Who Needs Social Media Literacy
January 8, 2009 in General Information
Apparently real journalists do. And by “Real Journalists” I mean the people that get paid to write about news by a company that calls itself a newspaper or television program. (Not people like me that write this blather from the dining-room table.)
In this WSJ article Paul Mulshine laments (in an Opinion column) that bloggers seem to think that they are journalists. Opinion: A Newspaper Wish – WSJ.com Mulshine then goes on to conflate the role of a journalist with that of a pundit:
The problem is that printing a hard copy of a publication packed with solid, interesting reporting isn’t a guarantee of economic success in the age of instant news. Blogger Glenn Reynolds of “Instapundit” fame seems to be pleased at this.
In his book, “An Army of Davids,” Mr. Reynolds heralds an era in which “[m]illions of Americans who were in awe of the punditocracy now realize that anyone can do this stuff.”
Publishing an electronic blog “packed with solid, interesting reporting” does not seem to be a guarantee of economic success either. In fact, despite Mulshine’s assertion that bloggers and their readers -
“…assume newspapers are going out of business because we aren’t doing what we in fact do amazingly well, which is to quickly analyze and report on complex public issues. The real reason they’re under pressure is much more mundane. The Internet can carry ads more cheaply, particularly help-wanted and automotive ads.”
No, Mr. Mulshine, newspapers – and to a greater extent TV news programs – are no longer simply reporting on complex issues. The real reason for the pressure is bias in the content. Bias toward pushing a social/political agenda so blatant that even book reviews contain political commentary.
Punditry, however, is explicit in its bias and the practitioners make no secret of their stance, their agenda, or their affiliation. Journalism is supposed to be free of that, so when a “journalist” like Chris Matthews starts talking about getting a “thrill up his leg” the viewers know that something has gone very wrong.
People will pay for news, for an objective reporting of the facts. They will even pay for opinions. They will not pay to be treated like idiots, to be lied to, or called names.
What say you?
