When I arrived at graduate school last year, I found myself embroiled in a bitter debate: new media or old?
You'd think the decision would be an easy one. A former print journalist, I've grown up reading the newspaper and still have it delivered to my door. Quite frankly, there's nothing I enjoy more on a Sunday morning than a good cup of coffee and hearty dose of newsprint.
But there's something about traditional journalists that makes me embarrassed to admit I am one. The latest Reuters scandal is a case in point. A Lebanese freelance photographer, Adnan Hajj, digitally manipulated photos he'd shot in Lebanon, making the fighting there look worse than it actually was.
It didn't take long for a blogger to catch on to the controversy and out both Reuters and Hajj. And it's not the first time bloggers have lifted the veil of mainstream ignorance.
Time and time again, bloggers point out the foibles and faux pas of the traditional media. It's the bloggers now who check and recheck their facts, who read the mainstream media and the not-so mainstream, who scour their beats for news. They are what we traditional journalists used to be: passionate, accurate, confident, credible.
Somewhere along the way, the mainstream media lost its mojo. Now, we're just sore losers, hoping to discredit the new kids on the block. Instead of shoring up our own weakening credibility, we try to destroy theirs. Instead of listening to our audience, we try to lecture it. Instead of pulling ourselves up, we continue to give bloggers the ammunition they need to put us down: Dan Rather, El Nuevo Herald, and now, Adnan Hajj.
We in the traditional media spend a lot of time pointing fingers. What we should be doing is looking in the mirror.
So, until that happens, I choose new.
Nice Job, Heidi. You get the honor of being the first class blog post of the semester. It could be improved by putting live links for Rather and other examples. But that was not a requirement this time.
Why does it have to be "us" against "them"? Can't we all just get along? Blogs and Journalism need each other (sorry, it's a PDF), don't they? I like the idea of performing "random acts of journalism" and encouraging individual, everyday citizens to play an active role in the gathering and dissemination of news. What do mainstream journalists have to be afraid of? Oh, right, their jobs!
Great first post! The MSM are running around like chickens with their heads cut off, desperately trying to figure out what to do now. I must disagree with Staci: random acts of journalism aren't enough. We need consistent, excellent coverage and the centralized, obelisk mentality of the MSM is not currently and has not provided that for many, many years. Here here, Heidi!