In Plain Sight

Blogging even this blog, in a sense is a second source effort. My partner and I attempt to gather the relevant bits, and piece together a whole cloth. “We do the filtering and highlighting so you don’t have to on the tech scene.” But this happens on a larger scale on the net. Hence the observations at the blog Brain Terminal on the main stream press –

Although there are bloggers who have done excellent first-hand reporting, most bloggers are not equipped to compete with the core competency of large news-gathering organizations. Instead, bloggers tend to function as filters, amplifiers, analyzers and fact-checkers for stories that have been reported (and under-reported) by the establishment media.

To put it not-so-flatteringly, we bloggers are parasitic; we synthesize our product by relying on output from the establishment media. But we’re symbiotic parasites, and our existence benefits the media in numerous ways, not the least of which is by driving traffic (and therefore ad revenue) to media websites.

Which in the main is essentially true. But Mr. Maloney also points out the core problem —

Yet under the guise of “news analysis,” “putting things in context,” giving “perspective” and “helping you understand,” the news media insists on wrapping what should be its unique product—hard-to-gather facts—in packaging that makes their product look similar to everything else that’s available online for free.

How can media outlets get themselves out of this predicament? They should either embrace opinion journalism fully and drop the pretense of objectivity, or they should get out of the opinion business altogether if they insist on being seen as objective.

The first option would have outlets finally own up to their biases and admit to being in the opinion business, but then they’d compete even more directly with bloggers. This would also pull the media further away from the market that their news-gathering infrastructure is uniquely positioned to serve. But at least by being truthful with news consumers about the perspectives that shape their presentation of the news, some of the media’s tattered credibility might be restored.

To be blunt the Press has given up hard reporting grudgingly sucked out of unwilling public servants. It goes so far as to not even emulate the Woodward-Bernstein mode of the WP in favor of making sure they have ‘access’ so they can get the White House presser. The Press is SUPPOSED to have an adversary relationship with City Hall not be in bed with them.

That folks is why readership, subscription rates and ad revenue is down for the dailies. All of them could have made the transition to a digital representation of themselves. But even their digital product is lacking in gum shoe reporting.

Linky.