My Conflicted Feelings on the Media, Part 2 of 2
Yesterday I started this discussion by pointing out that there are about two segments of media - the mainstream and the citizen. The extent to which we rely on one over the other has changed with time, eroding the perceived dominance of the mainstream across the last century plus. However, times have changed, though not completely in a good way.
As I noted yesterday, the citizen media has grown rapidly in the last decade or so, driven by the growth in the communication industry and the ability to capture and share stories through the internet and our mobile devices.
But the citizen media isn't new. In fact, it's much older than the mainstream media. Citizen journalism was once the only way anyone got the news at all. Individuals witnessing events, telling their friends and family, those people telling other people, and thus news has spread.
However, that used to be a very slow method. Go back to before the telephone and you relied on the mail. Go back before then and you relied strictly on word of mouth from travelers. Furthermore, much like I noted previously its like that game of telephone where the message gets passed around with little assurance or accountability that it is indeed the truth as best as can be understood. The growth of mainstream media, of newspapers and news television, grew from a desire to share the stories important to people in a format that was accessible and with reasonable expectation of truth and accuracy beyond just John or Jan down the street sorta saw something and this is kinda what they thought it was about.
To compete with the modern citizen journalism, the mainstream media has focused on glitz and speed, foregoing accuracy and far more often substance. As a result, we have a media paradigm with the folks who were supposed to be able to get us the news with those assurances of accuracy and in-depth and thoughtful analysis. We as the public are instead in a situation now where we are forced to consume half-baked news, parsing through any number of different accounts in hopes we can manage to figure out the truth.
The problem is born from something very simple. Money is needed to print newspapers, pay reporters, run a TV station, travel expenses to get those reporters on the scene... it takes money to do a lot of the things needed to deliver the news. The limitation of the citizen journalist is in their ability to do any of these, or even more basically the bit about traveling and doing research. Citizen journalists simply, through no fault of their own at all, lack the resources to go chasing stories the way a professional reporter does, thus their stories will inherently lack a certain amount of depth.
To make ends meet, to turn a profit, mainstream media has to keep up with, if not overturn, the trend that has led away from them. There is a model, however, that in a more perfect world would allow them to operate without such concerns. It's actually used already and has been for a long time as well. It would be to make the news business a subsidiary of another larger business. Much in the way any company offsets philanthropic choices through the fact that their core business is one that is profit driven, make the news business a subset of a company that works to accomplish other tasks.
Fox News and MSNBC operate, somewhat, under this format. MSNBC, part of NBC Universal and Comcast, have relatively vast entertainment branches arms whose entire intent is to operate as a for-profit endeavor. Fox News, somewhat infamously, operates under the broader Fox umbrella, whose forays into entertainment are often far different from the news side's conservative leanings.
Unfortunately, this model hasn't worked out. The reason is because the news arms are still treated mainly as a for-profit extension of the for-profit company. In other words, there is still the expectation that they turn a profit. That means they still have to work to be popular, not just good at their jobs. if they can turn a profit, being good a their job is secondary. If they can't turn a profit, then they will cease to exist. That is what has led to the attrition in print media over the years.
The mainstream media has a purpose it must fulfill. It is able to do more because it has the size to levy resources individuals do not. The same way a professional ball player is going to have better skills and talents than an amateur, the mainstream media will more often than not have the ability to do a better job than and citizen journalist when it comes to the big stories.
It will be our jobs to force the media to change. We have to hold them accountable when they fail to do the right thing, fail to deliver the news honestly, fail to correct mistakes, or plain fail at any of the basics of real journalists. The news is not the place for wild speculation or conspiracy theories. It is supposed to be for facts.
Thus the conflict - we need the news, but the news we have isn't needed. Hopefully that will change, and soon. It is not doing us much good as it is right now.
As I noted yesterday, the citizen media has grown rapidly in the last decade or so, driven by the growth in the communication industry and the ability to capture and share stories through the internet and our mobile devices.
But the citizen media isn't new. In fact, it's much older than the mainstream media. Citizen journalism was once the only way anyone got the news at all. Individuals witnessing events, telling their friends and family, those people telling other people, and thus news has spread.
However, that used to be a very slow method. Go back to before the telephone and you relied on the mail. Go back before then and you relied strictly on word of mouth from travelers. Furthermore, much like I noted previously its like that game of telephone where the message gets passed around with little assurance or accountability that it is indeed the truth as best as can be understood. The growth of mainstream media, of newspapers and news television, grew from a desire to share the stories important to people in a format that was accessible and with reasonable expectation of truth and accuracy beyond just John or Jan down the street sorta saw something and this is kinda what they thought it was about.
To compete with the modern citizen journalism, the mainstream media has focused on glitz and speed, foregoing accuracy and far more often substance. As a result, we have a media paradigm with the folks who were supposed to be able to get us the news with those assurances of accuracy and in-depth and thoughtful analysis. We as the public are instead in a situation now where we are forced to consume half-baked news, parsing through any number of different accounts in hopes we can manage to figure out the truth.
The problem is born from something very simple. Money is needed to print newspapers, pay reporters, run a TV station, travel expenses to get those reporters on the scene... it takes money to do a lot of the things needed to deliver the news. The limitation of the citizen journalist is in their ability to do any of these, or even more basically the bit about traveling and doing research. Citizen journalists simply, through no fault of their own at all, lack the resources to go chasing stories the way a professional reporter does, thus their stories will inherently lack a certain amount of depth.
To make ends meet, to turn a profit, mainstream media has to keep up with, if not overturn, the trend that has led away from them. There is a model, however, that in a more perfect world would allow them to operate without such concerns. It's actually used already and has been for a long time as well. It would be to make the news business a subsidiary of another larger business. Much in the way any company offsets philanthropic choices through the fact that their core business is one that is profit driven, make the news business a subset of a company that works to accomplish other tasks.
Fox News and MSNBC operate, somewhat, under this format. MSNBC, part of NBC Universal and Comcast, have relatively vast entertainment branches arms whose entire intent is to operate as a for-profit endeavor. Fox News, somewhat infamously, operates under the broader Fox umbrella, whose forays into entertainment are often far different from the news side's conservative leanings.
Unfortunately, this model hasn't worked out. The reason is because the news arms are still treated mainly as a for-profit extension of the for-profit company. In other words, there is still the expectation that they turn a profit. That means they still have to work to be popular, not just good at their jobs. if they can turn a profit, being good a their job is secondary. If they can't turn a profit, then they will cease to exist. That is what has led to the attrition in print media over the years.
The mainstream media has a purpose it must fulfill. It is able to do more because it has the size to levy resources individuals do not. The same way a professional ball player is going to have better skills and talents than an amateur, the mainstream media will more often than not have the ability to do a better job than and citizen journalist when it comes to the big stories.
It will be our jobs to force the media to change. We have to hold them accountable when they fail to do the right thing, fail to deliver the news honestly, fail to correct mistakes, or plain fail at any of the basics of real journalists. The news is not the place for wild speculation or conspiracy theories. It is supposed to be for facts.
Thus the conflict - we need the news, but the news we have isn't needed. Hopefully that will change, and soon. It is not doing us much good as it is right now.
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