Associate professor of journalism Kelly Toughill, direct from the fishbowl;
It is time to stop focusing on the decline of newspapers and start worrying about the loss of mass media in general.
The newspaper crisis is a symptom of a broader problem.
We are in danger of losing institutions that cut across income, race, culture, gender and age to provide a shared intellectual space in society. We are in danger of losing one of the few activities that forces us, even briefly, to consider people, ideas and interests different than our own.
[…]
The common narrative goes like this: The Internet is killing newspapers because it is faster, cheaper and easier for readers to use. The casualties are jobs and public interest journalism essential to democracy.
Wrong. The Internet is part of the problem, but not because it is faster and easier. The Internet hurts old media because it can deliver targeted advertising to niche markets without wasting time and money delivering ads to those who aren’t interested.
Whereupon, the commoners narrate right back at her in the comments…
Occasionally watch, read ? Yes. But only to see how bad they are, not as a news source. That is the point.
“The commenters at the link blew her out of the water in grand style .”
Happening to ole Warren also. Even with filtering and a new “registration” process. (CHRC monitored ?)
Kelly Toughill: “Mass media builds community. Or at least it did.”
Really? Hole-in-the-Wall was also a community. MSM doesn’t build “community”, it never has – it is, however, attempting to social engineer them, it’s just communities that the majority of people reject.
Is she arguing that advertisers shouldn’t use newspapers or network because there are no mass appeal products?
Also, I gave decades of attention to the MSM and they failed miserably. Enough is enough.
I cannot believe journalists dumb-down the news just because they themselves are dumb – it must be intentional, agenda driven, control by fear, political association, orders from the headline writers.
When will someone see the creation of an old-fashioned, unbiased, fact-checked, well-written newspaper as an opportunity?
Is there an audience?
I’m not so sure.
“The casualties are jobs and public interest journalism essential to democracy.”
That line is the killer. I think the exact opposite is true. “Public interest journalism” is stronger on the internet then biased newspapers.
“Advertisements contain the only truths to be relied on in a newspaper.”
— Thomas Jefferson
Man those commenters were absolutely brutal. It was like a verbal gang rape. I really feel sorry for poor Kelly.
I was surprised how many “we’re damned mad, and we ain’t taking it no more’ roughians out there.
I wonder how many were risen again small dead ‘animals’.
“Mass media builds community.”
Sure.
I’m certain that in the UK, for instance, the Times readers, the Guardian readers and the Sun readers are all one big happy homogeneous community…
I’m sure as &*^* not going to create an account over there in order to point out her silliness.
Another good example came up on today’s CBC Sunday – one of only two CBC productions I watch, the other being ‘Dragon’s Den’.
The host, Carol McNeil introduced a piece from Fox News’ Glen Beck in which a clip of McNeil interviewing White House ‘reporter’ Helen Thomas is featured.
I’ll paraphrase here, but it’s pretty accurate:
In the clip, Thomas declares first that she is a ‘life long liberal’ and goes on to declare “what else should a reporter be?”
McNeil then asks Thomas, “What would you say if a right-wing person asked you about ‘objectivity’?” And of course Thomas declares that her ‘objectivity’ has never been in question.
Glen Beck asks his guest, Michell Malkin what she thinks of the characterization of only a ‘conservative’ or ‘right wing’ person demanding objectivity.
Cut back to the CBC and Carol McNeil, who is asked by her co-host, Evan Soloman, “well what about that, Carol. Is it only right wing people who should expect objectivity?”
McNeil’s response is to say only that “it must have been a slow news day at Fox”. Not only does she deflect the question entirely, but she apparently suggests that the value of her interview is such that it would only be quoted if there was nothing else of interest available.
And perhaps she’s right.
For my news and public /private opinions I tune into Rush’s archived show while reading Drudge,Bourque and SDA.There is a reason SDA is last,its because there are many more,better and varied topics on Kate’s site.Good bye tor star I’ll miss you NOT.
As I said before. 2008 was the death knell of the MSM as it was. They neither reported the corruption, or even ask questions on our behalf during a Presidential campaign. They shrilled for a preferred candidate, asking no questions but to pillory his opponent.
In Canada they hid the evils of the thieving Liberals till the Nation almost fell over from the erosion of honesty by crooked pols journalists courted. All they cared about was appointments & entitlements. The did not blow the watchman’s horn. For that alone they should be shunned as traitors. Esteemed as lepers among men. The putrid dishonesty, bias & outright lies have become the stock in trade of Journalism schools “wisdom”. Ethics or nobility being passé by intellectual ninnies or useful idiots of higher education in this area particularly.
The MSM has a lot to answer for lying about our true conditions or actions evil to the public good. Including why no one ever asked why we have imported so many people who hate us to the bone with them covering this up or calling others bigots over it.. The Media failed its most basic reason for existence .For the transient honors of men while sucking up to political power. They have in their greed allowed the citizen that supported them to be in danger of loosing all liberties including theirs. I noticed almost every post at this Illusionists site disagreed with her . They live in a world outside the ken of most Men.
JMO
Mass media is dying because they are essentially lazy and take the easiest of options … Example … Friday the news reported that job losses in January were 129,000, and therefore stimulus was not working … The budget was only voted on Feb. 2nd … Hello … Any logical thought process would have have concluded that the Janauary and even February job losses are happening before any stimulus package even has a chance to work … Money just does not move through the system that fast. To just repeat the propaganda of Liberal or NDP hacks is just plain lazy. Infact I would suggest that if the mass media don’t start being a whole lot more responsible in their reporting they are going to drive us into a full blown depression. Echoing the partisan yappings of Jack and Iggy is not responsible reporting and is infact increasing the stress and tension in the economy.
TO “RICHN” “OLDFART” “DANA” “ANDYCANUK” “JOHN” “A DIFFERENTBOB” “FRED” “NORTHERNLIGHT” “SPEEDY”
“ROBERT” “7HEAVENS” “JOE” “DINOSAUR” “JACN” “RON” AND ALL THE REST OF YOU STRAIGHT THINKING CANADIAN’S— “BRAVO”. I HAVE BEEN AROUND FOR A FEW DECADES AND NEVER HAVE I SEEN SUCH MISTRUST ON THE MSM AS HAS HAPPENED IN THE LAST FEW YEARS. IT’S AT THE STAGE WHERE ABSOLUTELY NO RESPECT IS SHOWN BY THE ‘MAN ON STREET’ TO THESE MORONS THAT CONSIDER THEMSELVES A (CHOKE)JOURNALIST. NEVER HAVE I SEEN SUCH RIDICULE OF THESE PEOPLE THAN IN THE LAST FEW YEARS OF PRACTICALLY BEING FORCED TO READ THEIR GARBAGE. ME – I JUST RECENTLY CANCELLED MY SUBSCRIPTION TO WHAT WAS LAUGHINGLY CALLED A NEWSAPAPER. IT’S GOT TO THE STAGE WHERE ANY INFORMED READER WHO HAS THE GUTS TO WRITE A LETTER TO THE EDITOR IS CALOUSLY TOSSED ASIDE BY THE BIASED EDITORS OF NEWSPAPERS WHO DONT WANT THE TRUTH TO BE PUBLISHED. LETS HAVE MORE DISCONTENT OF THESE MSM IN THESE BLOGS.
Western Canadian posted “have spread their disease to other once trusted areas of our society, education and the scientific community”.
The real question WC is should those areas of our society ever been trusted in the first place? We put great stock in a university degree. Should we? We put great trust in scientific theories. Should we? Is it the educators, theoreticians and mass media that is at fault or our fault for not holding them accountable?
Well, Joe, you certainly wouldn’t be commenting over this here Intarweb thingy which is, some would argue, replacing traditional media, if it were not for the relationship between science, universities, engineering, and the computer you are now reading my comment on. So, arguably, they have some value, for some value of value; so it is that we should perhaps trust them, at least to that degree.
Agreed Vitruvius, we benefit yet we also must hold accountable for the nonsense so often pedaled as fact. How often have you run across ‘science’ that is little more than personal agenda disguised as science by selectively interpreting observation and even resorting to out and out fabrication of evidence? How much scientific debate have you observed that is little more that character assassination using academic methodology? As I have often said ‘Science is a wonderful servant but a tyrannical master’.
Agreed, and well said, Joe. There are charlatans and fraud-artists and snake-oil salesmen, fear-mongers, extortionists, and general-purpose all-round shysters in every field, some more than others. One must be constantly on guard, and even then, they all get (at least) one vote.
I might pick a nit on the tyranny of science argument, though, for science is really just an epistemological tool, like reason, so it can’t really be tyrannical, but faux-scientists certainly can be, as can the various other forms of shady characters I mentioned in the previous paragraph, especially when they are pretending to sell something they call science that actually has no relationship to the epistemological value of science to our species.
I could, I suppose, write a letter to the editor, but they would
not publish it. Yet Kate does. (Just to get back on topic 😉
Don’t kid yourselves people, bloggers are just as prone to the same kind of lame-a$$ self-reinforcing cocoon-coddled doublethink. Witness poor old Charles Johnson who out of nowhere decided Fjordman is a genocidal anti-semite, and that from now on Charles’ blog will focus an enormous amount of energy attacking “creationists” and their arguments. Whatever, LGF used to be a pretty good blog, but now, not so much I find.
So I suspect there is some kind of new phenomenon where people hang out reinforcing their preconceptions among like-minded folk.
I have a theory – that individual blogs last even less time than the typical newspaper. Ten years from now we’ll lament the passing of Small Dead Animals I’ll bet, because eventually there is a point at which bloggers and their posters have pretty much said it all, and there is nothing new left to say.
I’d say that LGF jumped the shark about a year ago, and All Things Beautiful has rocketed from hero to zero in about 1 year. Seriously, by the time you reach the comments section of the typical LGF blog, there are 500-1000 comments to wade through, the vast majority of which say absolutely nothing of value around the discussion. Blog-fatigue is a very real possibility. Wait till the typical SDA thread breaks 200, and the quality of the blog experience nose-dives…
So bloggers, don’t be quite so smug – we’re next!
“for science is really just an epistemological tool”
Vit. I know that and you know that but how many others do not know that and as a result bow at the altar of SCIENCE. How many accept, for example, rocks falling off Mars and landing on Antarctica, Earth as a given fact because it is presented as “Science says it is so”?
How many twisted morals has modern man created at the behest of ‘science’. The difficulty is that pure science is just a tool yet people all too regularly set it as some sort of omnipotent oracle by which we are to direct our lives. Unfortunately too many ‘scientists’ rather enjoy their position of influence and fail to sound the alarm when science is being perverted from servant to master. Of course this is only possible by reaching an ‘educated’ audience through the pervasiveness of the MSM.
Once again I agree, Joe, let’s now return to the topic.
joe
and the church cries because it is no longer god
Actually GYM I never heard that the church ever claimed to be god or God. Nevertheless never underestimate the need every human society has for a priesthood. The only question is which god is proven false fastest. So far ‘science’ doesn’t have a very good track record.
God has nothing to do with science, Joe, now smarten up. God is a question of metaphysics, and as I’ve already mentioned, science is constrained to the domain of epistemology. And priesthood certainly doesn’t enter into it, he11, when I started computer programming in ’71 we were still a priesthood.
Perhaps if you would attempt to stick to the topic of this entry at SDA you would find it easier to avoid these types of blunders caused by attempting to streach a topic to suit your proclivities, rather than the thread’s.
Me thinks thou dost protest too much Vit. 😉 I thought we already established that science is simply a tool. A wonderful tool no doubt but a tool nevertheless. What I am speaking of is the omnipotence people like GYM assign to science.
Trust me I am not anti science for I know that science will provide some answers. That being said, there are answers beyond science and what I am truly against is the deification of science simply because it is based on human endeavour.
This I know, we humans see, but through a glass darkly.
Never mind. Sorry Kate. We now return
to our regularly scheduled MSM bashing.
Vitruvius, if one were to suggest such things (that science is not God, for instance, and by that I mean it is not an organising principle on which to base a moral code, or indeed ones life) over at some blogs, you’d get banned.
And this IS related to the post at hand, as I’ve found LGF to behave remarkably like the MSM when it comes to suggesting that “science” has rather few answers to the questions we’re (literally) dying to have answered.
For instance it is blasphemy to suggest that evolution has some holes in it. Not saying that is my position, since I wouldn’t want to be blacklisted and hounded out of town, but I use this example to state rather that the claim that somehow blogs are more open-minded or flexible than the MSM is plainly false.
Excellent point, BCF. Certainly any abstraction has some combination of wholes and holes, and it is on the ratio of those values that it should be judged (larger is better). For example, not only may it not be the case that science is the most effective undergriding for morals, so it is that it also or alternatively may not be the case that God is, and then, pace undergirding, there’s the entire question of over-arching, which may be orthogonal.
After all, morals belong to the part of philosophy called axiology, and science belongs to epistemology and God to metaphysics as we’ve already discussed, so one can easily perceive the risk that one may be exposed to if one erroniously mixes up those systems phenomena.
It is indeed unfortunate (other than that it is fortunate because it keeps this comment at least trans-o-marginally on topic) that so many com channels don’t transceive those frequencies, since it results in them having a lower effective signal to noise ratio. Funny how that intra-media parallelism works, isn’t it.
Fortunately, there’s always Jefferson’s advertisements.
Kate trim as you see fit:
I make my living off the evening news
Just give me something-something I can use
People love it when you lose,
They love dirty laundry
Well, I coulda been an actor, but I wound up here
I just have to look good, I dont have to be clear
Come and whisper in my ear
Give us dirty laundry
Kick em when theyre up
Kick em when theyre down
Kick em when theyre up
Kick em when theyre down
Kick em when theyre up
Kick em when theyre down
Kick em when theyre up
Kick em all around
We got the bubble-headed-bleach-blonde who
Comes on at five
She can tell you bout the plane crash with a gleam
In her eye
Its interesting when people die-
Give us dirty laundry
Can we film the operation?
Is the head dead yet?
You know, the boys in the newsroom got a
Running bet
Get the widow on the set!
We need dirty laundry
You dont really need to find out whats going on
You dont really want to know just how far its gone
Just leave well enough alone
Eat your dirty laundry
Kick em when theyre up
Kick em when theyre down
Kick em when theyre up
Kick em when theyre down
Kick em when theyre up
Kick em when theyre down
Kick em when theyre stiff
Kick em all around
Dirty little secrets
Dirty little lies
We got our dirty little fingers in everybodys pie
We love to cut you down to size
We love dirty laundry
We can do the innuendo
We can dance and sing
When its said and done we havent told you a thing
We all know that crap is king
Give us dirty laundry”
MSM’s influence and scope is dieing, just as the grip of the church on society subsided
next up please!!!