Abandoning the News

[MSgt213]

What's the future of the news business? This report to Carnegie Corporation of New York offers some provocative ideas.

There's a dramatic revolution taking place in the news business today and it isn't about TV anchor changes, scandals at storied newspapers or embedded reporters. The future course of the news, including the basic assumptions about how we consume news and information and make decisions in a democratic society are being altered by technology-savvy young people no longer wedded to traditional news outlets or even accessing news in traditional ways.

In short, the future of the U.S. news industry is seriously threatened by the seemingly irrevocable move by young people away from traditional sources of news.

Through Internet portal sites, handheld devices, blogs and instant messaging, we are accessing and processing information in ways that challenge the historic function of the news business and raise fundamental questions about the future of the news field. Meanwhile, new forms of newsgathering and distribution, grassroots or citizen journalism and blogging sites are changing the very nature of who produces news. With these elemental shifts in mind, Carnegie Corporation of New York has launched a major initiative on the future of news and commissioned this report, based on a survey of 18-to-34-year-olds carried out by Frank N. Magid Associates in May 2004. (A set of PowerPoint slides comprising a distillation of the survey data is available on the Corporation's web site, www.carnegie.org/pdf/AbandoningTheNews.ppt.) The goal of this effort is to assess where 18-to-34-year-olds get their news today and how they think they'll access news in the future.

For news professionals coming out of the traditions of conventional national and local journalism, fields long influenced by national news organizations and dominant local broadcasting and print media, the revolution in how individuals relate to the news is often viewed as threatening. For digital media professionals, members of the blogging community and other participants in the new media wave, these trends are, conversely, considered liberating and indications that an “old media” oligopoly is being supplemented, if not necessarily replaced, by new forms of journalism created by freelancers and interested members of the public without conventional training.

http://www.carnegie.org/reporter/10/news/index.html

[xray s]

1. That phrase explains it all

News business.

They are whores to the ad man. A profit center. Corporate cocksuckers. Nothing more, nothing less.

May the "news business" die a terrible death, spike wedged firmly in its heart of maggots.

Long live the internet, the last refuge of the free press.

[ripple]

C-SPAN is the ONLY valid media source

the rest are entertainers, exploiters, and zealots with an agenda. C-SPAN isn't quite as entertaining as "news", but at least it's as unbiased as possible and it shows what is actually happening, without the innuendo.

[coloradodem2005]

2. They deserve this.

They deserve to go down in flames. People are sick of the press being a business. They don't want one side.

[Stirk]

3. The point they never mention is

that there would be no bloggers if the corporate media presented real news. They always talk like it's some sort of natural phenomon, like a passing storm system... as if regular people started collecting and disseminating news simply because they could.

People do it because the corporate media has become a caricature and nobody trusts it anymore. It's become Pravda.

[Pepperbelly]

4. news is a commodity like rice or screwdrivers.

Soon, I suspect, it, too, will be outsourced to a call center in India. Now THAT would be cheeky, eh?

[xray s]

6. actually, the Indians might teach us a thing or two...

...like WTF are you doing in Pakistan?!?!?

[hvn_nbr_2]

5. They're talking about 18-34 year olds but...

this 57-year-old has gone so long without watching TV news that I had to look up what channel CNN was on when I wanted to see something recently. Wouldn't know what channel any of the others are either, except for Olberman. It felt kind of good actually--"Ah, it's been so long I don't remember their number. Feels good." After watching a bit, I almost puked; it's gotten even worse while I haven't been watching.

If it's not in LBN (and increasingly, on the "greatest page"), I don't know about it, and don't likely want to know. F*** the corporate fascist pigs.

[AndyTiedye]

7. Every Harris Poll I Do, Regardless of the Topic, Asks

How much time do you spend on the Internet per week (excluding email)?

How many days have you watched TV news in the past month?

How many days have you done vigrorous exercise in the past month?

(They always group the last 2 together for some reason).


Obviously somebody really wants to know.

[durablend]

8. Harris Polls

A lot of times they've had the "What do you consider an invasion of privacy" question...I don't know if you've noticed.

[hvn_nbr_2]

10. I do those Harris polls too

My number of TV news days dropped precipitously after the election, from about 25 to 2 and then to 0. That grouping of questions always seems strange to me too.

[unhappycamper]

9. I think the only accurate American news is from Jon Stewart

Coperate Owned Networks (CONs) need approval from the Ministry of Propaganda before they can tell a story.

[moof]

12. There was something Moyer's asked Jon when he was interviewed on " NOW "

MOYERS: ... when I report the news on this broadcast, people say I'm making it up. When you make it up, they say you're telling the truth.

Here's a link to the whole transcript.

http://www.pbs.org/now/transcript/transcript_stewart.html

[noamnety]

11. They're wrong on one count

The U.S. news industry is not "seriously threatened by the seemingly irrevocable move by young people away from traditional sources of news."

It's threatened by the seemingly irrevocable move by journalists away from news.

[PATRICK]

13. Rotten institution reaches out to youth

How many times have I seen the fear factor wedded to an attempt to reach out to youth. That phrase always smacked of a very worried condescension where the generation of power suddenly realizes everything not only will die with them but is dying under their unworthy feet.

These are people who have forgotten the news, the needs of people, their own youth. Making their failure palatable, modified and enshrined for a new generation, these sudden gods of tradition are pitiful arbiters of the future. What future? What past? What news?

[PATRICK]

14. Not just a bunch of ham radio operators anymore

Suddenly they realize that though most people are buried in the clutches of business media news the Internet has liberated millions and young and intelligent citizens from the entire wortld view system.

It should scare them. There is little way to shepherd the chaos their way at all. And if it takes direction simply moving to a blatantly abandonned truth... It is enough of a core citizen group for a drastically needed revolution.

If the outside the net crowd was even trying to do the news fairly there would be nothing to fear from the Net- as they always thought until THEY became obvious traitors to their craft.

[radwriter0555]

15. Can you say "M M M M MAX HEADROOM" ???

I can... when I first saw that teevee show, I saw the future... and I went and worked on that show, because of that.

It was an amazing forecast of our media and news.

[Zenlitened]

16. Two trends intersecting perfectly.

Wireless information technology... and the utter collapse of anything resembling journalism in traditional media.

It's as if the dinosaurs lured the meteor in on themselves.