The Bloggers are coming!
The unreal growth and involvement of bloggers on the New Media is undeniable, both good and bad naturally but there can be no doubt about it's recent influences, especially on holding the mainstream media accountable for it's actions. No doubt Dan Rather, Mary Mapes, et all are finding this out the hard way.
One of my favorite new interactive news sites is Take Back The News which is where I found an opinion piece written by William Safire that is outstanding.
William Safire, one of my favorite writers wrote on this topic of the blogging revolution and how it will mold a better and more reliable future mainstream media.
I felt compelled to share it... connect another bridge in the vast neural network of information sharing so to speak.
Here's some excerpts to whet the dendrites...
The Depressed Press
By WILLIAM SAFIRE
Washington - America's quality media are now wading through the Slough of Despond. Our self-flagellation, handwringing and narcissism threaten our mission to act as counterweight to government power.
Hear the wailing: The bloggers are coming! The Bible-thumpers are cursing our secular inhumanism! The plumber judges are plugging our leaks! The Yahoo president ducks our questions and giggles at our gaffes! News is slyly slanted as bias rears its head!
Cheer up. Despite the recent lapses at CBS and previous mishaps at The Times and USA Today, here's why mainstream journalism has a future.
1. On the challenge from bloggers: The "platform" - print, TV, Internet, telepathy, whatever - will change, but the public hunger for reliable information will grow. Blogs will compete with op-ed columns for "views you can use," and the best will morph out of the pajama game to deliver serious analysis and fresh information, someday prospering with ads and subscriptions. The prospect of profit will bring bloggers in from the meanstream to the mainstream center of comment and local news coverage.
On national or global events, however, the news consumer needs trained reporters on the scene to transmit facts and trustworthy editors to judge significance. In crises, large media gathering-places are needed to respond to a need for national community.
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5. On widespread suspicion of political bias in news coverage: Here's the good news: Bad news is newsier than good news. Even when media try to be "fair and impartial," they can be expected to annoy rather than please the party in power. That's because clean government needs a snooping adversary, not a cheerleader; the Outs need help from the press to hold the Ins accountable.
Today that media bias is undeniably liberal. That's natural when conservatives are the Ins; five years ago, the bias often ran the other way. As future elections near, that tilt must disappear from news pages to let the voters do the tilting. Some mainstreamers flopped on necessary election evenhandedness in 2004 and should be grimly thankful for a corrective kick in the teeth from other media, bloggers and righteous right-wingers.
Get out of that Slough, counsels Worldly-Wiseman: Pulitzer-quality journalism lies just ahead.
It's wonderful to be just a small neuron tossing out sparks in the great collective brain of information gathering, a part of a great evolving whole that will quicken the societal evolution of truth seeking and ultimately, truth finding... breaking down the walls of secret combinations and conspiracies creating more accessible government not to mention more accountable representatives.
Wouldn't that be nice?
