Opinions

The changing media

In print | January 22, 2009

Correction Appended

Change was promised in the 2008 election, and change was given. Hillary Clinton was the first female candidate to come close to securing her party’s nomination; Sarah Palin was the first female Republican to be nominated for vice-president; North Carolina voted Democratic for the first time in 30 years; and, most memorably of all, America elected its first black president. The election, however, did more than magnify America’s changing demographic and social trends. It proved, once and for all, that new media — blogs, Facebook, Twitter feeds, even text messages — will play a powerful role in informing the American public.

There isn’t anything wrong with this trend. Blogs, from the Drudge Report on the right to the Huffington Post on the left, regularly break stories that are missed by the mainstream media (or, in blog lingo, “the MSM”). If, as Thomas Jefferson would have had it, the press serves as a final check on government, then it is difficult to imagine a surer watchdog than a citizenry armed with video cameras. Already, a newly empowered American citizenry has used new media to expose police abuse at home, while activists abroad have used cameras and blogs to smuggle out images from countries ruled by repressive regimes.

So by no means is The Phoenix standing “athwart history, shouting stop!” However, there is still an inherent value to maintaining some traditional methods of journalism. In a society where everyone with an Internet connection has the capacity to be a journalist, it is still valuable to have copy editors and fact checkers, to have reporters cite multiple sources and to have people hired expressly to investigate the workings of government. There is still a value to having careful, meticulous, relatively unbiased reporting. And it is our hope that whatever revolutions overtake the media industry and society at large these important elements of the old media remain and all journalists be held accountable for the accuracy of the statements they publish.

Right now, the media’s future is unclear. Mainstream news organizations have been making attempts to adapt and experiment with the new technology. Sometimes, as when The New York Times Web site added blogs by its regular columnists Nicholas Kristof and Paul Krugman, these experiments result in increased coverage and better reporting. Other times, as when CNN solicits frequent contributions from its trademarked I-Reporters, who, for example, send in videos of weddings where the cakes are made into “full-size likenesses” of the bride, the cause of journalism is less well served. Even as certain venerable news organizations have been forced to descend into tabloid-style reporting to boost profits, other organizations are experimenting with ways to harness the power of new media while retaining the standards of old.

But a closer look at The New York Times shows that no matter how innovative the paper is, the market for newspapers is quickly disappearing. The New York Times has been forced to lay off employees and, by allowing non-subscribers to view their website for free, it runs the risk of losing print subscribers. In early January, the paper sold its first front-page advertisement, and just four days ago the New York Times Corporation received a $250 million loan (bailout) from Carlos Slim Helú, the Mexican entrepreneur who currently stands as the second wealthiest man in the world. Ironically, many bloggers have questioned why the paper would allow a man who was referred to by a New York Times editorial writer as a “robber baron” to own such a large stake in the company. There has always been a tension between news organizations’ roles as both profit-seeking vehicles and as crusaders for a more transparent society. This tension is only going to be exacerbated in the current climate, when news organizations are forced to scavenge for advertisements and attract new readers and viewers.

We have no idea what is going to happen to news in the next couple of years. But we hope that, no matter how the industry changes, basic journalistic standards remain.

Correction: Jan. 22, 2009

Correction: This article claims incorrectly that the New York Times Corporation received a $250 billion loan from Carlos Slim Helú. The New York Times Corporation received a $250 million loan.