Media trust, pre-talk radio

Never was it more evident than when the NY Times aggressively pursued the Spitzer story.
Didn't hear too much chatter out of Bill O. and Rush after that one.

 

Yes! The all-powerful liberal mainstream media, whose collusions, conspiracies and seditions have managed to keep Republicans out of the White House for eight of the last 28 years!

 

Awesome.

 

I've been thinking about this for a while now and I am starting to think that the world is literally suffering an information overload. Granted, there can never be enough information and it's still solidly important that fires be lit beneath the wrongdoers.

It's just that, to me, there was an even phalanx of differing opinions -- be they political or religious or something else -- in the 1800s with a newspaper espousing that particular view. That changed as time progressed with newspapers, as the heavyweights, tackling corruption, crime and malfeasance. Radio and then TV expanded that but as we hit the cable era and became glued to the video screen we just sort of lost our processing power, dumped our skepticism and got used to being lulled. With the Internet and the explosion of quick, inexpensive and easy to operate Web sites and blogs, there's now clusters of like-mind sentiment latching on to their grievances - real or perceived - and parroting tales of woe or malfeasance of Democrats or Republicans or Britons or Germans or Christians or Muslims.

With so much information available now the din is deafening and no one is about to lower the voice.

I like radio. I always have. I still prefer to listen to it when I can get a station on the shortwave. I like newspapers no matter if I am reading one's Web site or folding the broadsheet over and devouring a story. I like blogs, too. They're good for divergent views and even manage to offer some context that may have been missed.

But I hate the din. I hate the virtual shouting, the lack of logic, the loss of civility where if you disagree then it's treason or you're lambasted as a cretinous wretch devoid of morality or awash in greed and sin and corporeal evil.

It's pervasive and there's nothing that can stop it unless some sort of global sea change comes, causing everyone to take a brief step back, catch their breath (maybe grab a quick smoke) and reboot.

It's disheartening that talk radio can leave me feeling like I need a shower. It's distressing that reporters now loathe the wires because they don't provide hyperlocal news and that any foreign news can be had sharing reports with newsgatherers on the other side of the planet and that even then there's no need to be cognescent of what is going on in another country because it's not local enough.

It's demoralizing that Web sites and portals, Yahoo and Google among them, ratchet up entertainment news and salacious gossip ahead of profound changes in government policy or the latest military actions in unusual lands.

Everything now is about who can be the loudest, the most profane, the most titillating. Yet no one seems to adequately grasp that even as we break new ground in instant communication and are more informed now than in all of history before us, we're still stopped dead in our tracks by Lindsay Lohan mimicking Marilyn Monroe in a recreated photo shoot and concerned whether "Friday Night Lights" will get the nod for a third season.

-30-

 

There was no liberal media bias when the NYT used anonymous sources to say John McCain was fooling around with some woman close to his campaign.

No this is just the presidential election, nothing important enough to use named sources.

 

I think there has always been media bias, though I do think the end of the Fairness Doctrine and the growth of media in the early to late 80s has led to a greater diversification of news outlets and a greater acceptance of bias. People want their news, their way. If Murdoch didn't create Fox News, someone else would have created a news network to the right of CNN, there was just too much of a market there to leave untapped. MSNBC wasn't going to out CNN, CNN so they've gone to the left with their programming.
People have always bitched about their local paper. I'm sure people in New York and Washington even rag on the Times and the Post (as well as the Post and the Times), it is human nature. As for Limbaugh, and those on the left who rail about the corporate media, it is their job to create distrust of other news sources, even while they shamefully drawing on them as sources for show content. I liken in to an abusive relationship where the male (in most cases) drills into the abused person that "they" are the only one the abused person can trust.
Back in the day, you normally didn't see media outlets bash other media outlets, especially those in the same medium, but now you're seeing even newspapers rip on other newspapers (especially those competing in the same Pulitzer category), not to mention blogs in every market allowing behind the scenes dirt to be dished.
All in all, I think the current situation creates (and demands) a more savvy and sophisticated media consumer who understands the need to utilize a variety of sources before forming an opinion.
FYI - Apparently AP is hiring 30 Entertainment reporters.

 

I don't know if the word trust is the correct one. When you look at our profession maybe we are being spread too thin. I write a column for the newspaper and do a blog and podcast. I also do talk radio five days a week.
And it is a tough balance. There are certain things you can say on radio you cannot in newspaper. And you cannot scoop yourself on radio if it is a big story for the newspaper.
I think people can separate from Rush. But what about locally? How do people react to local journalists who do both?