For the second time in slightly more than a year the LA Times has fired its editor for objecting to newsroom budget cuts. It will be interesting to see how the next replacement deals with this phenomenon, which is likely to continue.
BTW, I don’t gloat about this. Old Media may be dying, but New Media are not yet prepared to take their place. We’d like to be… we’re trying… but we’re not there yet. A new method for the dissemination of news must be developed, however. We cannot just rely on the Associated Press, which has been shown repeatedly to be biased, often in the extreme.
Roger,
I think the new dissemination model is the lesser of your issues. New media, as you point out, can hardly rely on the AP or Reuters.
What is most needed is a new collection model that is capable of breaking the kinds of news / truth that needs to get out.
The Dan Rather incident (more meta-news) and the Qana photos with Mr. Green Helmet are the large kinds of stories that are hard for the New Media to come by in the original sense. PLUS, you need a lot of the smaller stories to complete the picture.
Good luck and good hunting.
Roger,
Someone recently sent me an article in which you were quoted and you mentioned me and referenced PS 167. Many years have passed since then and I am flattered that you remember me. I was just up in New Haven last weekend and it made me think that I should contact you and see how you are doing. I am pleased that you are doing very well – although I should have expected so!
Ernie
Hi, Ernie. Great to see you here. Hope you’re doing well. The Internet is indeed a wondrous thing.
New media performed the invaluable service of showing how greatly bias determines the selection and slant of the news. We finally got to see the other side of the coin instead of just always heads or always tails. Unfortunately, seeing both sides of a worthless coin will not only not lead to a greater awareness of the truth, but will actually make it harder to discern, in the long run, no matter how shiny and pretty the words might be. Has news ever been presented objectively in old media or new? I wonder if either understands what objectivity or balance is. All I know is that, for me, the novelty of blogs has worn off and I’ve been deleting bookmarks like crazy.
News papers weren’t “objective” back in the old days, either, but they didn’t pretend to be. They were honest about their biases, and there wasn’t a monopoly by one faction or another.
Objectivity isn’t truly possible. Being honest and fair is.