Finding Media in the Mirror
Trailing only slightly the efficacy of the Bush Presidency, the future of journalism is among the most hotly debated issues in the digital media world. Traditional newspapers are taking a pummeling from blogs. Virtually every news source in existence is under scrutiny. Does traditional news still matter? Have career journalists grown lazy? What has happened to objectivity? Since my childhood listening to the god-like voice of Walter Cronkite to today’s 40-point-font hysteria of Matt Drudge, the transfiguration of the news industry is staggering.
Amid so much change, where does one go for reliable, objective news?
Essentially, nowhere . . . and everywhere.
If it’s a reliable, objective single source you seek, I wish you the best of luck and hope that your journey to madness is short and relatively painless. Reliability depends on whom you’re talking to – or reading. Some swear by Jon Stewart; others take Rush Limbaugh as gospel. And objectivity? Hunter S. Thompson once said that the only true objective journalism is sports scores and stock market quotes, calling the phrase, “a pompous contradiction in terms.”
Modern journalism is fractured, confusing, blatantly biased and begging to be defined. So where does that leave us, the readers? It leaves us to our own devices and that may not be so dire after all.
As a self-professed media junkie, my habits may be more egregious than others. Until CNN turned into non-stop talking heads (and when exactly did that occur?), I kept the all-news station on throughout the day. I watch local news nearly nightly, read the daily newspaper over breakfast and still turn to the “big guys” when disaster strikes. I subscribe to multiple magazines, from Vanity Fair to National Geographic. And I spend an obscene amount of my day checking my Bloglines feeds at an embarrassing rate, lest I miss the latest Linux rant on Slashdot. In short, I have become my own news network. Driven away from traditional media by bias, ineptitude, and unoriginal thought, I invent my own solution. I read the latest Iraq updates on Al Jazeera, bounce to the nightly news for their take, check in on Drudge for a giggle, then visit a favorite blog or two for any conspiracy theories I might have missed.
By the end of the day, I’m exhausted, wanting to return to the time when these events were spoon-fed to me. Walter, where are you when I need you most?
But should we hearken back to the day when Mr. Cronkite pulled off his glasses, choking back tears to inform us that our president had died? No pundits brayed beside him, no ticker ran below to relay how the stock market was reacting. Then again, no one told us how incomplete the Warren Commission report was or provided a platform for all the witnesses who swore something else was afoot. We had to wait 20 years to hear dissenting voices. Sure, some of us think those voices are all loony. But some of us don’t.
And that’s where we find ourselves in the 21st century – with the luxury of one thousand different voices from which to choose. Rather than demand that the old guard change or the new kids be more responsible, let’s see if we can shift to make room for all of us.
Perhaps the new face of media has turned out to be… our own.
--Carla Thompson, Editor, Guidewire Group Editorial
Posted by Carla Thompson at April 13, 2005 08:08 AM
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