People still take time to read a good book. Time isn’t the problem.
“Contrary to popular media mythology, bloggers don’t want your jobs. We’d just like you to do yours. ”
Wonderful summary!
CNN boasts “video” of bridge collapse —- a video of “a family trying to stay positive while awaiting woman’s fate “.
Discusting and sicko. Fits this thread.
http://edition.cnn.com/2007/US/08/02/bridge.collapse/index.html#cnnSTCVideo
“some sort of accountability and fact-checking system will need to be devised to vet the inevitable cacophony of voices”
Great idea smoke, lets get people that are married to liberal MP’s and others who work during elections for liberal crooks. They can “vet” all those confusing cacaphonies for us.
But we won’t inform readers that the “vets” are really just lib asskissers with an agenda.
Oh, wait!
LynnH: If they did this with all of the issues that you list as complex then I would consider the MSM more credible and balanced.
I never defended the MSM as balanced. My point was that supplementing unbalanced MSM reporting, which is biased and often incomplete, with unbalanced blog entries, which are equally if not even more biased and incomplete, may not be the ideal way forward.
Penny: Sorry, Smoke, but, there just aren’t any “complex, highly controversial topics” that the general public can’t be equal or better participants than a roomful of journalists with less science/economics/history/life experience backgrounds.
Again, Penny, a truly open-access citizen media is appealing in principle, but how would this actually look in practice? Imagine a giant room with a couple million occupants, both journalists and the general public, all participating in “news-making.” How might one, as a consumer, begin to sort out the “facts” from the mere opinions, lies, and hysterics?
Most newspapers are declining in spite of the same amount of bus commute time, an increased amount of leisure time because most content stinks and they aren’t a news monoply anymore.
Any facts to substantiate this opinion?
“How might one, as a consumer, begin to sort out the “facts” from the mere opinions, lies, and hysterics?”
How do you do it now? You seem like an intelligent person, but you have an inexplicable touching faith in the MSM. I worked in news for roughly ten years, and i’m more sympathetic to the trade than many on this blog. At the very least, i understand how often a mistake is just a mistake, rather than a left wing plot.
But please don’t assume that the skills and attitudes you attribute to the media are that prevalent.
I realize the blogosphere has obvious limitations, but at least they’re glaringly obvious and you can show them up any time you like. Compare that, for example, to CTV’s QP where the wife (G and M reporter) of a liberal backroom flack comments on liberal party poliy and another “professional” swallows it whole without comment. And the average viewer is never made aware of this conflict.
The industry is rife with this kind of inbreeding. (Thats why they all look so funny – it’s a genetic thing:)
Actually, smoke, there are some theories are looking at that very phenomenon. I recently read a National Geographic article that dealt with swarm intelligence.
“The bees’ rules for decision-making—seek a diversity of options, encourage a free competition among ideas, and use an effective mechanism to narrow choices—so impressed Seeley that he now uses them at Cornell as chairman of his department… In fact, almost any group that follows the bees’ rules will make itself smarter, says James Surowiecki, author of The Wisdom of Crowds. “The analogy is really quite powerful. The bees are predicting which nest site will be best, and humans can do the same thing, even in the face of exceptionally complex decisions.” ”
http://www7.nationalgeographic.com/ngm/0707/feature5/index.html
Gee Smoke, I think this is where I came in. You read 47 blogs and raw news sources. Actually 47 is a slight exaggeration, I only scan about 23 different sites every day. I have a couple hundred bookmarked for easy access on specialized topics.
It s better to drink from the fire hose than to make expensive decisions on insufficient or deliberately false information.
Like the “complex” one you mentioned, the “Summer of the Gun”. Total bollocks, complete “how can we fool ’em today?” MSM newsroom fabrication. How do I know? Fire hose.
I’d be willing to have someone trustworthy drink from the hose FOR me, and pay money for it too. In the business world that would be Barrons, Financial Post etc. Too bad we don’t have that for other things eh?
Is your neuron tire from running in circles yet?
That’d be “tired”.
great discussion up above. what i like about the media are the hordes of “experts” they parade in front of you on any subject possible. most of them look like they are barely out of their teens but they are experts. LOL
I started to read the winnipeg free press the other day and had to put it down. It was so lame and all the undefensible positioning was unreal.
Hell if any blogger did that I’d be busy in the comments. but they are a great MSM…
Even the winnipeg sun tries to run a blog but they are hopeless. Stuff lasts like 2 weeks then poof, into hyperspace.
Just watching CNBC (its supposed to be business, right?) and its wall to wall Democrats wringing hands over the “crumbling infrastructure of America” and how Bush’s Highway bill (!) wasn’t enough.
Funny, the way I remember it Bush nearly vetoed the highway bill because of the mega pork in it.
Am I going to get the straight goods on the REAL state of roads and bridges from CNBC and who’s responsible for it, good or bad?
I’m thinking no.
Kate,
Maybe the Enquirer got a good sewer story off the tips. Still, someone had ti rund down those tips, separate the wheat from the chaff, and put their name on the story.
And as for the concept of the boring zoning story. It’s often a boring story if the rezoning on the otrehr side of town, but a major story if the rezoning is for a rendering yard or public housing project in your neighbourhood.
My problem with newspapers is that there’s no little news. For all I care, they can ditch all the sports, entertainment and “lifestyle” stuff. But then I realize that many people buy the paper for the sports section and don’t look at the sections I read.
Most blogs are simply reflections on the news as gathered by the commercial media. Very few people in a position to have “insider” knowledge post blogs, and, when they do, they go into contortions to not alienate their sources or employers.
I have some views on political coverage. For instance, I’d suggest reporters posted to Ottawa should arrive with far better training on how the legislative and administrative system works. They should leave after five or ten years, and no longer.
Sorry, Smoke, but, there just aren’t any “complex, highly controversial topics” that the general public can’t be equal or better participants than a roomful of journalists with less science/economics/history/life experience backgrounds. Look at the clueless boobs struggling to cover global warming. Journalists are too often poorly educated in most of what they are assigned to write about, stylists at best most of the time.
And that Penny, encapsulates the whole problem.
Very well said. May I pass it on to some of my less-informed “friends”?
I have not purchased a dead tree newspaper since 1993 when the Vancouver Province decided the Gordon Wilson, Judy Tyabji affair was front page news for over a week. MSM is now very alike to The National Enquirer.
Ferguson – There is no logical inconsistency. Nice try. The general public is made up of physicists, doctors, nurses, small businessmen, cops, engineers, farmers, teachers, military, tradesmen, and, oh, most appreciated the self-educated and formal-education-can’t-buy “Renaissance Man” that so often graces this site. That’s one hell of a knowledge base. We all bring something to the table, a table we weren’t allowed to sit at before the internet.
Again, Penny, a truly open-access citizen media is appealing in principle, but how would this actually look in practice?
Kate’s blog here is a good start. Extrapolate from there. FOX today in it’s tv coverage today of the bridge collapse had an area blogger(add Powerline and Captain’s Quarters locally reporting too) that captured the event better than the media swarm. The embedded military bloggers are superior to the fat cat NYT’s and others running up bar tabs in the Green Zone. In most categories, citizens are doing a better job then the lame lemmings in the newsroom.
rattfuc – thanks. It offends me when a self-designated elitist group of mandarins assumes that they are smarter than the rest of us.
Ferguson – thanks for your fine illustration of how not everything is reducible. Your taking of penny’s words, applying what you believe is logic to them, and coming up with gibberish is the very process that many “journalists” use.
This process is one of the reasons many people think “journalists”, and posters such as you, speak nonsense.