Have reports of the death of the mainstream media been greatly exaggerated?
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15 comments to Discussion Point IX |
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I don’t usually listen to the news – has the MSM died? If so, then their death would be why I haven’t heard anything on the subject.
I think the MSM is not dead yet but their monopoly on the desimination of news is certainly dead. I think they are having to rethink how they do things as their advertising profits are shrinking.
Factfinding is still primarily done by the MSM. As long as that is true, they are indispensible.
Dunno, I still buy the local newspaper because there is no alternative source for what it tells me about the local situation.
Joshua
As far as I can tell less and less fact finding is being done by the MSM, mostly the just regurgitate what they get from the Government or other sources like Global Security.
That said the MSM is not yet dead, but it is very slowly dying. The big US networks are losing audiance share though they still get between 18-20 million viewers every night. The big newspapers are also slowly declining, the mid sized papers such as the San Francisco Chronicle and the Boston Globe are facing disaster.
In Europe as far as I can tell the French papers are in a mess. Le Monde’s boss is being forced out and Liberation is in deep doo doo. Government media such as the BBC and some of the French networks are doing fine.
So the future may just be that we have a few big government controlled media giants, a few entertainment conglomerates with small ‘news’ divisions that pay more attention to Paris Hilton than to General Petreaus and a host of underfunded minnows who do real investigations and analysis.
mmmmm ?
MSM needs to adapt or die. Seems all old media already have massive web presence. So they are adapting. I don’t think they are dying, some may, but most of them won’t, same as with all businesses.
Factfinding these days is increasingly done by news agencies such as AP and Reuters. The MSM provice comment.
The BBC no longer has reporters, it has commentators. A typical news item on the beeb will have the chief political corespondent talking to ‘our North America corespondent’ with side interviews with the defence or economic corespondents. All of them presenting the beeb’s spin on the story.
Since the news agencies also have web presence, we have brave bands of bloggers who will take those agency stories and provide their own comment and we can pick and chose which commentary we like – and interact with the blogger as well.
Since some bloggers read, and link to, the ‘opposition’ blogs we can get a good idea of the range of opinion on any particular news item.
Also, since the agencies are increasingly providing pre-spun news, there are specialist bloggers to de-spin their copy.
This is part of the reason the MSM is shrinking in influence, but it has some economic problems as a model.
Yes.
Kevin: The BBC no longer has reporters, it has commentators. Isn’t Alan Johnston a reporter? I agree with the rest of your comment, though.
Jacob: Seems all old media already have massive web presence. So they are adapting. I don’t know. The web in this case is just the medium through which they reach audience. Their mere presence on the web says nothing about the way they collect, interpret and present the news. How well are they adapting in that area is whole other question.
Have reports of the death of the mainstream media been greatly exaggerated?
If anything, the mainstream media is undercovering the story.
TV killed radio. What? but radio is still here, listen (turns dial, producing pop music). Well yes, it’s still here. But it doesn’t own the conversation or any large slice of the audience. The radio talks about Big Brother. TV doesn’t talk about The Archers.
You’ll know the MSM is dead in that sense when TV starts being all about memes that started on digg.
Sadly most people still get most information from the mainstream media.
In the United States this means they get it from the left. Certainly Fox News exists – but far more people watch broadcast television than cable. And certrainly there a few nonleftist journalists on A.B.C. (or, at least, leftists who try and keep their bias under control) but that does not really compensate.
As for the newspapers – sure they are in decline, but they are a wall-to-wall nightmare and many people are still influenced by them.
In Britain there are no non leftist broadcasters (whether private or state owned) there are not even any A.B.C. style broadcasters (where the mostly “liberal” journalists try and control their bias). British news and current affairs broadcasting is leftist (including “Sky News”).
There are supposedly pro free market newspapers (as well as leftist ones), but even these supposedly free market newspapers contain a lot of leftism – and I think it is getting worse.
Remember that journalists (at least in these days of graduates only) are the product of the “education system” and guess who controls that.
One must also remember that the days when the internet was dominated by pro freedom people seeking an alternative to the mainstream media are over.
These days the left (in the sense of the pro Welfare State, pro international government, anti American people) are well financed and well organized – they are a big factor on the net.
Nor is just a matter of things like the DailyKos and Moveon.org
Take the example of Wikipedia “the reference work that anyone can edit”. The leftists have the energy to simply edit articles again and again – we do not tend to.
It reminds me of what the late W.H. Hutt said when asked how the followers of Keynes “won the debates” in university economics departements.
“There were no debates, they just gained control of examinations and the appoitment of staff and that was it”.
“But how did they gain control?”
“Because they are better at committee stuff than we are”.
Sure like most libertarians I stress that I do not stand for “individualism” I stand for voluntary cooperation (civil society). But in reality I (like most of us) am totally useless at certain forms of “voluntary cooperation” – the forms that enable people to gain control of institutions and set polocies.
This is just a lack of ability or energy – such tactics make me feel sick.
Word blindness strikes again.
The above should read “This is not just a lack of ability or energy”.
Paul,
Some time we need to discuss this point. It seems to me that an essential part of the definition of “voluntary” is individual consent. What I call social individualism.
Any consent that does not derive from the individual is collectivism of some sort.
Since you and I agree on process in almost all cases, I think there must be something in the definitions of the words that I am missing. There are often levels of distinction and nuance that miss me.
I am quite comfortable with individualism v. collectivism as a dichotomy. And quite comfortable putting myself in the individualist camp. This in no way precludes voluntary cooperation so I just don’t understand the aversion to “individualism” as a philosophy or a term.