Traditional media and blogging
How far does traditional media lag behind blogging? I pose this question with the intent to look at the differences between traditional media and blogging, and to explain why I respect blogs. I'm going to bring together a few different topics here, so follow along…
My favorite newspaper, the Cornell Daily Sun
For being an Ivy League newspaper, at a university ranked #12 in the nation, The Cornell Daily Sun is pretty lousy. The Thursday issue from September 14 had two front page articles that surprised me; not because they were bad, but because they were so late in coming. The first was about the art sculptures being constructed outside of my dorm, and the second was about the whole fiasco with Facebook feeds. It surprised me because both of these articles were old news, and I'm not exaggerating. I posted about the art sculptures on September 7 at ihavesenioritis.com with my post "twigs," and I posted about Facebook feeds as early as September 5 right here with my post "Facebook feeds." The Daily Sun was at least a week behind me on two counts, and by Sept. 14, the Facebook issue was not just old news; it had already been resolved.
What is the point of all this? I'm not just writing to brag about how quickly I can break news, or trying to convince Cornellians to read my blogs instead of the Sun. The point I am trying to make is that traditional media has a lot of problems that blogs and other online publications don't; for one, publishing news can be slow. I'll come back to this later.
Jared Leto and a lot of shoveling
In today's posting from Trent, one of those blogging celebrities who might always be more famous than me, he talked about (among other things) some comments Jared Leto made about blogging. I don't consider Jared Leto much of a celebrity (or talented), and I certainly don't think celebrities should ever be given a platform to share their opinions (it's all about shut up and entertain me, I say), but G4 (the gaming network) felt differently. (Do I use too many parentheticals?) I'm going to repost the interview here, so you don't have to dig for it on Trent's site:
When asked why blogging needs to die, Jared responded thusly: It's just ridiculous. It's like a playground for four-year-olds. People say and do things in the world of blogs that they would never do in real life, and I think it's a false experience. You know, it's, like, eating too much candy.
G4: So you don't read a lot of the celebrity gossip blogs, I take it?
JARED: Well, you know, one of the things along those lines that bothers me about when people start citing blogs as news sources is that when people are writing on these blogs, they feel like they don't feel they need to do any research or back up their opinions with facts or anything, you know what I mean?
G4: Why is there this inherent lack of responsibility when it comes to blogging as journalism?
JARED: I couldn't tell you. Times have changed. It used to be, to be a writer you had to have experience and talent, and learn a craft. Now anybody with an opinion, which is anyone and everyone, feels that it's worthy. Technology is allowing people to have access to things where before it required very great skill. So there will be some interesting developments from that, and also some things that are pretty worthless. Pretty soon anybody with a cell phone is going to be able to be a news reporter. The blog is yesterday's parachute pants. It's here now but it's gone tomorrow.
G4: You no longer have to even know what news reporting is.
JARED: You really don't. All you have to do is point your friggin' Blackberry at somebody and get a picture and send it off to your favorite blog site.
G4: A celebrity goes to a Starbucks and there's a picture of them 10 minutes later up on a blog somewhere and it becomes news!
JARED: Sometimes it's interesting, but most of the time the bloggers themselves are just trying to get famous so they can make some money and sell advertising dollars and duping these poor people who are on the Internet all day long.
G4: Yeah, those people are lame. Anyways, I gotta run and go post this on G4's blog, TheFeed, so I can make some money, sell advertising dollars and dupe those poor people who are on the Internet all day long. Suckers!
Granted, Jared's comments weren't about respectable blogging in general, but I think his points still deserve some argument. Trent sums up my opinion on Jared pretty well:
This rocker wannabe actor has a lot of strong opinions on the subject of blogging. And while I would never say that those opinions aren't valid, I will say that I find a lot of hypocrisy in his statements — "Pretty soon anybody with a cell phone is going to be able to be a news reporter", yeah kinda like any actor is able to be a musician and vice versa.
But this is all about defending blogs.
In defense of blogs
There are some things I have realized about blogs and the Internet in general, that I think really speaks for the value of both. One thing Jared Leto said is worth repeating:
"It used to be, to be a writer you had to have experience and talent, and learn a craft. Now anybody with an opinion, which is anyone and everyone, feels that it's worthy. Technology is allowing people to have access to things where before it required very great skill."
Jared displays the mindset of traditional media and jerks in general; that "news" and "information" is the realm of an exclusive community, characterized by education and money. He might have been referring to celebrity gossip blogs, but the same quote could have come from the mouth of just about any newspaper, television, or radio company that considers blogs to be worthless. The truth, however, is that technology is allowing people to have a voice they never had before. People have a voice and are even able to challenge traditional media. While news companies are censored by the government, driven by advertisers, and more concerned with ratings and profit than actual quality of news, blogs everywhere are talking about issues that actually matter, with no strings attached to their production. Blogs possess a certain honesty that traditional media does not; the kind of honesty you get from someone who writes because they want to, not just because it is their job.
Traditional media also regards news as a form that is all about "skill" and "experience." I disagree. News is about truth and speed. Anyone who tells you otherwise is a liar. Even though I can't defend the honesty of blogs in general, and I too believe that a URL is not verifiable proof, I also know that many traditional news sources have been guilty of lying in the past. There is nothing that says that a journalism degree or a team of editors guarantees honesty any more than what you get from blogs. All I can say is that blogs are much faster than traditional media (here's where I get back to my first point). In my opinion, traditional media is a slow, aging dinosaur. (I gave a small example with the Daily Sun, but you can extend that to most newspapers and other media outlets.) Everything has to undergo editorial review before it's published. Publishers are more concerned about the quality of the writing than the actual content. Blogs, in contrast, have no editorial review. This might result in some misspellings, and even some poor grammar, but the delay between writing and publishing for a blog is zero. Plus, bloggers are rarely subject to censorship or concerned about profit. The best bloggers embrace the maverick lifestyle and talk about things traditional media won't touch, and I think that's great. After all, the Internet offers truth and transparency that we never had before, which is exactly why big businesses as well as the government want to exercise more control over it.
In the end, I think I am justified when I say that I get all my news from the Internet, both from Internet news sources as well as blogs, and I think I am both a step ahead and more enlightened with truth than my peers who still rely (and waste their time with) traditional media.
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I agree that traditional media has become set in its ways. How long before the public expects more from them. Maybe blogs are the answer? Thanks for the good read.