Check this brief story out and consider it in the context of "The Daily Show" viewers getting as much factual news content as those viewing ordinary newscasts.

http://www.mediachannel.org/wordpress/2007/06/11/online-will-overtake-television -news-within-five-years/

Frankly, I'm already there. I suspect a fair number of you here are too. I do not watch much TV for news. I do watch it for analysis and commentary however.

In light of the FOX news threads we had here, I thought it worthy to discuss the ramifications online news consumption will have on television and political discourse in general.

I don't think bias is a bad thing. Used to, but learning to deal with the Internet has largely factored that away for me. There is always bias, everywhere all the time. It's not possible to just trust a news source and consider it authoritative on reputation alone.

THEY ALL GET IT WRONG, OMIT STORIES, etc...

IMHO, the move toward newstainment will only continue. This means formats like talk radio, Countdown, O'Reilly, Stewart are not flash in the pan trends, but actual trend setters in terms of engaging younger audiences. --and hip older ones too. All depends on where one is in life at the moment.

Given sufficient clarity for the viewers to judge the merits of the commentary, given the facts at hand, more newstainment is not a bad thing, IMHO.

In this FOX is a trendsetter, IMHO. Not a bad thing, unless one is stuck on the idea of actually just trusting a network for news in general.

I highly recommend anyone seriously reconsider this.

In this interconnected day, it's extremely easy to just go fact check, or compare a few biased sources against one another to reveal differences, or perhaps just important facts.

The Blogs are really starting to heat this stuff. A great deal of their coverage is actually meta coverage of other sources. Fact checking, for those not quite willing to engage it fully on their own. Perhaps time is a factor too.

The big worry is this:

Will a majority of Americans embrace this fully enough to make it a net gain, or will we simply devolve somewhat with our population isolated in little islands of thought, each more or less exclusive, but for a few issues that cross multiple boundaries?

If we get more people talking, as in the kind of talking that happened on the homosexuality thread here, it's gonna be a really great thing. The expectation that we can and should discuss things on that level is good right?

If it goes the other way, will the majority of broadcast news continue to devolve into the pop fluff stuff we've been tired of? Seems we are at a pivot point here. Endless Paris Hilton mono coverage for weeks at a time?

The problem with blogs is that they by and large rehash news reported elsewhere -- we're hearing commentary with some fact checking. Most bloggers don't actually go out on the street and cover the stories first hand -- in particular, conduct investigations, like newspapers do.

I think in the future the more successful internet-only based media sites will be the ones that go out and report on, as well as investigate, stories.

How do we get from here to there, I don't know for sure.

One thing about FOX-TV is that they appear to not have as many (if at all) "60 Minutes" type programs that would make it easier to determine if they really are "fair and balanced", not to mention make it easier to debunk specific false stories on FOX-TV.

On another note, probably on more topic too, I think our society always catered to fluff, but with the internet being relatively new, there's a lot more fluff floating around than "usual", (because for one thing, creating or rehashing fluff is dirt cheap!) but as the internet grows up, more intellectual news sites ought to surface and gain popularity.

And, yes, the WOWIE graphics and more storylines about Paris Hilton than anybody, makes you FOX-TV, the chief fluffer!

Fluff off!

Some bloggers are now doing this. Also investigative reporters are exploring books and blogs, in addition to television.

One blogger, Brad Freeman, has gotten into voting issues in a big way. He does travel, report, interview, investigate. Does it largely with funds from interested contributors.

Greg Palast is another.

I've noted a trend toward live blogging as well. Talk a blog like Kos. It's actually edited by a few people, chosen largely by the blog owner. This choice is also influenced by readers and other regular contributors.

The blog itself has perhaps 500 regular contributors, each focusing on a topic of interest. When events happen near one of them, they will often live blog, ask questions, etc... depending on their mode.

I do some very small amount of writing for OpEd news, which is setting up a similar structure. Topic editors, contributors, etc...

They will actually issue press credentials for live events, if somebody who is a registered contributor asks for them.

Very interesting stuff.

One other aspect of this I find very interesting:

Traditional media owners own infrastructure and to a degree people. It's powered by money.

In the blosphere, money is still a factor, but not the primary one. Ownership of a given blog of note really comes down to having cultivated mindshare and putting personal reputation online --or the reputation of a known online persona.

Again Kos is the former, Digby is the latter as nobody knows really who Digby is, bur for a few trusted others. The legal blog Groklaw, is run and largely published by a Pamela Jones. Nobody knows who she is, other than she is a very talented paralegal, interested in open software matters. She covered SCO -vs- Novell, Microsoft, IBM, to a degree that essentially blew the case wide open.

During the high times of that case, she posted regular spot on analysis, complete with court documents, transcripts and other elements necessary to evalueat that case, as if one were in the court room. Also did a ton of fact checking, independant of the attorneys on both sides, that made winning that case considerably easier than it otherwise would have been.

At one point SCO issued a summons (seopena?) for her to appear before the court, claiming collusion with the IBM attorneys. It went unserved...

Her motivation: Preserving software choice, because she thinks that matters and is willing to contribute to open software in the only way she really knows how.

My point in highlighting these things is that passion plus mindshare can be had and leveraged without having huge dollars any more. In the traditional media world, you must have these things and must also be vetted by a fairly select and elite group before being able to engage people in this way.

Going forward, should Internet news and information surpass TV, isn't having people like this a good thing? I'm a bit worried about the asshole with passion, that happens to have talent. We've not seen many of these yet, and those that have appeared did make quite a splash, but were eventually marginalized.

One stellar example of this happens to be Michael Crook. He sued bloggers over a less than flattering image of himself broadcast on FOX news. He was advocating hate against gay people at the time too. (double asshole) He lost that suit, and had to make a video, owned by those he targeted, that said what they wanted him to say, and is restricted from using the DMCA to beat people up for 5 years, in addition.

Maybe if there are more solid people than not, this will all work out ok...

I have some skepticism over blogs produced by reporters individually overtaking newspapers and television news because of the convenience factor that those more traditional outlets provide. What might work is if someone were to assume the role of editor by compiling blogs that met some standard of journalistic integrity and reported on "newsworthy" topics.

However, as Frontline pointed out a few weeks ago, one of the main problems in journalism today is that there is very little reporting going on. Nationally, the wire services do most of the reporting. Major city newspapers and the television networks have their staffs, but they are not very large. The major radio conglomerates have no news staffs of their own to report on stories of national significance. Yahoo, Google do not have reporters; they just pay for the rights to stories from other sources. It is really difficult to create a quality news product, be it on televisison, radio, or the Internet, when there isn't a large enough base of reporters on the streets doing the fact-finding.

That very little reporting bit is what drives the move to the Internet. The fluff factor is really high, and I am more or less saying entertainment type fluff will be more potent than, "FOOD DRIVE!" type fluff.

I don't trust the mainstream media for news anymore (even the New York Times had made huge errors in coverage the last few years)...but when I hear "Greg Palast" I'm immediately skeptical. He's reported on things (Cincinnati elections in 2004) before that I know from personal experience were not true. He's certainly a "reporter" with a huge bias and an agenda and that puts me off whether the reporter is biased to the left or the right.

The most reliable source for news these days seems to be NPR and PBS's New Hour with Jim Leher. For example, I first heard about the US attorney firings story there, seemingly weeks before I heard about it anywhere else. No news source is 100% unbiased but at least they take a professional approach to the news and assume their views are INTELLIGENT. They don't have these stupid infotainment dumbed-down newscasts like the Big 3 and CNN/Fox have, which I refuse to watch.

Andrew

There will always be "news" on tv...it's just the definition that may be changing. PBS does the most serious newscast on TV today, but their ratings (not included in the usual TV surveys), don't seem to make much of a difference in how the rest of the media reacts.

The audience must request and require more serious newscasts. So few do. Instead, we put up with what is generally described as "entertainment-news" as if there is nothing we can do about it, which in course, just increases that amount of programming!

Of course, the reverse argument may be that this is what the public (in general) wants, and that is what media will deliver in its effort to satisfy the public from a ratings standpoint. Frankly,I don't completely disagree with this concept...that is, the public will get exactly what they want.

So it comes down to a question that has been around for atleast three decades now...Who is to blame...the media, or us?

BOTH. It's a catch 22. "Dirty Laundry" man....it's all about the dirty laundry. People thrive on the Bad and Immoral news about others so the news agencies report it. Why do you think given how ridiculous and exaggerated things like the "STAR" and "National Enquirer" do so well? They are just taking it to the next level.

Dirty Laundry describes it well:

I make my living off the evening news
Just give me something-something I can use
People love it when you lose,
They love dirty laundry

Well, I coulda been an actor, but I wound up here
I just have to look good, I dont have to be clear
Come and whisper in my ear
Give us dirty laundry

Kick em when theyre up
Kick em when theyre down
Kick em when theyre up
Kick em when theyre down
Kick em when theyre up
Kick em when theyre down
Kick em when theyre up
Kick em all around

We got the bubble-headed-bleach-blonde who
Comes on at five
She can tell you bout the plane crash with a gleam
In her eye
Its interesting when people die-
Give us dirty laundry

Can we film the operation?
Is the head dead yet?
You know, the boys in the newsroom got a
Running bet
Get the widow on the set!
We need dirty laundry

You dont really need to find out whats going on
You dont really want to know just how far its gone
Just leave well enough alone
Eat your dirty laundry

Kick em when theyre up
Kick em when theyre down
Kick em when theyre up
Kick em when theyre down

Kick em when theyre up
Kick em when theyre down
Kick em when theyre stiff
Kick em all around

Dirty little secrets
Dirty little lies
We got our dirty little fingers in everybodys pie
We love to cut you down to size
We love dirty laundry

We can do the innuendo
We can dance and sing
When its said and done we havent told you a thing
We all know that crap is king
Give us dirty laundry!