Comments on: The media is failing! The media is failing! http://www.tamark.ca/public/2006/08/09/the-media-if-failing-the-media-is-failing/ It's about the journalism Sun, 20 May 2012 17:07:24 +0000 hourly 1 By: Ian King http://www.tamark.ca/public/2006/08/09/the-media-if-failing-the-media-is-failing/comment-page-1/#comment-70524 Ian King Thu, 10 Aug 2006 07:22:42 +0000 http://www.tamark.ca/students/?p=2284#comment-70524 I think that trying to slot Wired News into 'mainstream' or 'online' categorites is bogus. Besides the obvious crossover with Reuters doing good business feeding websites, and Wired News copy showing up in print, there's something more important at play. Both Reuters and Wired are conventional news organizations -- with anachronisms like assignment desks, editors, fact-checkers, standards, and the idea that contributors should be held accountable for their work. In that respect, they're much more closely related to each other than they are to the blog/wiki/"citizen journalism" world. The latter has a much higher tolerance for sloppy reporting and a disturbingly laissez-faire attitude towards bad writing and editing. (There's also the issue of popular blogs and sites having a vocal community of supporters to drown out inconvenient facts with a torrent of abuse. The Internet might hate a bully, but it loves an angry mob.) I daresay that a conentional news organization is a lot more likely to take corrective action when they've run a story with bad information than a blog in the same situation would be. A bunch of blogs on the other side of a divide saying "NO! You're spouting rubbish!" is a bad substitute for really answering for mistakes; same with merely correcting bad information on a wiki. Your point that this is going to happen from time to time when humans are involved is spot on. It's how the organization reacts when they are caught out by false reports that's important -- there are 'old media' publishers that I've just as much contempt for as I do for partisan blogs. I think that trying to slot Wired News into ‘mainstream’ or ‘online’ categorites is bogus. Besides the obvious crossover with Reuters doing good business feeding websites, and Wired News copy showing up in print, there’s something more important at play. Both Reuters and Wired are conventional news organizations — with anachronisms like assignment desks, editors, fact-checkers, standards, and the idea that contributors should be held accountable for their work. In that respect, they’re much more closely related to each other than they are to the blog/wiki/”citizen journalism” world.

The latter has a much higher tolerance for sloppy reporting and a disturbingly laissez-faire attitude towards bad writing and editing. (There’s also the issue of popular blogs and sites having a vocal community of supporters to drown out inconvenient facts with a torrent of abuse. The Internet might hate a bully, but it loves an angry mob.)

I daresay that a conentional news organization is a lot more likely to take corrective action when they’ve run a story with bad information than a blog in the same situation would be. A bunch of blogs on the other side of a divide saying “NO! You’re spouting rubbish!” is a bad substitute for really answering for mistakes; same with merely correcting bad information on a wiki.

Your point that this is going to happen from time to time when humans are involved is spot on. It’s how the organization reacts when they are caught out by false reports that’s important — there are ‘old media’ publishers that I’ve just as much contempt for as I do for partisan blogs.

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