Everyone is a journalist now
So I'm sitting in Freedom Square, DC, (13th &
Pennsylvania ave. NW), getting ready to listen to some Daiko drumming (group is
from Japan). I just finished off a bowl of shrimp tempura in a Styrofoam bowl.
And I've been taking notes for a blog post when I get to an internet connection
on a hand-held computer. Once again, I realize the extent of the age of miracles
we live in. If I wanted to, I could be writing this post nearly live, and my
readers, wherever in the world you are, could be reading my thoughts almost as
rapidly. With only a bit more hardware, easily available, i could let anyone in
the world listen to what I'm hearing as I hear it. The quality wouldn't be
great, but I could have in my backpack that which would have required a van full
of gear and a 6-digit a month budget a few years back. In this (hypothetical)
backpack, there is the capability to report live on an event as it happens, to
whoever is interested. Journalism is coming back to its roots. The value-added
of the big news bureaus used to be that they had stringers everywhere news might
happen, so when news happened, they had their man on the spot to write up the
events and send their report home, to be distributed far and wide. Not so long
ago, the news organizations were the people who could get the camera crews to a
news event the quickest, to send the news into our living rooms in real time.
Now they are the people who can get the personality to the news most rapidly, so
they can send instant "analysis" into our living rooms in real time. Just
reporting the news isn't enough, it has to be "analyzed" at the source or at the
time of creation. And the infrastructure to do this is expensive. You need a TV
transmitter to send from, a camera crew to feed the transmitter, a reporter to
train the cameras on, an anchor to interpret the event, etc. So few
organizations are in the news business.
But recently, between the rise of the internet
blog, and the advent of cheap media recording equipment and wireless networking,
the barriers to entering the reporting business are lower than ever. My primary
source of news now is blogs, particularly
Instapundit (much as Glenn Reynolds doesn't want to be a news outlet). I
find it a lot easier to distinguish between news and opinions in blogs; most
people link to the news reports, and then offer their commentary. I don't have
to be told what this or that event means, I can form my own opinion. It is
influenced by all the commentary I see on a topic, not just the anchor's
opinions. I can argue with the source in their comments (I much prefer blogs
with comments to those without). I can offer my own praise and rebuttal on my
blog. And I can report the news I saw today; news that I may have been the only
person to have seen (but hopefully others saw and reported too). I can offer my
own analysis, too. I can (and probably will) offer my own commentary, but you,
the reader, will have the chance to read other reports on the news in question,
each with their own analysis. And you have the opportunity to respond to me, as
well as everyone else.
There is still a place for the "traditional"
media - there are stories that are too big, too hard, or too far away for the
individual to cover. But I believe that "large media" needs to get out of the
analysis business - leave that to the pundits. Tom Brokaw should not be telling
me nightly what his opinions are, nor yet what mine should be.