Topic: The Media
In the age of transparency who needs newsmen? A curious idea here .
Jeff Jarvis is former TV critic for TV Guide and People, creator of Entertainment Weekly, Sunday Editor of the NY Daily News, and a columnist on the San Francisco Examiner. He is now president and creative director of Advance.net - and this is from his personal site BuzzMachine.com
In this age of transparency - of constant cable news and C-Span's unblinking eye and instant online wire reports and mobile alerts and full transcripts online and more video here and weblog links to coverage everywhere and automated Google news searches and, in sum, the commoditization of news - the role of the newsman has utterly changed ... but that news hasn't caught up to the newsmen yet.We don't need to be told what happened? We can all find that out ourselves? We thus actually only need interpretation and "attitude"?
It used to be, we depended on them to tell us what is happening (and some prided themselves on doing it better than others). Those days are over. Toast. "What happened" is the commodity; we can find out what happened anywhere anytime....
We can all see all the news and judge for ourselves what's news and what isn't, what's real and what isn't, what's important and what isn't, and often what's true and what isn't.
Do reporters and editors still have a role in the news we can all see (as opposed to the news they dig up)? Don't know yet, do we?
No. It seems to me most people don't do the digging. Most people don't have the time or energy to review the daily facts about the world. CNN will sum it up for them, or if you don't trust CNN, Fox News will. Or TF1 for you folks in Paris, or BBC for you Brits.
What's not in the summary is the problem.
Those of us who blog (an odd verb) do so to flesh out the news with what is overlooked or deemphasized. And no one reads my blog, as far as I can tell. I do it for myself, because much seems to be missing on CNN and Fox.
Were I still part of the workforce I would not have the time. And I'd feel stupid and uninformed, in spite of my twenty-two minutes each evening with CNN or Fox, or with what I hear on NPR riding to work and from work on the freeway, dodging SUV's and slow-poke tourists in rental sedans reading maps.
I don't like feeling stupid. I want to know everything about everything. Yes, a personality disorder....
Posted by Alan at 19:43 PST
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Updated: Tuesday, 9 December 2003 13:44 PST
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