I just came across a couple of paragraphs in a Pal-Item editorial that struck me as a bit self-serving and perhaps a bit wishful:
There are today millions of Web sites, many if not most of them started by individuals.
There is also a reason why, when it comes to the most reliable, credible information, Web sites operated by established media remain, especially for news, the most credible and therefore most popular. By and large, the media seek robust debate and discussion, but have in place standards for what they will allow to be posted on their Web sites or printed in their newspapers or aired on their broadcast outlets.
That is not to say that errors of omission do not occur. Mistakes get through, as sure as they do in print or on the air. But there is in place a better filtering process by editors trained in facilitating and fact-checking the flow of information.
I’m willing to bet that more people get their information from Daily Kos than from the Palladium-Item.
On the whole, I think resources to do the hard work of news gathering is the first reason people go to established news sources for their information. The second reason is credibility — new voices on the Internet have not, for the most part, had an opportunity to establish their credibility with the public. Credibility will come for some online sources. I’m not so sure about the news gathering — though Josh Marshall is taking a stab at it with his TPM Muckraker.
What many established news sources suffer from are a need to sell to the lowest common denominator and biases that are hidden rather than public. I know exactly where Kos and Marshall and Powerline, for that matter, are coming from and can calibrate accordingly. While a news source such as the Palladium-Item tries to be objective, I cannot be sure that it is succeeding and I cannot know what biases its writers, editors, and owners have but are trying to suppress. From reading its editorial pages, I would assume something of a right-wing slant, but it’s impossible for me to know how much its editorial sensibilities slip over into its news gathering and reporting operation.
I don’t know how much you read the Pal-Item, but its editorial stance slips over into its news stories all the time– and not only on DST stories.
The current managing editor apparently thinks that people are too stupid to figure out that almost everything the Pal-Item does is something dictated by its corporate parent. They started a blog recently, no doubt because Gannett wants its papers to appear to be on the cutting edge, in touch with readers, etc.
Last year, they did a series of articles called “50 Weeks of Success” that was supposed to focus on minorities from the area who had “made it.” The Pal-Item reporters were either too lazy to do any research or were too stupid to realize that most people with any sense left the area years ago because there are very few good jobs here for anyone of any color. As the year went on, it became apparent that the paper was having a hard time finding people to interview. The real reason for the series was to score brownie points with Gannett, which evaluates its newspapers based upon things such as coverage of minorities, having a diverse workforce, etc.
Pal-Item editorials tend to the self-congratulatory. They did do a public service in exposing the problems at the local EDC office, but their reporters routinely ignore other important county and city government issues. The EDC director was new to town and was an easy target.