If there’s one thing I love about living in 2010, it’s the internet. Specifically, I love the number of experts that you can find on any conceivable subject. If you want to find a new site devoted to some obscure technological artefact, it’s probably out there. If it isn’t, you can start it.
Of course, when you’re on the internet, your bullshit detector is set to full. You don’t believe everything you read. It’s just a bunch of people talking. You don’t believe everything a random collection of people say, and that’s true of the web.
Plus, when someone you recognise is constantly wrong, you can correct them in the comments–the internet likes to pretend to be interactive in at least the most perfunctory manner–or just ignore them completely.
This is one area traditional media can’t compete. In fact when you’re used to the internet way, the traditional media model seems not just obsolete but downright silly. These people positioned as guards at the gateway of information: Who are they? Who appointed them? Why do they get to be there? (Sidebar: The further inside the media establishment you look, the less you’ll respect it. There are few institutions that deserve the position of gatekeeper.)
For instance, you know something about technology. Yet you read an article in the newspaper about some technological artefact and you realise neither the reporter nor the editor understands it. They don’t get the most basic stuff about it. So you dismiss the article and turn the page and read someone going on about politics and never think that if they can’t understand something as simple as technology, how in the world could they understand something so complex as politics?
We all have this sort of blindness, a kind of amnesia. When you read Wikipedia, the editors are ruthless. If a statement is unsourced, they delete it or add a [citation needed] tag. Either way you know that the phrase is suspect. There’s also a strict rule against weasel words and things like that. Yet reading a newspaper is an exercise in find a phrase with a citation, or finding an article without weasel words. Traditional journalism is pathetic. You practically have to read between the lines to get an accurate idea of what’s actually happening.
Internet news sites get down to business. Items can’t be long, for both attention deficit and bandwidth reasons. If something is complete bullshit, someone will say something. Probably lots of people. Some are saying? Well… who? Links help build context. If you really need context–if you’ve come out of a coma recently–you can follow the links or quickly google the subject at hand.
So why do we treat internet news sources as inferior to traditional new sources? Why do we assume a higher standard of truth–after all, journalistic convention is about better truth, right? I can’t see many downsides here. And I think traditional news media are scared of the internet not simply because it’s a different medium. The news media adjusted well enough to radio and television, after all. It’s because it’s a totally different way of interacting with news. I don’t need a 500 word article that contains context, quotes, and supposedly neutral blather. I need a basic summary, some links, and a well-thought-out commenting forum.
That’s going to be a shock for most short and long form journalists, and their editors. There will always be a place for investigative journalism and long human interest stories. But news? Nah.
Tags:
internet,
media,
news