A picture of the future media
My friend Liz brought this to my attention, although I am pretty sure that my take on it was different than hers. (OK, I just spoke to Liz, and I don’t think we’re that out of sync at all.)
Go watch it, then come back and read the rest of this.
http://oak.psych.gatech.edu/~epic/ols-master.html
In her entry, Liz called this video â??scary.â? And I agree. Any future where news delivery is controlled by one or two major corporations, each with their own agenda and ample opportunity to tilt delivery to suit that agenda, is scary. But how is that appreciably different than what we have today? Only in the number of corporations.
Everyone knows that CNN has a liberal bias. NPR, even more so. Fox has a strong conservative tilt. People choose to view one newscast over another (in most cases) to be in line with their own views. It’s easier that way. It’s stress free. (Of course, some choose to view the newscast most opposite their view, just to see what the other side is up to. For instance, I would guess that Liz watches Fox occasionally, and I have Aljazeera Online bookmarked. No one does this exclusively, however.)
The focus of the video is that the mainstream media (which, in the presentation, is represented by The New York Times) all but disappears by 2014. It has become a bit player in a news world dominated by Google and Microsoft.
As a side note: Does anyone believe that a plodding beast like Microsoft is capable of this? They are a victim of their own success: slow, uncreative, a monstrosity formed of attempting to be all things to all people.
Really. Does anyone use MSN as their main search engine?
There are still paid reporters and columnists, but they are paid based on popularity, not quality. Sensationalism is rewarded far more than depth in reporting. Oh wait… how is 2014 different than 2005?
Only in the delivery mechanism. Reporters have not disappeared… editors have. High profile irresponsible reporting via blog is a big player today. But that makes blogs different than the major media outlets how?
Finally, the supposedly bleak picture of the future bemoans the fact that a few intellectually gifted and organized individuals are given a summary of world events without compare in human history.
However, most, who have somewhat lower capabilities and tastes, are given a daily picture that consists of â??trivia.â? They have no bigger picture, they have no scope.
Pardon my cynicism, but yet again, how is 2014 any different that 2005? Most are not interested in what goes on any further away than the end of their block, and a Presidential election that gets half of us to even bother to vote at all is viewed as â??huge turnout.â?
A second side note: To those of you who are thinking â??Apathy and ignorance are precisely the qualities of American society that got us a President like George Bush…â?
Bullshit.
Apathy and ignorance are the qualities that got us CANDIDATES like George Bush and John Kerry. We didn’t care, so we got mediocre candidates. I don’t blame the country for voting for George Bush, because the only available alternative was John Kerry. And those candidates were chosen (depending on your level of cynicism) by a) the political parties themselves, accountable to no one. b) a minority of voters hugely smaller than the ones who actually participated in the actual election (during the primaries) or c) the centralized media we have today. Because they have the Presidential look (tall, vital, and handsome) and that’s what’s important right?
Back to the point at hand.
What I took from the above presentation that the media has a responsibility to inform and educate the lowest common denominator of society, and in 2014, they cannot do that any longer.
Wah. Cry me a river. I have news for you. The truly apathetic and ignorant are not reading The New York Times today. They won’t when it’s electronic, either. They won’t even listen when it is read to them on the way to work by a computer in their car, either. They are far too busy listening to the quality offerings of Maroon 5, Nickelback, and Lindsay Lohan.
All the while, taking their political commentary from Bono, Fred Durst, Toby Keith, and the Dixie Chicks.
If the news was a pill, they would only take it if it made them feel good, too. Or allowed them to have better sex.
I don’t really believe that the mainstream media outlets play any sort of an irreplaceable role in today’s society. They haven’t for at least ten years. The feeling that the media has a â??dutyâ? to inform the public is gone. There is no â??dutyâ? because there is no â??informingâ? going on. When are we supposed to get real news after 10 minutes of commercials, and 17 minutes of Michael Jackson trial coverage? Anyone care to compare the coverage received by Jacko vs. the amount of time spent on the EU constitution floundering? What about the amount of time spent on today’s attacks in Iraq vs. Destiny’s Child breaking up?
Walter Cronkite was irreplaceable. Because there was no alternate method. Now there is, and I am not sure that the alternate method is all that bad, either. If the media of the future allows me to get a bigger, better view of what is going on and leaves some people in the dust, then bring it on.
Matt, I couldn’t agree with you more on almost all points.
I know people love to talk about bias in the news — and I agree, the major cable news channels definitely have their biases. CNN skews liberal; Fox skews conservative. That much I’ll agree with.
My disagreement is about NPR … I vehemently DO NOT agree that NPR is inherently liberal, even though I know the more conservative amongst us love to claim so. I once got an extremely conservative (ex-)boyfriend a one-year membership to KERA, Dallas’s local NPR station, as a Christmas present … to his outward vocal displeasure. However, in private and under the cloak of anonymity, he’ll tell you that KERA is a fantastic service for the well informed among us. I believe to my core that NPR is one of the very few remaining news outlets that genuinely attempts to be neutral, that optimistically reaches for objectivity. The Downing Street memo was virtually unmentioned by mainstream media, but NPR devoted an hour (”the most annoying hour in radio” — on the Diane Rehm show) to it. Regardless of the veracity of the Downing Street memo, didn’t it deserve mention? Not to mention analysis? Apparently, that kind of objective, critical coverage earns NPR the label of liberalism.
Alright, I know liberals listen to NPR more than conservatives. But I also know that liberals, as a group, seem (to me) to worry themselves more with international issues that simply don’t get covered by mainstream media. The Republican agenda in Washington right now is focused on a few primary concerns: confirming conservative judges; passing controversial Social Security reforms; and then I just read this today about the fact that America’s skewing right on abortion again (erg).
My point is that there’s not a lot of room in the Republican agenda for worry about what’s happening outside our borders. Unless, of course, it involves spending billions of dollars in Iraq — they, they’re all too happy to fast-track any request coming out of the White House.
I detest the fact that Americans seem all too apathetic about our world — or, hell, our country. I also believe that the ignorant populace is what results in bad candidates, not bad elected officeholders. When only the rich and the passionate are involved in primaries, we get polarizing, ineffective leaders on the ballot. I hate that.
As you suggest, Matt, I do purposefully seek out opinions of those who disagree with me — more so, even, than I listen to those who think along my lines. I fundamentally believe that if you can listen (and I mean REALLY listen) to your philosophical opponents and still come away believing what you did before, you’re in good shape. It’s the people who avoid cognitive dissonance by ignoring all opinions other than ones like their own who frighten me. But then, that’s why I’ve always avoided (sorry if this offends you) Baptist churches. I just cannot respect people who don’t think for themselves.
Unfortunately, that’s the vast majority of America today … and that’s why I fear that someday, the few of us who do care may have NO outlet for news that’s not proud to be biased. For me, NPR’s one of the few left.
How’d we get here? I’d say by choice. Back in the days of Walter Cronkite (one of my heroes, btw), people had only three choices in nightly news programs, and they listened to those news shows daily. Nowadays, we can opt out of major news by flipping to another of our hundreds of channels; the nightly news is no longer a must-see TV offering. Is this inherently bad? I dunno. I’m all for choice. It’s just sad to acknowledge that, when given a choice, most people don’t care to know what’s going on.
We’ve made it easy in this country to ignore what’s happening in our world, and that’s the real shame, I think.