Me upon reading it, not the author
People don’t like us much, but then, they never really have. Hence, there’s not much risk in b-slapping reporters. It’s a good business model.
Here is how it goes in modern media:
“Those of you who dislike journalism, come to me! I, too, dislike journalism and I’m going to tell you, endlessly, exactly how much. Then, once you have gathered, I am going to sell you diet supplements and lots of other things because I am in show business and the bigger and more loyal my audience, the better.”
Don’t be misled. If you get all your news from these people, surprise, it’s not news. It is just endless clouds of gas. The same is true of “liberal” talk radio, a relatively recent arrival. It’s not news.
Even worse on the left, it’s derivative gas, an imitation of what is happening in talk radio on the right, except on the right, it works because the audience is in lockstep with the message and the people on the right are real pros.
If you want to hear masterful timing at work, listen to Rush Limbaugh. The man is a genius.
Bloggers love bashing news, too, to the point that it is becoming a career for some of them. It seems a little parasitic to me, waiting around for news to criticize. It gives them something to do, I suspect.
I hope that my criticism of the media isn’t that poorly done. I think there is a lot to criticize, but at the same time many things to praise. Madigan’s column is in the latter category. What has stricken me in the last 48 hours is the amount of invective hurled at reporters and news organizations by people who have never tried to get multiple sources to agree on what a school funding formula means to the average kid in a school district.
That may sound trivial to many of those with big bylines and those with popular nationally focused blogs, but the reality is that such a story is one of the most practicial and important issues to most families. It is also one of the most complex stories one can try and tell because it involves a set of facts that are especially hard to deterimine..
Understanding that while a formula may benefit most citizens, there are inevitably losers is an importan lesson for those trying to report ‘reality’. ‘Reality’ is seldom a set of facts that are clear, but a set of conditions that make certain outcomes likely. What I find most disturbing about the reporting of the last few days isn’t the issue of whether both sides are being presented equally, but a fundamental lack of reporing on what the facts of the case are.
Facts are often misunderstood to be biased and so unstrustworthy. The reality is that because the facts are biased towards logical conclusions is exactly why they are trustwrohty. For some reason, many confuse determining facts with bias which is a confusion about the order. Determining facts allows one then to make conclusions that are reliable.
And way too often, all media outlets (meaning bloggers too) forget the above.
I can’t believe he mentions reporting on the rationale for the war in Iraq and torture in defense of journalism. After brining up coverage of those two issues he writes:
“Truth is no defense. It’s viewed as unpatriotic. Maybe as liberal.
But it’s not. It’s just journalism.”
But, most of the media didn’t report on the lies of Bush leading up to the Iraq war and it doesn’t give us the whole truth on torture today. That’s the problem with 90% of the corporate media, it ISN’T journalism. I would love to see more real journalism and reporting of hard truths in the media, but it rarely happens. The lack of journalism in the news media is why left wing blogs are here.