6 May 2005 - 1:27am
Blogs are "a danger for journalism"
In one of the most ridiculous articles I think I've seen among the old media alarmists, NPR Ombudsman Jeffrey Dvorkin rants about how blogs threaten journalism:
The increasing sway of such thinking is borne out in a recent Magid survey for the Carnegie Corporation called "Abandoning the News" (See Web Resources, at right).
It's a fascinating look at how -- and why -- Americans' news habits are changing, especially among the Internet-savvy users between 18 and 34.
The survey confirms (again) what many people in the news business suspect: that younger people find the Internet a more useful place, and a more nimble way to get their news, compared to television, radio and (especially) newspapers. At the same time, fewer Americans of all ages, but especially young Americans, feel the need to keep up with the news at all.
Those who rely on the Internet as their primary source of news keeps growing compared to other media sources. This group also considers Jon Stewart, host of The Daily Show on Comedy Central, to be the most trusted television anchor.
Maybe because with Jon we know when he's making shit up.
The worlds of the MSM ("mainstream media") and the blogosphere are making cautious contact. Slowly, bloggers are finding their way into the MSM. As the Carnegie Report shows, NBC hired bloggers to comment on their election night coverage last year. ABC News and CNN are actively pursuing the blog-prone audience. Even one of NPR's newest programs, Day To Day is collaborating with Slate.com, the online magazine. On NPR, these online journalists contribute their editorial perspectives and edgy insights -- with gasps of dismay from some listeners and occasionally from the ombudsman too.
Gasps of dismay? You'll hear them from me whenever I watch a MSM news report. And I can tell you, it ain't some blogger's fault!
The appeal of the blogs? Humor seems to be the biggest attraction. Ironic detachment from the news, an ability to deflate egos and refreshing, undisguised opinion are also valued. All are antithetical to most news organizations.
American newspapers traditionally and scrupulously segregate fact-based reporting from opinion by designating pages for each. Radio and television try to ensure that opinion remains secondary to reporting. Conclusions should be drawn warily. Bloggers tend not to care if they, and their readers conflate opinion and fact. It's part of the appeal of the blogosphere.
As news organizations fight to regain their battered credibility and vanishing audiences, the blogs and the number of people who read them continue to grow. The blogs entertain, they provoke, and they are not constrained by journalistic standards of truth telling.
This is a challenge and a danger for journalism.
Maybe the real challenge for journalism is to "regain their battered credibility and vanishing audiences" in the first place, without trying to point fingers at some blogger boogieman. Maybe? Just maybe?
As an authority on the matter, Dvorkin, an old white man of old media cites a slightly younger white man of old media, Ken Rudin, who admittedly does have a blog, yes -- but it's been "sanctioned" by NPR. Ah, well, that's a relief! Rudin whines:
Finally, congratulations to the dozens and dozens of free thinkers who wrote in, often using the exact same language, regarding a piece by NPR's David Welna on the oncoming collision in the Senate over the right of the minority to filibuster judicial nominations. David mentioned that Senate Democrats are calling Republican leader Bill Frist's threat to change the rules and curtail the filibuster the "nuclear option." Some Web logs took NPR to task by saying we were parroting the GOP line by attributing the quote to the Dems, when after all it was Sen. Trent Lott (R-MS) who coined the phrase. All David was doing was saying that Democrats were calling it the "nuclear option," which they were. Welna didn't say that the Dems originated the term. He didn't get into its etymology. But suddenly, according to a bunch of blogs, NPR was "bamboozled," joining the vast right-wing conspiracy in attributing the phrase to the Democrats. And that was followed by dozens of e-mails, all from people "outraged" that NPR would stoop to such tactics. The least they could do is change some of the wording and make it look like they actually did some independent thinking before pressing the "send" button.
Funny how sensitive the old media suddenly get when it's the progressive mainstream calling them on their bullshit. What's really quite striking, though, is Rudin's superstitious belief that all us bloggers are logging in at some online "talking points central" to get our marching orders.
If only!
Here's a little reality for you, Messrs. Dvorkin and Rudin: "the bloggers" are the citizens. We are your audience (or maybe not). You can go ahead and blame us for all your problems with credibility and corporate kowtowing, but you're just blaming your own audience. Why don't you look to yourselves to find the causes of your demise? Better yet, why don't you open your goddam eyes and learn something? You're drifting off into being a newsletter for the corporatocracy, not a news organization for the public. You are "public radio," yes? It's hard to tell. You've been the shameful mouthpiece of government propaganda in the run-up to the war. You seem to believe that there are left-wing facts and right-wing facts, and therefore treat lies as if they were legitimate positions.
And you pretend you're not doing it! Maybe you don't even realize it.
Here's a clue for you crusty old guys lost in 1963: Blogs are not a new TV channel. Blogs are not a new newspaper. Blogs are more like the telephone than the radio. (Of course, people like you cried in alarm over those inventions, too.)
Why don't you get off your high horse and fat arses and fix your own problems without trying to fob the blame off on the people? It's bad form, really -- something that NPR is getting better at lately, it seems.
Remember what Murrow said: "The medium is the message." Well, here's the message that is the blogs: The people have found their voices and are talking back. You can either shape up and get your act together, or you can get out of the way. Because not only can you hear us, we can hear each other. What makes your voice by rights so special?
media girl also blogs at other places.
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Comments
Media Girl, you rock!
Wonderful insight!
Blogs are the tip of an iceberg. It's a massive conversation that's been going on since before the Republic was founded and those in the intelligentsia (now there's a word that a blast from the past) are finally catching on.
For years the media has ruled, all the while patting itself on the back about how grand they are. Finally, bloggers are showing that the media is fooling itself that it has moral authority or is anything but a mouthpiece for corporate interests.
The media thunders, "ignore that man behind the curtain. We're the great and powerful media."
Yet, look how inaccurate they are--and arrogant. At the end of the film "Trading Places" the Duke brothers, Mortimer and Randolph, have been outwitted by two upstarts and the Duke brothers are about to lose their shirts after their nefarious commodities scheme has failed. Mortimer shouts something like "you can't do this! This is an outrage! I demand an investigation! . . . We founded this exchange. It's ours!"
The media now feels like Mortimer did in that moment. Their collective property rights are under assault from some upstarts.
In short, what we have is a monopoly fighting for its "rights." When Bell was busted up in the 1980's, a network was busted up where people could not install an extension phone in their own home. "Cut the wires to the ringer, then they won't know we have a phone in the bedroom." After the fall of Bell, it was the first of a series of networks to fall as people were given choice. Like a pebble tossed into a pond whose surface is flat like glass, the ripples move out. The ripple effect of busting the trust (pun fully intended) now allows me to stand toe-to-toe with the media.
They thunder, "but blogs might be wrong. Blogs are only one person's partly defined opinion filled with half-truths!" Is the media so arrogant that they think of themselves differently?
In another project I was telling my boss about a guy named Vail--few have heard of him, but he made Bell the monopoly it was that lasted until about 1984 when Ma Bell was busted up. It was not Alexander Graham Bell who build the empire, it was Vail.
What did Vail say?
He said that a massive telephone system under what one might dub "single command" was (in words attributed to him) a natural monopoly. It was more efficient for their to be ONE telephone service--not two or three or more. In Middle School, this was taught. The inefficiency of competing wires running down the same street and telephones in one building that could not be connected to the building next door. "Our Weekly Reader," or as one wag put it "Our Weekly Dose of Corporate Propaganda" (Remember the failed Channel One?) recounted this lesson. There were "natural monopolies." Microsoft is positioning itself as such and the courts are going along with it--but that's merely an interesting aside.
Another "natural monopoly," MSM, now believes it is under assault from the unwashed masses who are doing what? First Amendment.
In the over-the-top comedy "Zorro, Gay Blade," Lauren Hutton demands her right to speak in the public square. The generalissimo has ordered she be arrested, but when reminded that this right is an ancient--to stand on the soap box and freely speak in the public square--he smiles and he orders his guards turn their rifles from her to the crowd. Yes, she has the right to speak, but he'll arrest anyone who listens.
I think what Media Girl is saying is that the rifles have just swiveled.
"The increasing sway of such thinking is borne out in a recent Magid survey for the Carnegie Corporation called "Abandoning the News" (See Web Resources, at right)."
This Magid guy is Frank Magid, http://www.magid.com/, a consultant and survey maven whose work with some of the biggest news divisions in the world created this quagmire (and I don't mean Peter Griffin's neighbor in Family Guy - "alll-right!"). TV stations are required to air at least 30 minutes of public service "news" in exchange for their use of the public airwaves. Magid helped them turn a public service into the station's most profitable programming.
By the late-70s, news had degenerated into this cheesy "happy talk" format that tried to place a syrupy gleem over the constant barrage of car crashes, murders/crimes by the stereotypical minority suspects, and sexually suggestive objectifications of women. Fear and taboo sells, and the stations learned that if they can tease and tittilate the viewer just right, they will likely stick around for the main event - the commercial. Your government screwing you like a bad tool set? So what, here's another runaway bride story to distract you from the raping we are allowing big business to do to you. Union-busting? who cares! We'll reveal who will win the karaoke reality-show right after this commercial break!
Ask yourself this question - what percentage of the incidents in a news broadcast is a minority portayed either committing a crime or playing a sport? Wouldn't want to challenge suburbanites mental processes - as long as they are scared of "those people", they'll stay out in the burbs at the big-box stores flexing their buying power. How often do they cover corporate criminals? What about the toxic polluters who kill wildlife forever? And the increase in Autism and cancer that is largely due to the crappy products our news sources push into our homes every night?
Why doesn't the news mention the foibles of their corporate backers?
Because they are bunch of spinesless fuckin' lackeys.
Just like the conservatives who defend the powerful at the expense of the powerless. Yeah, real fuckin' macho. It takes some real guts to stand up for the guys who bribe you every two weeks. I guess it makes perfect sense that while others were risking their safety by working toward the single greatest accomplishment of their generation - civil rights - Bush was doing cheers at his yuppie borading school. (Don't forget "Spirit Fingers", little Georgy!)
Fuck the news. I'll read "MAD" and a non-corporate sellout blog instead.