My Conflicted Feelings On The Media, Part 1 of 2
I'm going to talk about the media today. I have talked about the media a little in the past, but to be clear I will be speaking about the "mainstream" media.
I don't like the term "mainstream" media, however. It is an accurate term, but the connotation has been warped to the point it would be nice if there was another term out there to describe the likes of CNN, New York Times, Fox News, and Wall Street Journal.
Much of the attention in recent years has been on the "citizen" media and boutique media outlets. These are the likes of blogs and even some small circulation papers, created and produced by individuals or small groups of people. The growth of social media - the likes of Facebook and Twitter - allows individuals to create and share news in seconds.
But my problem is that "citizen" journalism is often not very professional journalism. Now, I'm not decrying citizen journalists or saying that citizens sharing and spreading news as they see it happening is a bad thing. As I said, however, it is not usually very professional at all. It is often times simply pointing a camera at something, snapping a quick picture, and stating what is seen. There is a lack of context. There is a lack of verification of facts. There is a lack of investigation of circumstance and causes. In other words, citizen journalism lacks much of the defining characteristics of journalism all together.
There's a reasonable explanation, and that is the fact that most citizens lack the ability to do the research, investigation, and so forth that truly defines journalism. Moreover, the impatience of the public for the time it takes to deliver the news has made it so that the emphasis has been placed on delivering something called news as soon as possible, regardless of its inaccuracies or flaws.
Because most citizen journalists are more or less anonymous voices through the internet, there is usually little accountability regarding their fallacies. If they get it wrong then that's it. They don't have a need to offer retractions, or apologies.
It used to be that the big media had that going for them. They had the resources and means by which they could deliver real new. They could do the research, talk to all sides, check the facts. but increasingly the mainstream media has failed to even get that right. They obfuscate doing their due diligence. They release stories with little investigation, few facts, and bury retractions or apologies in future reports, if they bother at all with such decencies.
The mainstream media has walked itself into a precarious trap in which they stand on the ledge ready to fall off into irrelevancy. Rather than trying to compete on quality and substance, they have decided to compete on delivery and flair. The end result for us, the public, is not good. We cease to be informed by the news. We don't gain the understanding of the broader world that the news is supposed to help give us. Instead, we are merely being fed whatever happened to be witnessed or heard. It may be unfiltered, but it is also often uninformed and unencumbered by the facts. It is like the game of telephone - someone always messes up the message, and no one ever wants to admit they were the one who got it wrong, in the end most of those participating never hearing the actual message.
I will continue my general critique of the media landscape tomorrow with the model I think would work best for the media, and why it actually hasn't.
I don't like the term "mainstream" media, however. It is an accurate term, but the connotation has been warped to the point it would be nice if there was another term out there to describe the likes of CNN, New York Times, Fox News, and Wall Street Journal.
Much of the attention in recent years has been on the "citizen" media and boutique media outlets. These are the likes of blogs and even some small circulation papers, created and produced by individuals or small groups of people. The growth of social media - the likes of Facebook and Twitter - allows individuals to create and share news in seconds.
But my problem is that "citizen" journalism is often not very professional journalism. Now, I'm not decrying citizen journalists or saying that citizens sharing and spreading news as they see it happening is a bad thing. As I said, however, it is not usually very professional at all. It is often times simply pointing a camera at something, snapping a quick picture, and stating what is seen. There is a lack of context. There is a lack of verification of facts. There is a lack of investigation of circumstance and causes. In other words, citizen journalism lacks much of the defining characteristics of journalism all together.
There's a reasonable explanation, and that is the fact that most citizens lack the ability to do the research, investigation, and so forth that truly defines journalism. Moreover, the impatience of the public for the time it takes to deliver the news has made it so that the emphasis has been placed on delivering something called news as soon as possible, regardless of its inaccuracies or flaws.
Because most citizen journalists are more or less anonymous voices through the internet, there is usually little accountability regarding their fallacies. If they get it wrong then that's it. They don't have a need to offer retractions, or apologies.
It used to be that the big media had that going for them. They had the resources and means by which they could deliver real new. They could do the research, talk to all sides, check the facts. but increasingly the mainstream media has failed to even get that right. They obfuscate doing their due diligence. They release stories with little investigation, few facts, and bury retractions or apologies in future reports, if they bother at all with such decencies.
The mainstream media has walked itself into a precarious trap in which they stand on the ledge ready to fall off into irrelevancy. Rather than trying to compete on quality and substance, they have decided to compete on delivery and flair. The end result for us, the public, is not good. We cease to be informed by the news. We don't gain the understanding of the broader world that the news is supposed to help give us. Instead, we are merely being fed whatever happened to be witnessed or heard. It may be unfiltered, but it is also often uninformed and unencumbered by the facts. It is like the game of telephone - someone always messes up the message, and no one ever wants to admit they were the one who got it wrong, in the end most of those participating never hearing the actual message.
I will continue my general critique of the media landscape tomorrow with the model I think would work best for the media, and why it actually hasn't.
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