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Posted on 10/18/2008 11:49:07 PM PDT by Jim Robinson
Yada, yada, yada.
~~snip~~
The growing power of rumor is part of a much larger transformation in the way that voters receive information about politics. The old model was a vertical one, where professional journalists delivered their reports to a largely passive audience through television or newspapers. The new model is horizontal, where folks get information from each other and actively pass it on, through e-mail, text messages and viral videos. Everyone is a potential broadcaster.
This "democratization of information" has many benefits - more sources, more perspectives, more choices. In a forum Steve moderated for The International Journal of Press/Politics, Mark Jurkowitz, associate director of the Project for Excellence in Journalism, offered two examples: the incendiary sermons of Obama's pastor, the Rev. Jeremiah Wright, and Obama's speech on race and religion.
"Millions more people will see and observe and analyze those incidents online than would ever tune into a newscast showing the clips," Jurkowitz said. "So you are dramatically expanding the universe. (And) people can make up their own minds without any kind of media mediation whatsoever."
But there's also a dark side to this horizontal system. Without "media mediation," without the persistent truth-telling, fact-checking efforts of well-trained professionals, falsehoods can flourish.
The "he's an Arab" smear reached so widely that the New York Times devoted a front-page story to its origins. Its conclusion: After the allegations first appeared in 2004, they were picked up by the conservative Web site FreeRepublic.com "and spread steadily as others elaborated on its claims over the years in e-mail messages, Web sites, and books."
Said Danielle Allen, a Princeton professor who has studied the episode: "It's an example of how the Internet has given power to sources we would have never taken seriously at another point in time."
(Excerpt) Read more at metrowestdailynews.com:80 ...
Oh... BTW:
WE NEED MONTHLY DONORS!
END THE FREEPATHON!
Well, she is a Liberal Democrat. How do you think she feels?
Hey, Cokie... maybe you can help me. I heard a rumor that your brother works at a firm that does PR work for Saudi Arabia. Can you clarify that?
We'll be needing a detailed definition here Kookie. I'm still confused about the differences between a reporter and a jpurnalist. And why are all reports called "stories". When I was a kid, my dad told me not to tell stories except around the campfire.
I find it remarkable that Cokie was moved to directly attribute the “Obama is an Arab” rumor to us, but she could not find the courage to attribute the “the Gov is not Trig’s mother” rumor to the DailyKos, where, according to O’Reilly, a reporter meeting Cokie’s standards, it originated and was deliberately proliferated.
Back around the mid-late 90s, I was watching one of those sunday morning programs. I think it was on CBS, and during their round table discussion, one of the so called journalists brought up a mention of people getting their news off of the internet. At which point they all broke down in derisive laughter.
I'll bet they arent laughing now.
“this child of privilege, this smiling southern spit of a sweet young thing clinging like the last peach after the first hard frost, it’s dewy softness turning overnight into mush, mewing sweetly in our ears one last time - look at meee!, please???”
How beautifully put, what great prose, you have a way with words. Bravo.
Jim:
I sent the Roberts an email specifically noting that the alternate media would not exist if the primary media would fill-in the gaps of its reporting.
I provided the example that the NY Times sent reporters to find Gov George W Bush’s drug dealer but has expended no such resources on Sen Obama’s self-professed drug habit.
I also asked rhetorically if the average citizen could clearly explain Sen Obama’s pedigree. Most explanations from the primary media contradict each other with regard to Sen Obama’s heritage.
I think more Freepers need to confront these reporters directly with the facts. It has been Freepers that find the gaps and contradictions in the media’s reporting on certain issues. It is not wrong for us to ask questions.
What BS!
Two words...Dan Rather.
I googled the dead source link and came up with this from the "Renew America Forum."
The MSM currently involves itself in enough rumor and innuendo to make the internet gossip mills irrelevant. How many “questions start with “Some say...” or, “The rumor is...” How many articles are based purely on speculation? Look in the mirror!
“a key question facing democracy is this: How can the Web’s enormous advantages be reconciled with a greater sense of accountability?”
The web is already a part of a greater sense of accountability: the accountability of the MSM. You can’t lie quite so brazenly anymore, and democracy (whatever the heck that is. Better to say “the republic” or “good government.” Democracy is a false God) is the better for it.
the term “professional journalist” in 2008 is a total oxymoron.
After telling all of us for years how they have “no bias” they completely blew their cover in the past 2 years fawning over a Muslim socialist.
Only the weatherman holds any integrity any more.
Oh well, they are all tree huggers, so perhaps dropping the use of newsprint and magazine paper for the internet is what they really want deep down inside??
Cokie who?
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