First of all, I personally have no idea if I want to “work in journalism”. I don’t know if you will even be able to work in “journalism” in 8-10 years. I know that I like a variety of social science subjects (history, psych, civics, poli sci, geography, economics) and English, and to a lesser degree some science subjects. The journalism degree I speak of would get me a lot of good background in those subjects, and instead of flailing around and trying to find one to latch onto I’d be working on a decent degree in the meantime. I think in 10 years or so a journalism major will just be someone who has interest in the subjects I mentioned and wants a skill that is applicable to a lot of different jobs— communication and language, rather than the traditional journalism student who goes to work for a newspaper. It’s already happening, Madison splits up j-school students into writing and advertising tracks right away. Who knows, I might end up working in advertising, pr, politics, or some job that hasn’t really been invented yet. Maybe I’ll professionally write, I have no idea. That’s my rationale. If I could commit to one of those topics I mentioned, I would, but I don’t want to do that at this point. Maybe, if I do plan to be a journalism major, I’ll veer off into a more specific topic in the last two years of college. I have no idea.

Some news organizations don’t even try to be neutral, yes. I guess I’m referring to the quaint city hall newspaper reporter that keeps the officials in check because they know the reporter will tell everyone if there’s any corruption going on. That doesn’t exist so much anymore, and I’m not sure it’s a good thing. Yes, there are excellent bloggers out there who do report on this stuff, but time and a lack of profit prevents almost all of them from making the full-time commitment that is necessary to do it well. And many blogs gain following by being affiliated with something, if that’s a sports team, a political party, a technology, etc. They themselves and all of their followers have usually been brought together by a collective bias, especially in political blogs. Don’t we need someone to tell us what actually happened, rather than just analyze it for us?

The issue that’s interesting to me is if the independent writers will be able to support themselves by writing online through ad revenue and voluntary donations. I think they will at some point. Then there are sites like Voice of San Diego and MinnPost that are providing the type of news and commentary a good newspaper would in a different medium, and being supported by donations and ads. I think that type of site will gain some type of following in the future. I really think people will be willing to pay for good independent reporting, whether that reporting is affiliated with a site like those two mentioned above or if it’s just a basic blogger. If anything, I’m supporting the notion that a site like this could go straight to the source and report all the news by itself in the future if the major papers collapse and those readers are forced to go elsewhere for that news.

“Aside from the blandest articles, anything in the national media is getting called out by somebody for bias.”

True. But in part they’re correct. Much of the traditional media has gradually abandoned all but the pretense of neutral reporting, and some have abandoned (or never espoused) even that. That has nothing to do with liberalism vs. conservativism. It’s about the responsibility those in the business of dispensing information have to the public. It’s virtually impossible to read or view political news that doesn’t include some commentary, and that wasn’t always the case. Part of what made Good Night And Good Luck such an interesting movie, for example, was its attempt to recreate how controversial it was for Murrow to criticize McCarthy so directly and remorselessly. Not just because it was unpopular but because it simply wasn’t done. Ignoring, for a moment, the historical truth that McCarthy was a drunken, lying bully who, in the grand tradition of tyrants throughout history, extended his time in power by playing on the fears of the general populace, the conversations between Murrow, his producer and the network centered on the notion that it was simply seen as inappropriate (and finanacially dangerous, of course) to repeatedly attack a sitting senator during a news program rather than simply report his activities.

Some 50 odd years later, if you’re not criticizing, you’re not trying, and you certainly are not on a TV news network. Some of the concerns of Murrow’s network and critics was either naiive or disingenous or both, since Murrow’s reports from London in 1940, as fact-centered as they were, were as devastating as any polemic could have been, and its impossible that he didn’t know it. Murrow’s argument (after the fact) was that commentary wasn’t necessary from London because simply reporting the impact of the Blitz (not to mention the sounds of the bombs and sirens) provided a basis of understanding that was impossible to miss, whereas the personal destruction of a relatively smaller group of people who had been painted (unfair as it was) with the brush of communism was more esoteric and thus the danger needed to be explained. Murrow is one of my heroes, in large part because of his attacks on McCarthy, but the logic he used to justify his actions is the same that underpins the excuses of men and women who don’t deserve to claim to be his successors.

Maybe it’s because I’m, you know, old and stuff, but it seems to me that the pretense of neutrality is important even if it remains an impossible goal in reality. The recent trend in both the traditional media and the so-called new media is often to outwardly reject neutrality and simply refer to your work as “fair” in a way that’s all but a punch line. The only reason why some of these folks don’t literally wink and smile as they claim to be “fair and balanced” say it is because they know we’re already in on the joke. (I’m not just attacking FoxNews; I’m just using that line as an example because it’s the most obvious and well known slogan available to illustrate my point.)

“This is how the post-newspaper world is going to work. People write stuff in a variety of media, readers decide whether they trust it or not, and that decision is informed to varying degrees by a chorus of pros and cons about the bias and quality of that writing. Some of the most biased writing being nationally published these days is getting published in some of the most well-established newspapers, and nobody is losing their jobs because of it.”

You’re right. And it scares the hell out of me. The upside of the fracturing of information sources from a handful of papers and the old 3 network news programs is that there simply is more information out there and more ways to access it. That’s great, in theory. It gives people the opportunity to pursue a broad array of views and weigh them against each other, providing the opportunity to “sift and winnow” in search of the truth.

Unfortunately, the reality appears to be dramatically different from the theoretical. Many, and perhaps most, are taking the opportunity to pursue the information sources that provide them with the perspective and information that confirms the views they already have and damn the rest. And once again, that is true of people who hold views all over the political spectrum. What follows when these folks who insulate themselves from the views of others eventually encounter someone who disagrees isn’t a conversation that the consumer internalizes and weighs in a search for the truth, but a shouting match in which the subjective reigns over and eventually replaces the objective. And the word “truth” becomes a punchline instead of the ultimate goal of any inquiry. That my friends, is exceptionally dangerous in a democracy. I’m not so naive as to believe that this is an entirely new phenomena, but it does seem to have become more common with the advent of the new media and its gradual merger with (or conquest of) the old.

I know I’m not talking about baseball anymore and I know i probably sound like Grandpa Simpson, but this is something I’ve spent some time thinking and writing about elsewhere. That, combined with the fact that my occupation brings me into contact with the media (both new and old) on a semi-reguarly basis left me unable to throwing in my two cents.

Rant complete.