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January 02, 2007
Many cynical Australian journalists continue to see blogging as an "act of narcissism", mere self-indulgence and self-promotion, rather than blogging---and other "user-generated" sites---as contributing to the growth of the internet. Blogs are witnesses to the erosion of the mass media. This erosion is more figures of stagnant sales, the declining readership of newspapers, or in the shift away away from free-to-air-television. What is in decline is the trust in the media ---we no longer accept its ideology of truth, objectivity, and watchdog for democracy.
I see that Time magazine has challenged the view of "pajama journalists" making noise by making web users "Person of the Year". I haven't been able to read the article, as it is now offline. According to Marcel Berlin's at The Guardian Richard Stengel,Time's editor, commented:
"You, not us, are transforming the information age." [the reason is] "For seizing the reins of the global media, for founding and framing the new digital democracy, for working for nothing and beating the pros at their own game ..."
I hazard a guess that Time recognizes that the internet's information explosion has fostered the "ordinary" person being as important to the dissemination of knowledge, information and opinion as the expert or the professional.This other side of those working for nothing [ie., bloggers]--- "beating the pros at their own game"; is that the quality of some of the work produced by the pros is pretty poor and often not worth reading.
Berlin himself takes exception to Time's argument:
The philosophy I object to, which the internet's information explosion has fostered, is that the "ordinary" person is as - no, even more - important to the dissemination of knowledge, information and opinion as the expert or the professional...Time's assertion that those working for nothing are "beating the pros at their own game" is nonsense. They are providing a different service, an opinion based not on expertise and experience, but on their less tutored feelings.
So my work is based on my personal feelings not on knowledge and experience; and my feelings (emotions) are less tutored than those of the tabloids, cheque book journalism and backbench politicians who work on gut instinct and prejudice. Give me a break. Moreover, you can hardly call the Canberra Press Gallery the experts providing informed comment when they avoid public policy like the plague. The reality is that the printed and broadcasted message has lost its aura. News is now presented and consumed as a commodity with entertainment value.
Leslie Cannold in The Age says that there is an audience wanting to consume informed opinion and analysis. She asks:
Can personal blogs (web diaries or logs) posted free-of-charge on the web meet this demand? Are they doing so already, increasingly cannibalising audiences that currently consume — and pay for, either by subscription or by viewing ads — opinion and analysis moderated by editors on radio, TV, newspapers and news magazines distributed both in hard copy and online (enabling links and interactive reader comments)? With one important caveat, my judgement on both questions is "no".
Those blogs, which interpret the news and current affairs, lack the editorial oversight that prevents the publication of well-packaged pseudo-knowledge that offer deception. We need gatekeepers to ensure informed opinion and enlightening analysis.
Do we? What about the tabloids? Aren't the tabloids more about well-packaged pseudo-knowledge in the form of infotainment? Do their editors ensure enlightened opinion and informed analysis? Do we actually get informed opinion and enlightening analysis from the corporate media in these days of infotainment as Cannold presumes? Isn't this what is being eroded? Isn't there a growing distrust of the output of large commercial news organizations--similar to the distrust of the spin that politicians and their advisers produce. Hence we have questioning the message in spite of the editor's quality filter in the broadsheet press.
Secondly, isn't blogging more about carrying on an ongoing conversation on particular issues than private individuals consuming informed opinion and analysis? Cannold's important caveat is that:
What contemporary blogophiles advance as the benefit of their preferred medium is the weakness of opinion moderated by a handful of mostly pale, male and stale editors. Blogs empower those marginalised or excluded by traditional editorial gatekeeping processes.These include the young, the female, the queer, the non-white and those from non-Christian backgrounds: groups comprising growing minorities — and in some cases outright majorities — in Australian society. In the past, justice was the justificatory principle behind demands by such groups for greater representation in the creative engine room of Australian culture, including among those who interpret the news. In the era of blogs, it may be proprietorial self-interest that finally results in things changing.
So what then happens to the need for editors as gatekeepers to ensure informed opinion and enlightening analysis from the diverse views of the excluded minorities? Do we make an exception of the need for traditional editorial gatekeeping processes?
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