In one sense, the breaking of the MSM's stranglehold on the news and opinion industry is a good thing. It has been a particularly good development for conservatives, whose point of view would be marginalized and ignored if left to the care of the liberal media elite. It is also good from the standpoint of allowing citizens to learn practically everything there is to know on a given subject. Just today, for example, I learned that Sarah Palin had a tanning booth installed at the governor's mansion (at her own expense, thank God).
That last tidbit illustrates what I see as the major downside of the internet age: rampant superficiality. The competition among those who traffic in information is so intense, the media are forced to hawk even the most irrelevant and mundane detail about a candidate as something people should care about. Naturally, this phenomenon is not confined to election coverage, although the presidential race provides plenty of disturbing examples of what I'm talking about.
The hawking of news can take a number of pernicious forms, all of which tend to defeat the reader's presumed objective of gaining an improved understanding of the world. One is to suggest that a piece of information is unusual or unexpected, when it is not. Another is to suggest that the information furnishes evidence of corruption or scandal. Yet another is to suggest that the information denotes a trend that can be expected to continue, often with alarming or uncertain results.
Purveyors of news have a number of tools available to them in order to inflate the perceived significance of the information they are peddling. For example, they can take information out of context. A good example of this occurred yesterday when the MSM ran headlines proclaiming that John McCain thinks the U.S. economy is fundamentally strong. This was labeled a "gaffe," and much of the subsequent coverage was devoted to the Obama campaign's mocking response to McCain's comments. But here is what McCain actually said (per CBS):
Today we are seeing tremendous upheaval on Wall Street. The American economy is in crisis. Unemployment is on the rise and our financial markets are in turmoil. People are concerned about our economic future. But let me say something: this economic crisis is not the fault of the American people. Our workers are the most innovative, the hardest working, the best skilled, most productive, most competitive in the world," McCain's prepared text said. The text went on to say: "My opponents may disagree, but those fundamentals of America are strong. (Emphasis mine.)
It should be noted that the entire news value of this story depends on the premise that McCain has no appreciation for the difficult economic times that America is facing. In other words, it's the idea that his words are completely divorced from the objective reality. However, in order to create that impression, and thus make the story newsworthy, it is necessary to take McCain's words completely out of context, so that it appears he is saying the economy is just fine.
It seems to me the appropriate role of the press would be to report what John McCain said. It is not to distort what he said in order to create the impression that he has no idea what he's talking about. To do the latter is create news, rather than report it.
Taking words out of context is just one method of creating news out of thin air. Another familiar tactic is to conflate unrelated events that, in truth, have no meaningful relationship to one another. Or, to parse statements made by two different candidates, or by the same candidate at different times, in order to create the impression of conflict or self-contradiction.
I wouldn't be so naive as to suggest that the press never engaged in such nefarious journalistic practices prior to the explosion of the internet. I would suggest that the internet, along with 24-hour cable news, has created such an insatiable demand for information that the media apparently can no longer afford to apply discretion and judgment in their evaluation and presentation of newsworthy stories. They need to attract "x" pair of eyes every day to stay in business. To do that, they must supply a constant stream of stories that will amuse, anger, frighten, titillate, amaze, or otherwise interest their viewers or readers. That's a tall order, but it is rendered much easier once you abandon the requirements of truthfulness and materiality.
During much of the 20th century, virtually the entire journalistic establishment was controlled by just a handful of people. For example, Henry Luce published Life, Time, and Fortune magazines, which publications, taken together, practically determined popular opinion in regard to political and economic affairs. Luce was no rabble-rousing muckraker. He, and men like him, routinely huddled and conspired with political leaders to move public opinion in the ways they deemed necessary in the public interest. That is not to say America's political and journalistic elite represented a single, monolithic power. Fundamental differences existed between liberals and conservatives, Republicans and Democrats, and isolationists and internationalists. But the media endeavored to be, and in fact functioned as, a responsible participant in matters of public interest.
Now, it seems, so-called "legitimate" news organizations must engage in hysterical, sensational, and dumbed-down reporting simply to claim a share of an audience that can disappear as fast as you can say "mouseclick." All of the "old media" news organizations are living off reputations they earned decades ago, with diminishing results. In terms of their current output, they are virtually indistinguishable from internet upstarts that have no reputation to preserve.
The net result is that we no longer have a serious press, that is, a press that conceives as its primary mission furnishing the American people with the facts and perspective with which to make informed judgments as citizens. Instead, we have an information industry whose members are struggling to survive by hawking "news" designed to attract momentary attention at the expense of imparting any meaningful understanding of issues.
Being an optimistic conservative, I'm going to assume that the market will eventually correct this deplorable situation. In time, the public will assign so little value to the crap that is currently being passed off as news that no media outlet will be able to survive by continuing to peddle it. Some bright people will realize that people really do place a value on unadorned facts and careful, in-depth analysis, and they'll find a way to sell that for a lot more money than it costs to produce. The best of these information entrepreneurs will recognize that their long-term success depends on building a reputation for integrity and not giving in to the temptation to compromise their journalistic standards.
Until then, I'll continue to suffer and sulk -- and keep my eyes out for the latest "breaking news"!
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