Clay Shirky is a classic example of today’s faux journalist.
Is he serious?
“Print media does much of society’s heavy journalistic lifting, from flooding the zone — covering every angle of a huge story — to the daily grind of attending the City Council meeting, just in case.”
After two straight years of the disgusting pandering we saw during the during the recent campaign? We were treated to stories about Governor Palin’s wardrobe while the corruption at every level of the Obama campaign was snickered at; his social and political associations were ignored; Candidate John Edwards’ dalliances were knowingly covered up, then ignored; Nicole Smith was put on the front page for months on end; the biggest spending legislation in the history of the world became law before anyone had even read it and no one in the press even blinked an eye; all of this and endlessly more, and this guy thinks the print media does “society’s heavy journalistic lifting!”
“The list of models that are obviously working today, like Consumer Reports and NPR . . . . “
NPR! Consumer Reports! Two organizations that owe their very existence to legislation and tax laws and would change immediately or disappear if the laws were changed.
“If you want to know why newspapers are in such trouble, the most salient fact is this: Printing presses are terrifically expensive to set up and to run.”
Printing has never been more available, accessible, or cheaper. Walk through any – any – city, town, village, grocery store, rest stop, gas station, or college campus and pick up a handful of local tabloids, neighborhood sheets, and newsletters. Almost every one of them has more content than the local Gannett chain paper.
With apologies to the author who I cannot remember, a column was written five or six months ago in which he lamented cancelling his NYT subscription because it was full of opinion and no facts. Therein lies the problem; Albany, Chicago, Washington, DC, the UN, ACORN and a whole lot of other places are full of crooks, scoundrels, and fools, the media knows it, we know it, we know the media knows it, and the media knows we know they know — AND THEY DON’T CARE. If they did care, they’d report it and sell out every day.
Shirky’s not a journalist, he’s preparing his case for a bailout. He knows it, we know it, he knows we . . . oh, never mind.
