Posted on 11/05/2007 12:12:57 PM PST by DallasMike
Really? No kidding?
I've always said that if people really knew what was going on in the Middle East then Bush would have an approval rating in the upper 80s while Democrats couldn't be elected as dogcatchers. From AP:
[Associated Press CEO Tom] Curley said in a speech that news organizations should quit thinking like gatekeepers of information and reach out to people who are accustomed to receiving news in real time online and customizing the ways they see and read it.
"Editors need to stop pining for the old world and intensify the leading to the new one," Curley told a fundraising dinner for the Knight-Bagehot Fellowship, a program at Columbia University for business journalists.
At the same time, Curley said news organizations were partly to blame for the troubles they are experiencing in adapting to the new realities of the news business being wrought by the explosion of Internet use.
"The first thing that has to go is the attitude," Curley said. "Our institutional arrogance has done more to harm us than any portal."
Curley gets it. The question is whether the people who work for him or who work in other organizations get it. I think that's doubtful. When Woodward and Bernstein broke the Watergate story, journalism schools became jam-packed with students who wanted to change the world. However, The job of a reporter is to report facts, not to change the world.
However, it was only months ago that the Associated Press was filled with Photoshopping photographers and made-up stories to make it appear the war was failing. They saw no need to fact-check or verify their stories because they were trying to shape opinion, not report the facts.
The American mainstream media is not called the Dinosaur Media for nothing. They turn non-stories into mountains and ignore stories that do not fit their world view or, especially, their politics. The surge in Iraq has been an unimitigated success but most people don't know it. Despite a booming economy, half the country believes that we are already in a recession and two-thirds believe that a recession is either happening now or coming soon.
American mainstream media reporting is falling to pieces. The New Republic, once a respected magazine, still refuses to recant the stories of Pvt. Scott Beauchamp, who has admitted to fabricating stories of atrocities in Iraq. Oh, and his girlfriend was the editor for the story. The New Republic believed that American troops were committing atrocities in Iraq, looked around for someone to back up their opinion, then failed to do any vetting or fact-checking of the story.
The Dallas Morning News did the same thing by digging up Larry Burkett to lie about President Bush's National Guard record. Just 5 minutes of Googling would have revealed that Burkett had dramatically changed his story about Bush's records from 2000 to 2004. Never mind that Burkett was unabashedly partisan. I begged and begged the Dallas Morning News to investigate Burkett and his discrepancies for months. It wasn't until Dan Rather had broadcast the story and it was falling apart at the seams that the Dallas Morning News finally took me seriously.
Curley has good ideas but can he really implement them? He's going to stonewalled every step of the way by every two-bit reporter and photographer who works for AP. My gut feeling is that the mainstream media has passed the point of no return. Newspaper circulation and nightly news viewership will continue to drop, newspapers will fail, news anchors will change, but the mainstream media will still ignore the real problem.
‘’Gatekeepers’’ is just a polite word for ‘’Propagandists’’.
I like the term "paleolithic media," but that's just me.
Ping.......(Dinosaur Media DeathWatch™)
Later
These students who wanted to change the world were, for the most part, anti-Vietnam babyboomers who had all seen Robert Redford and Dustin Hoffman—armed only with typewriters and telephones—take down the whole Nixon Administration.
Prior to Watergate, print newsrooms included much more diverse groups of people who didn’t all think alike and run in a herd.
Since Watergate, the industry has attracted a lot of neurotic people seeking power, perhaps to compensate for perceived or real inadequacies. This has resulted in a collective news product that conveys a neurotic view of the world.
Then again, we are seeing a few break out media sources and outlets.
Look what Fox has done by breaking from the herd. Matt Drudge anyone?
Ironically, the less liberal media outlets seem to do better than the others.
If anyone knows, I would love to see side by side comparisons about readership for the Washington Times Vs. The Washington Post and NYT.
Does the trend follow in print journalism?
I just thank God for the internet. It allows the news consumer, particularly through specialized sites like FR, to look at several versions of the same issue. To me, the internet is as revolutionary as the development of movable type.
His should be displayed on a pike for all to see and remember as an emeny of America.
He has prolonged the war in Iraq and the war on terror more than any other single person. His news is propagated throughout the country.
I have been slowing down when flipping by CNN myself and seeing some positive stories.
Please don’t tell anyone, though. I don’t want to see their ratings go up just yet.
I watch Glenn Beck on their Headline News channel occasionally. Other than that, I only watch local news. Fox has really gone downhill of late, it’s mostly sensationalist tabloid schlock and Rudy-pimping.
Anyone With A Modem Can Report On The World
...[Hillary Clinton] said, "We're all going to have to rethink how we deal with the Internet. As exciting as these new developments are, there are a number of serious issues without any kind of editing function or gatekeeping function."
Independence From the Press Rocks the Gatekeeper's World
... the idea of the press as the great adjudicator has also been knocked down. ...
To say, “I don’t think newspapers can be the gatekeepers anymore,” as James O’Shea did, is to recognize an historic shift in the politics of information. It’s the sort of thing that can leave you stunned, angry, confused and depressed, if you have always thought of yourself as keeper of the gate. ...
Newspaper sale$ decline should be blamed on the Journos
...People who work at journalism full time ought to be able to do a better job of it than people for whom it is a hobby. But that's not going to happen as long as we "professional" journalists ignore stories we don't like and try to hide our mistakes. We think of ourselves as "gatekeepers." But there is not much future in being a gatekeeper when the walls are down.
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