7 notesBlogging, Twitter, and the mainstream media
It seems as though the shift in the mainstream media to an entertainment model rather than a news model was complemented perfectly by the emergence of blogging. In the wake of the Clinton-Lewinsky scandal, where what organizations heard almost became more important that what they could prove, the rise and popularity of 24-hour news networks opened an avenue for blogs and self-proclaimed experts.
In the first few years of blogging (2003-2005), the mainstream media seemed to reject blogs more than they embraced them. Now, realizing that some very good journalism can come out of blogging, we seem to fit right in with the 24-hour news model.
Unfortunately however, in the communications sphere, blogging presents pressure to news organizations. Gone is their luxury of preparing a factual story over a period of hours. We can report on stories and accumulate comments while they write and fact check and then re-write and re-check. Journalistic standards be damned. The bloggers can publish and amend stories as complaints or corrections roll in (see also: Fox News).
The biggest breakthrough of blogging into our mainstream media was undoubtedly seen during the Iranian election and citizen journalism through Twitter. The mainstream media, mainly CNN, had no choice but to embrace the technology as a simple journalistic tool to the point where live tweets were read on air in place of content created for broadcast. In the absence of information coming out of Iran by traditional sources, the micro-bloggers became king.
Now Twitter has turned into more of a distraction than it has a tool. Social media tools serve as perfect time-wasters to help fill in those 24 hours. Joe19 in Michigan apparently has some brilliant insights. How the hell else did he get on TV?
It doesn’t seem as if blogging is going away, either. Arianna Huffington’s regular appearances on cable news networks, experts and bloggers yelling at one another, and the inclusion of bloggers as a part of news organizations show that embracing blogging will prove much more fruitful than rejecting it.
