End of the beat reporter

I agree with your friend, especially in light of the fact that the well-known "institutions" of the MSM are losing credibility every day, and that human beings naturally seek out information that reinforces what they already believe to be true. It used to be that you could trust the major news organizations to objectively deliver "the truth," and the majority of the public accepted what was reported as fact. Having a limited number of information outlets also helped ensure a more homogenous view of "the truth." Cable TV and the Internet brought greater choice into the equation. The relatively modern notion of the "liberal" media led conservatives to seek information from Fox News...which presented a "truth" more in tune with the network's right-leaning viewers. Following the scandals at The New York Times, USA Today, CBS News and now Newsweek, the notion of what "the truth" actually is has further fragmented the news audience and creates even more operating room for independent journalists, bloggers, screwballs, etc. The self-correcting nature of blogs, which attract like-minded individuals who contribute their own opinions and commentary, creates a forum in which the participants ultimately distill their own common beliefs into collective "truths." A journalist who not only understands the tenets of good journalism (such as finding two credible sources of information and corroborating the facts BEFORE publishing a story), understands how to tell a story through multiple media, and who can attract a large following, will indeed hold power and influence, which is worth a lot of money to advertisers, politicos, etc. They will become brands in much the same way that Walter "And That's The Way It Is" Cronkite was a brand. This person's ultimate success will be in walking the line between serving the information needs of an audience seeking a particular version of "the truth" vs. the desires of those who write the checks in an effort to influence the journalist's audience. To your question about whether or not the "important" news will be covered, I'd say the notion of what's "important" is in the eyes of the audience. Jane's Addiction said it best when they sang, "the news is just another show." Reporters will still cover what's important...but the notion of what "important" means rests with the question, "important to whom?"

Bill asks a good question: Important to whom? My answer (and we dwelled on this quite a bit last weekend) is society. My fear is that there may not be an economic model in the coming world of journalism to cover important stories--things like the doings of the planning boards. The way I see it, newspapers in the old days had the resources to deliver a full diet of news. It wasn't often that great, but like the school cafeteria from the same time, it served up a helping of meat, pototoes, a vegetable and dessert. The meat and pototoes were the stories people wanted to read. Crime, war, politics, business, etc. Sports was dessert. The funnies were candy. And all those things like planning board meetings were vegetables. Not much fun, but good for you. The question now is whether there's any economic model taking root that will serve up those veggies. Because I don't think newspapers will be able to afford to. Radio and TV never touched in the first place.

i think the veggies will come from "watchdog" groups that keep an eye on governmental/legislative events. already via techorati, developers are creating tools to cover these things that are "good for us". see this link to view what i think are the veggie growers - http://www.technorati.com/developers/contest.html

a bit of a tangent to this, but yet another example of blogging use would be the following.

recently, much ado was made about last minute legislation that is being passed because senators/congress people and their staffs don't have time to read each line of a bill before it passes. well, if they don't have the freaking time, then let the voters read it for them...you know where i am going with this...yes, put the legislation on a blog and allow every registered voter to read the legislation and comment/vote on the bills.

sure, this could be a bit messy and time consuming, but joe/jane senator would sure as heck have some idea what their constituency thinks about a bill before he/she votes on it. also, with a blog, these opinions could be archived for later debate during the next round of elections.

just a little something to think about...

sounds like another way to cut news staff and make each reporter cover stories for more platforms...

Blogs are great. And the effect blogs would likely have in reducing or eliminating the need of MSM is great theoretically. But on a more "in the frontline" realistic approach, how mass can blogs get? It is been around for a little while and is yet still being explored by techies and early adopters. The average American is very content with cable news and its credibility (even with recent credibility issues) is unaffected.

Steve-

Items will be covered when someone recognizes how to make an issue out of it. Why does anyone care about the latest Brad Pitt mumbling about Jennifer Aniston? It's fluff, but someone has figured out that people are going to pick it up and read it. The sad part about this is that timelines of causality get further and further along before people are really aware. Yeah, blogs are great but I'm going to give a lot more credence to one written by a professional. I predict that in order to responsibly report, a journalist is going to have to take to another level his or her ability to word sculpt the picture for the reader.
You guys are going to have to use the facts and
your skill to make whatever as relevant to us as do the folks that write about Brad and Jen. It's going to be tough to do that without resorting to implicit editorializing. Good luck.

Pete Zievers