Wednesday, September 23, 2009

all the news that is fit to 'print'

Hubby and I had an interesting philosophical conversation yesterday. With the advent of what is deemed 'new' media, who are the information gatekeepers? It used to be that the big three television stations were the only televised source for news. Now news channels are a dime a dozen and are even specialized into entertainment, financial and op/ed categories. Used to be that your local paper carried UP, AP and Reuters stories along with local reporting. That diversity is absent now. The more affluent folks could perhaps even get an edition of a major city newspaper along with their local paper. Now, papers are going bankrupt and any national paper, like USA Today, offers only abbreviated stories buried beneath half page advertisements.


Now, it is often the newsmakers who are often the communicators of news. They blog, tweet, facebook etc their way into the headlines. Are there any filters or gatekeepers left? Who drives the news cycle? Who checks the facts? Who determines what is news worthy and has the definition changed? Journalists were supposed to be the watchdogs for society and keep a keen eye on our government, business etc. Now, true investigative journalism is rare and you have to wonder at the objectivity of any of the news outlets....after all, they are mostly owned lock-stock and barrel by BIG business.

News travels so fast. News cycles are non stop. Information goes viral with one You Tube post. We have access to any data we want, whenever we want, delivered how we want. There are so many gatekeepers now that truth is suffering and objectivity is on life support. You can get your news delivered from a source that leans in your philosophical direction; neatly packaged to agree with your political/religious/ethical viewpoint.

I once had a friend tell me that if you wanted to know what was really going on in the world to watch BBC news. They still reported the news, investigated the news and presented the news. I wonder what Journalism school is like nowadays.

2 comments:

Anne's BLOG said...

You're echoing my thoughts with your philosophical conversation. So much is transmitted over then internet that is not only questionable but also borderline libelous. Is there no one accountable for accuracy today? Doesn't look like it. Hubby often reads, and distributes to his online friends, items and articles that beg to be challenged, but are accepted as 'gospel' because they're in print. It's scary, to say the least. He defends this with 'you deserve both sides of a story'.. but I disagree. Better not spreading such trash, than to offer options.

EYR said...

That is it exactly. Just because you receive info, packaged into some template that makes it look newsy, it may not be true, accurate or based in any type of reality! Hubby receives a lot of this type of stuff at work and always provides a snopes.com link to show the 'truth' of the matter. I fear that in this case, the facts of the matter are far less glamorous than the fiction that passes for truth.