Here’s what happens when a reporter buys into what the source is pitching:
The free ride may be over for consumers who download movies and music files and play video games, as Internet service providers consider a move toward a “two-tiered Internet.”
I’ve added the emphasis for obvious reasons: most of us pay for our internet access and how you can make a case for a free ride out of that puzzles the hell out of me.
The bit I quoted is the lede from a CanWest News Service article (sorry, no link: it’s behind a paywall and I won’t do that to loyal readers). It’s a very much one-sided report of the pitch by ISPs (including the big telcos) to bring a new set of charges to internet users.
I don’t want to get into that debate at the moment, although I will offer this thought: if they’re going to charge us to download content, shouldn’t they also credit creators who upload the stuff they’ll make more money from?
We can’t expect, in a 15-inch article, a full examination of the knotty complexities of an issue such as bandwidth provision and use. But we should expect the reporter to open the article with a lede that doesn’t read as though it came from some ISP’s media department. It’s not just bad for journalism, it’s bad for public debate, as the issue has been framed on the service providers’ terms right from the get-go.
TAGS: JOURNALISM, REPORTING, WRITING, INTERNET
I certainly don’t feel like there is a free ride, since I pay for web hosting, bandwidth for web sites I host, and I pay for internet access for viewing sites.
Since this proposal seems to be anti-consumer, anti-content creators, and anti-growth, I’d expect a journalist to think about how this really effects their audience. Charging for making their networks incrementally better rather than providing a better level of service to all is a pretty lame stance from our telecommunications companies.