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Public Service Announcement: You Might Be Losing Your Hometown Newspaper Soon. PSA II: Is This Really A “Bad Thing” After All?
Courtesy of MemeOrandum as usual, I’ve stumbled across some guy who blogs by the name of “Clay Shirky” whom I’ve never heard of until now but has earned an “Add To Favorites” Kudos from the GTL™ as a result of his way, too thoughtful and insightful essay on what is going wrong with the mainstream media (“MSM”) and where do we go from here?
Mr. Shirky goes way into depth in his essay on the rise, fall and eventual re-arrival of “The Press” (more later on why I capitalized and quoted that phrase). One particular “snip”, which caught my attention:
“… When someone demands to be told how we can replace newspapers, they are really demanding to be told that we are not living through a revolution. They are demanding to be told that old systems won’t break before new systems are in place. They are demanding to be told that ancient social bargains aren’t in peril, that core institutions will be spared, that new methods of spreading information will improve previous practice rather than upending it. They are demanding to be lied to. …”
I’ve said it before and I’ll say it again — regular readers feel free to just skip this “broken record” analogy of mine. Our Founding Fathers did NOT lay their lives and their livelihoods on the line to go out of their way to protect your local news rag, persay. “Freedom Of The Press” was their sole intent to protect we, the bloggers of today and they, the town criers of THEIR day. In other words, there wasn’t a Fox News, a MSNBC, a CBS, a CNN, or any other such multinational media conglomerate, “big bidness” entity in their day, there were only BLOGGERS like us who kept a sharp eye on what was going on around them in their local, state and federal “gub’mints” and they wrote biased opinions about what they were witnessing and spread the word to anybody who’d listen.
THAT was “The Press” our Founders went deliberately out of their way to affirm freedom of/for, and if you disagree, RESPECTFULLY, you are just plain W-R-O-N-G. Sorry to be so blunt. Sometimes FACTS can be quite “blunt“. Get over it, MSM’ers. Your time has ended taken a well-deserved, and personally-earned sabbatical. For now.
One more comment and I’ll end this column, referring back to the incredible essay by Mr. Shirky, where he mentions the few remaining fans of the print media are “demanding to be lied to”. To those unfortunate folks, I’d like to direct them to the latest Rasmussen Poll so they can learn just how out-of-date, out-of-touch, and ALONE they really are in their irrational fear of their favorite daily RAG going under. To those folks, I’d advise them there isn’t any such thing as “Fair And Balanced”, so pick out your favorite blog and get your news from there. In fact, it would be a great step forward for Capitalism and the Capitalist “town criers” whom, at the very least, will PROUDLY tell you which side of the political divide they are coming from…
Call it “TRUTH in advertising”. And call it “refreshing”, too, while you’re at it. I have this sneaky suspicion our Founding Fathers would take MY side on this one.
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Other Blogger Reax: The Impolitic; Riehl World View (Right); BoingBoing
Comments fixed yet?
More and more people are getting sick of old media’s “Don’t look behind the curtain” mentality. God forbid that we stinking blogosphere peasants wouldn’t find them relevant anymore.
I have to agree with ya bro! Tommy J, Georgie W, and Benny Hanah Franklin were not into covering their own asses as much as the MSM of today is. Ergo the CNBC and Jon Stewart so called war of words and yet CNBC caved and so did Jim Cramer. My friend Lee over at Pink Granite has the video of it if you must see it.
Their is not one iota of proof or reason why our founding fathers would have looked kindly on the mega media of today with its built in self protection. AKA the AP and the mega lawyers they have on the payroll to go after the opinionated bloggers like GTL and Papamoka that discuss the topics they report on. THOU shal not refrence the AP in any shape or form or face the fires of hell and legal repercussions.
I have no worries when a newspaper folds, it tells me they were not up to the standards that readers want to hear reported which is just the facts without asking the lawyers if this is okay to publish. I look to Ben Bradley at the Washington Post that risked his paper and his career to report the truth. To many papers are listening to the lawyers rather than their gut.
Great post bro!
Let me say this up front, I love newspapers and I shall miss them, at least the comic page and the opinion page but the news page. No.
I agree that todays rag sheets are not what our fathers fought for but I think that the problems go far past the lawyers. Once upon a time our daily newspapers were owned by people who actually lived in the town or city or village or county. They had a reason to report “all the news that’s worth reporting”, because they had as much to lose as any other citizen of the locality. And there were completing papers. But now, vitually no competition and no home ownership. What we have is Murdoch and his ilk. They’re not in the news business, they’re in the money making business. Or were, not now so much. I don’t think there is an independent publisher left or an editor that doesn’t take his orders from the money boys.