The Depressed Press----Hear the wailing: The bloggers are coming!

[rodeodance]

http://www.nytimes.com/2005/01/17/opinion/17safire.html?oref=login&th

January 17, 2005
OP-ED COLUMNIST
The Depressed Press
By WILLIAM SAFIRE

Washington — America's quality media are now wading through the Slough of Despond. Our self-flagellation, handwringing and narcissism threaten our mission to act as counterweight to government power.

Hear the wailing: The bloggers are coming! The Bible-thumpers are cursing our secular inhumanism! The plumber judges are plugging our leaks! The Yahoo president ducks our questions and giggles at our gaffes! News is slyly slanted as bias rears its head!

Cheer up. Despite the recent lapses at CBS and previous mishaps at The Times and USA Today, here's why mainstream journalism has a future.

1. On the challenge from bloggers: The "platform" - print, TV, Internet, telepathy, whatever - will change, but the public hunger for reliable information will grow. Blogs will compete with op-ed columns for "views you can use," and the best will morph out of the pajama game to deliver serious analysis and fresh information, someday prospering with ads and subscriptions. The prospect of profit will bring bloggers in from the meanstream to the mainstream center of comment and local news coverage.

On national or global events, however, the news consumer needs trained reporters on the scene to transmit facts and trustworthy editors to judge significance. In crises, large media gathering-places are needed to respond to a need for national community........

[bitchkitty]

1. Oh, yes, trained reporters.

ROFLMAO

[eg101]

8. yeah, "trained" like safire! Or like a dog that does tricks!

The elite media is nothing if not "trained"....

[The Backlash Cometh]

11. Like Pavlov dogs, trained.

[Ganja Ninja]

2. Not everbody is as profit driven as Safliar.

And when one bloger sells out another will take their place. So I'm afraid there will always be someone to expose and criticize the "trustworthy" paid liars of the right wing media. Too bad for you Safliar.

[UL_Approved]

3. Bloggers don't compete with journalism

The blog communities are a form of news in their own right.

Someone complains about how blogs are phony. Well, what about classic journalism? Can errors happen here as well?

The blog is the most frightening and revolutionary piece of social technology that humans have ever devised. After all, how can one hold power when real information and dark rumors can blow through the monolithic image like wind through a sheet on a clothes line?

[rodeodance]

5. his idea of "trained' reporters would prob. come out of some right wing

think tank!!!

[Maccagirl]

4. Safire has as much credibilty as Sludge

Spare us, Bill, we aren't listening to your crap anymore.

[leveymg]

6. MSM is grist for the Blog Mill

What do we do with corporate news? Tear it apart, and grind it up into information that's fit for human consumption. Couldn't do without them. Of course, there's a lot of stuff left over, that goes out onto the pile of pig feed.

We'll always need the NYT, WP, LAT, AP, etc. Most of the rest of it -- Fox, Gannet, and other big "news" syndicates -- is manure.

[rodeodance]

7. but the problem is that millions read his work!!

[MikeG]

9. Safire - What a clueless fuckwad.

[LibertyorDeath]

16. I'll second "clueless fuckwad" would someone carry the motion

[The Backlash Cometh]

10. You know what I'm reading? blah, blah, blah, blah blah.

The man is so clueless. If anyone can find a relevant line in his column, please post it.

[Demeter]

12. I Started Reading The Column This Morning

without glancing at the byline....about halfway through I thought, "Who is this idiot?" and lo and behold, it's Safire. Isn't he supposed to be retired?

[rodeodance]

15. soon--he will retire but I forget exactly when

[aden_nak]

13. No surprise that the word "research" appears 0 times in that article.

[ItsThePeopleStupid]

14. surprising admission

I was surprised by this little nugget:
"Today that media bias is undeniably liberal. That's natural when conservatives are the Ins; five years ago, the bias often ran the other way."

[mandyky]

17. What liberal media?

MSM best worry, because until they do their job they are not journalists.

[bpilgrim]

18. "Today that media bias is undeniably liberal" - I'll have what he's hav'n

"Today that media bias is undeniably liberal. That's natural when conservatives are the Ins; five years ago, the bias often ran the other way."

he's through the looking glass... wonder how long he's been on the PAYROLL :shrug:

his closing para is exactly why the blogs - at the TOP of his list - are kicking their arse's, they're CLUELESS.

at least he got one thing right...

"the public hunger for reliable information will grow"

thank GORE he 'INVENTED' the INTERNETs :evilgrin:

peace

[bpilgrim]

19. A televisual fairyland

The US media is disciplined by corporate America into promoting the Republican cause

George Monbiot
Tuesday January 18, 2005

It's true, of course, that CBS should have taken more care. But I think it is safe to assume that if the network had instead broadcast unsustainable allegations about John Kerry, none of its executives would now be looking for work. How many people have lost their jobs, at CBS or anywhere else, for repeating bogus stories released by the Swift Boat Veterans for Truth about Kerry's record in Vietnam? How many were sacked for misreporting the Jessica Lynch affair? Or for claiming that Saddam Hussein had an active nuclear weapons programme in 2003? Or that he was buying uranium from Niger, or using mobile biological weapons labs, or had a hand in 9/11? How many people were sacked, during Clinton's presidency, for broadcasting outright lies about the Whitewater affair? The answer, in all cases, is none.

You can say what you like in the US media, as long as it helps a Republican president. But slip up once while questioning him, and you will be torn to shreds. Even the most grovelling affirmations of loyalty won't help. The presenter of 60 Minutes, Dan Rather, is the man who once told his audience" "George Bush is the president, he makes the decisions and, you know, as just one American, he wants me to line up, just tell me where." CBS is owned by the conglomerate Viacom, whose chairman told reporters: "We believe the election of a Republican administration is better for our company." But for Fox News and the shockjocks syndicated by Clear Channel (and WILLIAM SAFIRE of the NYT), Rather's faltering attempt at investigative journalism is further evidence of "a liberal media conspiracy".

more...
http://www.guardian.co.uk/Columnists/Column/0,5673,1392771,00.html

peace

[Downtown Hound]

20. Tell me Will,

If the press bias is undeniably liberal, how come liberals are abandoning it in favor of the blogs? If the media chooses to be real journalists and not paid propagandists again, I'll give them another shot.