I think Drudge would echo your sentiments. 'Pod.
Posted on 09/17/2004 1:33:15 PM PDT by Taliesan
The Old Media is just sure this internet thing is at best a passing fad but at worst a corruption of journalism. "Where is the editor?" they ask, as they wring their professional hands in worry over amateurs defiling their parlors.
How will the public be protected from bad information? After all, anyone can post anything on a blog or discussion board, and traditional news organizations have layers and layers of highly trained fact-checkers to kill the bad stuff so the consumers only get the pure truth. Don't try this at home, we are experts, if there is anything significant in the general cultural noise we will let you know.
The Parlock Affair, fresh and hot on FreeRepublic and other cyberplaces, is a case study in why the editor is a dying job. Specifically, the "Set-up" allegation.
Someone on a leftist blog looked at the photograph of the Parlock incident and pulled from the internet a picture of the Parlock family. A quick comparison, and an instant allegation: the so-called "union thug" who allegedly tore up the little girl's sign and made her cry looks an awful lot like one of the Parlock boys in the family photo. A set-up! Behold, the power of the internet.
But our hypothetical "real" journalist would respond: "Not so fast. This is exactly the thing you need an editor for. We need to know if this is really a Parlock sibling or not. We need to confirm the allegation before it is printed. See, you are propogating unchecked information. The readers can't possible be expected to evalute this. See, Hillary Clinton was right, the internet needs regulated more, to protect the helpless public."
But the journalist would be wrong. If you follow the threads further you see the magic of putting ALL the allegations out there, and let the blogosphere, with all its mixture of bad and good, true and false, goofballs and experts, have at it. Read on to the end of the affair and you will see the dark side of the unregulated blogosphere held in check by the amateur swarm itself. E-mails were fired off to the union hall, the Parlock children (apparently) posted their own messages, and the union president finally issued a quick (and surprisingly stand-up) statement of apology. The apology implicitly refutes the allegation of a "set-up". The union, at least, accepts that the thug is their thug.
Behold, I say, the power of the internet. The consumer gets the truth, and gets to see the process for himself. And this is the point the professional journalists seem to be so slow to get. They don't dispute that the bloggers occasionally get one right. Read most any article in the MSM about this ongoing paradigm shift and you see this pattern: first, a concession of the occasional coup, then, the horror list of bogus information swirling around the internet. And the conclusion is predictable: yes, the internet has its uses -- but look at all the bad information out there when there is no screener. See! You can't let people be exposed to bad information. They define success in journalism as a process which hides all bad information from the reader.
We disagree. The open-ness of the process is the protection. We're not writing for idiots; we're writing for us. We don't mind being assaulted by conspiracy theories and lies and half-truths and spin. We're used to it; we enjoy sorting through it. I am reminded of Major Dick Winters' retort to the warning that the 101st Airborne would be surrounded when they jump on Bastogne: "We're airborne. we're supposed to be surrounded." We're supposed to have bad information around. It's the internet.
Like in the making of legislation and sausage, the process is ugly, but that is the price you pay for the end result. The conclusion is to be trusted more, not less, because you can see for yourself each step toward the conclusion. The consumer of news is not a child; there is simply no harm in false information striking his retina. The standard for journalistic success is truth, not the successful hiding of all lies.
So in the Parlock Affair we have a case that played out entirely in the space of a few hours, and one, unlike Rathergate, that will eventually be forgotten and will not affect the course of the country. Precisely because of its compressed time and small scale it is all the more useful as a teaching tool.
The Old Media is dead. The traditional editor's function is assimilated. The New Media is ugly. And that is good.
You forgot to mention that his oldest daughter post on here that the guy was NOT her brother!
Excellent analysis and well said. Thank you for posting it.
good read bump.
Corruption by public officials would be measured by people who knew them: "Wait a minute. I've known Samuel since we were kids. He wouldn't do that. There must be more to the story."
Readers are their OWN best editors.
This is one of the few vanities lately that even comes close to meeting the criteria for vanity posts. Nice.
The new media are posting in their pajamas, and ugly as that is, it still beats Helen Thomas.
Pardon the vanity. I thought it was worth a thread.
... worth a read too.... one of the better treatises on the pajama revolution.
No apology necessary, IMHO. Well-written and concise. I would only suggest an amplification on the theme of "Internet time", since that is such a vital attribute of the 'Net/blogosphere. Facts are checked and hypotheses are validated within hours, if not minutes, and by multiple sources. As you noted, the "swarm" takes up the challenge and with breathtaking speed provides us with hard information on which to act.
I think Drudge would echo your sentiments. 'Pod.
You know, every time I hear some MSM spokesperson lament the fact that there is no editorial process, I want to point them to the thread where we were vetting the Rather Memos. You could write a book about it. Someone would bring up what they thought was an inconsistency, and it would be shot down by someone familiar with typesets or military lingo. In the end, we reached a logical, defensable solution. Long live FR!
LOL!...an understatement don't you think?
Yes -- "internet time".
You can tell just how far the MSM is from "getting it" because "internet time" is, for them, an evidence of conspiracy. Several articles have come out based on the notion that the Rather Forgeries were debunked so QUICKLY it must have been a setup. Keith Olbermann was audibly puzzled at the speed of it all, and implied that the VRWC had resurrected itself and was slouching toward Black Rock.
Conspiracy theory is a dead give away. They are looking right at something and do not see it.
Well said. Might I add that it's also not about the hiding of all information that contradicts "the story". The old media has focused too much on telling the story rather than informing the viewers. As a result they choose what they want the viewer to think and then shape the story to fit that agenda.
What's the duration from first post through that first list of issues? It seemed like no more than 3-4 hours, but I can't seem to locate the right thread to verify that.
Methinks we're less "The Borg" than we are "The Swarm". And most worrisome to those who try to mislead the public...
However, writers are rarely their own best copy editors!
I would have put it this way:
The New Media is Ugly, Rude, Coarse, Brash, Noisy, and ultimately Honest.
The Old Media is Well Spoken, Polished, Sophisticated, Knows Which Fork to Use, Polite, and utterly Dishonest.
But, I hasten to add, if they were utterly honest, they would still be obsolete. The mechanics of their demise is technological; the pleasure we derive from it is ethical.
well stated.
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