"Bad Days for Newsrooms--and Democracy"

Linked HERE is an interesting column from TruthDig.com that offers a bleak look at what is happening to journalists and newspapers across the country.

Although I obviously enjoy blogs (heck, I "own" one), the much ballyhooed "new media" does have serious limitations. One problem I and others see is that the number of journalists (people who have actually have degrees in the subject) doing investigative journalism has been declining for decades because of the mass corporatization of the news media (six major conglomerates own over 90% of the news media outlets). 

The new media--blogs, internet filtering sites--is still beholden to the traditional media though because they are simply parasitic. They rely on reports from newspapers and magazines that have editorial staffs, travel funds, and enough time for in-depth reporting from time to time.

Although I disagree with the author's assumption that we had a news media that was non-ideological (the papers from the early Republic to the 1940s were quite and sometimes overtly biased, especially the 18th and 19th centuries), I would contend that back then there were more diverse sources of information out there. Nowadays, unfortunately, if you turn on CNN, NBC Nightly News, Fox News, MSNBC, and others on any given day, you're going to get pretty much the same stories with slightly different spins on them. We have speed and convenience down, but depth is a serious problem.

What's being lost due to media consolidation is that the conglomerates are using vertical integration of news outlets to cut costs and offer little diversity. The cheap news is the infotainment crap (Angelina and Brad's babies, some white girl lost in Aruba or wherever) that is constantly getting shoved down our throats. 

In some respects, perhaps supply creates demand in regard to the "news." If people are constantly being shown what people call "soft news" or "fluff," they come to expect that type of junk as the "news."

I for one want investigative reporting from professionals who have studied the craft of journalism. The "fourth estate" needs to get stronger, vibrant, and much more vigilant, as Bill Moyers' argues in "Is the Fourth Estate a Fifth Column?" (linked HERE) 

Sure, we all can have our blogs, but our little audiences of a dozen or so people isn't moving the national conversation forward about our democracy and how our country can get stronger. A vigilant fourth estate helps with that.

I hope that you still read my humble little blog though.