Mainstream Media is Scared Senseless

I don’t know who wrote this painfully-defensive editorial on the LA Times, but he doth protest loudly and irrationally that he unintentionally put another nail in the MSM coffin and put the mainstream media doomsday clock at five-minutes to midnight. Very sad; no, rather pathetic… Via USC Annenberg School for Communication’s Online Journalism Review

“The essence of good journalism is asking the right questions. Google, however, won’t ask anything of those who submit comments. According to the company’s announcement, its only interest is that the submissions are authentic, not that they’re relevant or even truthful. As a result, the comments section is likely to be larded with spin, hype and obfuscation. A seemingly heartfelt comment may carry the CEO’s name, but the words will probably have been typed by corporate flacks.”

“There will be some valuable responses too, plugging holes in stories or correcting mistaken impressions. Google, however, won’t help readers separate the factual wheat from the public-relations chaff — a reminder that Google may strive to be the world’s index, but it’s not journalism.”

Those poor journalists and reporters said the same thing about popular papers, tabloids, the radio, television, and now the Internet. Same shit, different decade.

So, how indignant is he going to get when he finds himself or herself put out to pasture out of irrelevance.

What happens to professors, reporters, priests, rabbis, and experts when people cease to ask their opinion?

When a quick Google search and a Wikipedia look-see offers better, quicker, and more satisfying results than anywhere else?

Here is the panacea: professors, reporters, priests, rabbis, and experts actually need to start adding value. They need to earn their keep. They need to attract a readership, they need to learn to communicate more completely. These experts can no longer rely on their affiliation or their degrees to bolster their relevance and importance.

Carl Sagan, Richard Dawkins, Douglas Rushkoff, Malcom Gladwell, and Stephen Hawking are all media darlings because, although they deserved to be completely entitled, they didn’t act that way. They wrote accessible books for regular folks.

Stop complaining and start performing and competing. Your industry, expertise, has become privatized, and you really need to compete with everyone else, even Pink is the New Blog.

Sorry mate.