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2009-11-28 Home Front: Culture Wars

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Posted by Fred 2009-11-28 00:00|| || Front Page|| [11138 views ] Top

#1 Far too kind to journalism. What happened was journalists realized by controlling the discussion, they could control society, and they set about doing exactly that. They filled universities with idealogues and set about making new journalists come into the field with pre-built biases, and the idea that they should practice these biases in their work to "improve" (control) society.

Now they've gotten so far out of touch nobody believes them any more, and now they're dying. They'd rather die than go back to the old mold of journalism where they report and you decide.

Posted by gromky 2009-11-28 03:02|| 2009-11-28 03:02|| Front Page Top

#2 This profession has a social value that is currently not reflected in its market value

He got that the wrong way round.

This profession has a market value that is still not reflected in its social value.

Unless of course, you think fulfilling the liberals need for someone to tell them what to think has social value.

Posted by phil_b 2009-11-28 03:25|| 2009-11-28 03:25|| Front Page Top

#3 We used to have "reporters," where now we have "journalists."

FredMan scoops. 9.88.

Sometimes I think when FredMan wasn't flying in the non-Tune, speaking the classic languages, he was a real reporter. Ima curious about that. Ima typesetter by 1st trade.

Posted by Perry Stanford White 2009-11-28 07:37|| 2009-11-28 07:37|| Front Page Top

#4 And the whole system is based on a kind of intellectual theft. Internet aggregators (who link to news they don't produce) and bloggers would have little to collect or comment upon without the costly enterprise of newsgathering and investigative reporting.

This is one of the sillier bit of this lament.

Way back in the early 80s I read that something like 90 percent of news published in newspapers originated in institutions, which release the news for free. Government, corporations et cetera.

Intellectual theft my ass.

Now takes very little effort to go to an institution's website to get the news and then develop a story using other sources if you want to localize. And newspapers hate that yet they refuse to admit it preferring to toss about charges of IP theft.

This idea that professional news must be published with fact checkers and layers of staff started towards then window with the advent of the Internet, and with the CRU scandal, it is trying to grab on to the ledge to keep from going down.

Allow me to step on those fingers:

Journalism is fragmented because frankly it stopped serving the people. A person now can report business news the same way with the same quality as large institutions and do so with little effort and little expense, thanks to the internet.

Newspapers suffer from an institutional malady. I don't have a term for the sickness, but someone probably does. The theory is that institutions reach the end of their usefulness when they reach a certain, larger size, and their custodians often are forced to make a decision: do we continue to grow and become even more inefficient and ineffective, or do we change, reduce our size and maintain or increase the quality of our output, and thus its value?

News organizations haven't even reach the conclusions that even news institutions no longer scale well, and whining about it in your product doesn't make the coming decisions any easier.

Some friendly advice to Mr. Gerson:

It's time to come to Jesus, way past time, in fact. I appreciate that Mommy is no longer here to daub your tears and kiss and hug you, but it is time to cowboy up, and face the facts.

Change or go out of business

Posted by badanov 2009-11-28 08:19|| http://www.freefirezone.org]">[http://www.freefirezone.org] 2009-11-28 08:19|| Front Page Top

#5 As I explain to my daughter, quite a lot of businesses are not what they seem. Newspapers aren't in the business of selling a news product. They are in the business of getting maximum exposure for advertisements. For years, news papers enjoyed monopoly profits in their market segments for ads, both geographic and vertical.

The Internet broke those monopoly profits from 2 directions. By providing cheaper and faster access to advertisers and and by proving a better source of news to news consumers.

'Journalists' received some of the rent from those monopoly profits.

Posted by phil_b 2009-11-28 09:01|| 2009-11-28 09:01|| Front Page Top

#6 The democratization of the media -- really its fragmentation -- has encouraged ideological polarization.

Got that backwards, I suspect. The world does not revolve around the media's description of it.

The media is really a ~~symptom~~ reflection of its culture. There was a real consensus in the country from 1936 to 1980. But that consensus has broken down and a new one is being constructed. It's messy work.

Posted by Nimble Spemble 2009-11-28 09:36|| 2009-11-28 09:36|| Front Page Top

#7 Slow death but not necessarily sad. It is not sad because many of these news sources stopped providing the news long ago. They basically became shills for liberal causes and for the Democratic party [I guess I repeated myself]. They transferred "Opinion" to the front page and called it "News." They abdicated their role as the reporter of facts.

Posted by JohnQC 2009-11-28 10:36|| 2009-11-28 10:36|| Front Page Top

#8 Most Internet sites display an endless hunger to comment and little appetite for verification.

he's on to me. damn

Posted by Frank G">Frank G 2009-11-28 10:58|| 2009-11-28 10:58|| Front Page Top

#9 And the whole system is based on a kind of intellectual theft.

Pretty much sums up MSM as the sockpuppets, of one party and special interest groups, that simply repackage talking points or papers of their favor. There is no 'intellect' to steal. When you bury ACORN criminal activity, when you cover for pseudo scientists pushing fraud, when you look the other way when members of the inner party do something you pillar for days when its done by someone in the outer party, and the only place to find the real dirt is on the internet, your 'profession' is lower than that of the first profession.

The old print media has simply reverted to its roots, partisan broadsheets. It's off springs of the other media form are just the same.

Posted by Procopius2k 2009-11-28 11:59|| 2009-11-28 11:59|| Front Page Top

#10 There seems to be very little verification going on the media, that's why I read blogs.

Anyone with any real science knowledge wouldn't be reporting AGW the way they tried to.

Posted by Bright Pebbles 2009-11-28 15:05|| 2009-11-28 15:05|| Front Page Top

#11 Excellent in-line commentary, Fred; some of the best I have seen anywhere on this subject in fact.

Posted by Atomic Conspiracy 2009-11-28 16:00|| 2009-11-28 16:00|| Front Page Top

#12 I can't say it any better than this guy (commenter "Novaculus", excerpted from the WaPo article's comments section):

I scour the internet for news and take nothing at face value. Typically I am fully aware of developing stories 24 to 48 hours before heavily spun versions appear in the dinosaur media. Unless, of course, like Climategate or the ACORN scandal, they are suppressed completely.

Don't blame the internet and bloggers, you flaming hypocrite. The blame is absolutely your own, and your projection of blame and childish whining moves me not at all. You soiled your own bed, and you deserve to sleep in it.

Posted by Ricky bin Ricardo (Abu Babaloo) 2009-11-28 16:44|| 2009-11-28 16:44|| Front Page Top

#13 DeForest Kelley on the current state of journalism in America.

Posted by DMFD 2009-11-28 18:35|| 2009-11-28 18:35|| Front Page Top

#14 At its best, the profession of journalism has involved a spirit of public service and adventure -- reporting from a bomber during a raid in World War II, or exposing the suffering of Sudan or Appalachia, or rushing to the site of the World Trade Center moments after the buildings fell.

And at its worst, it decided what the public should see ("no WTC jumpers"), or publishes press releases provided by advocacy groups as hard-news, or flat out ignores or distorts issues.

Meh. I get the paper, but it's mostly so my 'dawg' has something to retrieve.

Posted by Pappy 2009-11-28 18:41|| 2009-11-28 18:41|| Front Page Top

#15 One of the problems I see with the media isn't just a lack of fact-checking and verifiction. Its the outright misdirections and (I'll say it) lies by the media.

Take for example the Beslan 'incident' a few years ago. Even while it was happening and it was 'known' that the perps were, to a person, Islamic extreamists the media did everything they can to avoid calling them that - or even terrorists. They were called 'hostage takers' and 'gangsters' - anything except what they actually were - Islamic terrorists.

Look at the example of the Acorn sting. The mainstream media totally ignored what might have been the biggest political story of the year. Its not that they were 'ignorant' of it -- oh they knew full well about it. Its that they deliberately choose of their own free will to ignore the story - in order to advance their agenda and their political allies. The only network to carry the story was Fox - and for they the White House attempted to castrate them.

But a story about Palin's grandson's father's mother being into drugs - that gets top billings.

And what about ClimateGate and the details of Obamacare.

No the Mainstream Media is guilty of both Failure and Treason. Failure to do their job without bias or slant - both by ignorance and by design. And Treason to the unique and special role they are supposed to play in our democracy.

And people are catching on. The last election sesion they didn't even bother to wipe their mouths after their glowing Obama interviews.

That is why 'Journalism' is dying. And good riddance. People are not as stupid as they think. Extinction is a perfectly natural process.

Posted by CrazyFool 2009-11-28 19:20|| 2009-11-28 19:20|| Front Page Top

#16 Why would a media that cannot sell newspapers or attract viewers think that their online content has value?

And why would media presume to lecture me on what I should read or watch?

Posted by Skunky Glins****">Skunky Glins**** 2009-11-28 20:29|| 2009-11-28 20:29|| Front Page Top

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