Peggy Noonan: MSM Requiem

OpinionJournal ^ | 1/13/2005 | Peggy Noonan

[Ditto]

Peggy bump

[bmwcyle]

When the talking heads get isolated with money and fame they forget all too soon.

[MEG33]

LOL!..One day he is right on and another he just gets silly..

[Taliesan]

Networks, on the other hand, may try harder to play it down the middle, and that would be wise. The days when they could sell a one-party point of view is over. No one is buying now because no one is forced to buy. But everyone will buy the networks when they sell what they're really good at, which is covering real news as it happens. Tsunamis, speeches, trials--events. Real and actual news. They are really good at that. And there is a market for it. And that market isn't over.

Peggy thinks she is one of the ones who gets it talking to those who don't, but Peggy actually doesn't quite get it either.

There is nothing about any of these "events" she mentions that a group of bloggers cannot cover -- immediate and on the spot, with video. It is not that the MSM has a rival and must now adapt. No, it is that the internet has made the journalism degree and the editor UNECESSARY.

The Dan Rathers will say "but who will do quality control on the information? There has to be an editor!" Quality control comes from COMPETING bloggers, you dolts.

This revolution, which still has years to work out, will be bigger than even Peggy sees.

[HowlinglyMind-BendingAbsurdity]

In evening news, it's the...market share, market share. Heck, just in terms of the development of the medium CNN and that old dinosaur Ted Turner played a role in eroding the CBS base. It's not all about ideology. And certainly not ideological purism. Rush, Hannity, and Drudge are not exactly perfect specimens of the species.

[hershey]

C-Span was a crack in the MSM dam, too...until the democrats realized people were actually tuning in and making their voices heard. So many people made a difference. All those 5 A.M. talk radio shows, where conservative hosts vented...the station managers probably thought nobody was listening. Were they ever wrong. (We have to thank AlGore for the internet, although if he'd known how things would turn out, he wouldn't have invented it.) FR, the Swift Boat vets, ordinary Americans who'd had a bellyful of Clinton and his ilk.

[bowzer313]

There has never been a time in all of history when the telling of a story did not include or reveal the perception (or "bias") of the storyteller. Not ever.

The notion of "objectivity" that "journalists" of today bray about was merely a propaganda tactic described by Marx himself and deployed by Marxists in the media machine practicing dialectical materialism and "scientific" socialism. Its purpose was to delegitimize the opposition and obfuscate the truth.

[NHResident]

I agree completely. Peggy is still too emotionally and intellectually tied to old media. I think her writing has become less incisive and thoughtful over the last year. Not that she can't score direct hits but she does that with less frequency. In this column she underestimates the future changes and transfer to the 'new media' and overestimates the reality of old media's awareness and attempted response.

[B.Bumbleberry]

You've put your finger on it. Peggy does not fully realize the impact of the internet even yet.

[cloud8]

I think Peggy got a glimpse of the big picture when she wrote that no one has a monopoly on the news any longer.

But what the Rathergate report omits glaringly, and what Miss Noonan should be asking, is, Who forged military documents concerning the President of the United States and passed them on to CBS?

[IamConservative]

"It does a very good job of weaving through the minefield, doesn't it?"

Time will tell how good a job. They may still face some legal hurdles. If the rest of the media are really aggressive about feeding on the carcass of one of their own, I would anticipate an insider somewhere will be willing to sell what they know.

It may continue to ooze out for years to come.