“New” Media

Fort Wayne Observed has some good observations on the “new” media. In particular, I agree with this:

I compared the blogging atmosphere to print journalism of the late 1800’s to the early 1900’s when the number of published newspapers flourished. Those newspapers gained an audience by appeal over time. The audience of readers sorted out the purveyors’ credibility.

I had a U.S. history teacher in high school who taught us that “today’s reform is tomorrow’s corruption.” In a way, I think that happened to journalism. Striving for objectivity was a reform for the industry; I presume without knowing that this was a reaction to some of the “yellow” journalism at the turn of the 20th century. However, the pursuit of objectivity turned into a fetish of sorts. It led to a sort of relativism where the truth was unknowable and each issue had approximately two equal but opposite sides. “Some say the moon isn’t made of green cheese; other’s disagree.”

Bloggers definitely have points of view which allows them to call bullshit when they see it. After awhile, readers can figure out which writers are credible but honest; which writers are honest but gullible; which writers are simply dishonest; etc.

Of course, this has its disadvantages as well — for example, citizens are less and less likely to share a common frame of reference. If everybody was getting their news from Walter Cronkite, they could have a base of facts and disagree about the proper conclusions. Today, we can have neighbors where one gets their news from Mother Jones and another gets their news from Fox News. Their frames of reference are so far off, they can’t even properly disagree. They simply talk past one another when they bother to talk at all.