Nat’l Post: ‘You’ll Miss’ The Old Media When Its Gone

MensNewsDaily.com ^ | August 8, 2008 | By Warner Todd Huston

[RogerFGay]

Jonathan Kay of the National Post (Canada) is sure that we'll miss the old media when its gone. So sure he wrote a paean to how great the media is... and he missed the target by a wide margin on every point he made. Unfortunately, he took a good point and made a mockery of the truth of the matter with his wrongheaded reasoning.

In "You'll miss us when we're gone" Kay asserts that the media exists for "a genuine, altruistic desire for an educated citizenry" and hopes that predictions of its "imminent extinction" are wrong. He also claims that there are "certain kinds of important stories that simply cannot be covered, except by deep-pocketed traditional media organizations employing professional journalists." Aside from imagining that the press is at all interested in "education" he isn't too far off the mark here.

We do need the media, at least a media with "deep pockets" that can afford to cover things in some depth and at distance, the distance of the whole globe. Not too many bloggers and new media folks can afford to go about the world interviewing folks and investigating stories. Sure its a small world these days, but boots on the ground is an important thing to investigative writing. So, the old media does serve an important role. It isn't a role that bloggers and new media people cannot do, of course. But it is an important role nonetheless.

But, back to Kay's assertion that the media is interested in "education." They most assuredly are not. What they are interested in is indoctrinating their readers in a certain worldview.

[Tzimisce]

Well then, you go away and I’ll let you know if I miss you...

[WayneS]

Yeah, right.

They can put Beetle Bailey on-line too, you know.

[kromike]

Oh, we'll miss your traitorous a$$e$ when you're gone...

With a BIG smile on our faces...

[WayneS]

“...employing professional journalists...”

It all depends on what the meaning of “professional” is...

[Sax]

HA! It's this exact dishonest BS that's flushing them down history's toilet:

....asserts that the media exists for "a genuine, altruistic desire for an educated citizenry"

[mainestategop]

We won’t miss the liberal media when it’s gone. LOL!

[Notwithstanding]

If there is a market demand for the old media after it dies, it will then be revived.

Old media flourished because money and influence could be gained by being a publisher.

Old media is not some magic sacred cow, despite their incessant mooing to the contrary.

[FlingWingFlyer]

Not too many bloggers and new media folks can afford to go about the world interviewing folks and investigating stories.

Is this really a bad thing? I live in Arizona. It drives me crazy when the newsies tell me that they are having a thunderstorm in Maine, Washington and Oahu or that some woman living in Atlanta, Georgia has 150 cats living with her in her mobile home. There is such as thing as TOO MUCH information.

[Attention Surplus Disorder]

Well, I too can write a pecan to how great the media is. I missed you long ago when you eschewed any original thinking at penalty of your job and started parroting any old press release any old press rep hack was willing to copy and place in your hand.

[Slapshot68]

“the media exists for “a genuine, altruistic desire for an educated citizenry””

Wow.....violent, projectile barf alert!

[lesser_satan]

From the Kay article:

Just penetrating this filthy world marks an amazing accomplishment for Schwartz: Somehow, this established New York City journalist gained the trust of cynical, nihilistic misanthropes who, by their own professed creed, don't trust anyone. They met him, in the flesh, showed him where they live and even let him watch as they went about their trolling.

Yes, it's SOOO difficult, when any idiot with an internet connection can go to Encyclopedia Dramatica and read about every significant act of trolling ever committed, with docs on a lot of the trolls.

[TheWasteLand]

Kay asserts that the media exists for "a genuine, altruistic desire for an educated citizenry"

You can't miss something that doesn't exist.

[Squawk 8888]

What they are interested in is indoctrinating their readers in a certain worldview.

Wrong. Their primary interest is in maximizing the number of readers so that they can command higher advertising rates. They're not in the business, nor are they in the business of indoctrination; they're in the business of selling audiences. Unfortunately most media outlets take the easy route of building audiences by pandering to people's worst instincts.

[avacado]

He also claims that there are "certain kinds of important stories that simply cannot be covered, except by deep-pocketed traditional media organizations employing professional journalists."

Yeah, and likewise those important stories that conflict with the media's agenda can be BURIED DEEP by those "deep-pocketed traditional media organizations."

[Slapshot68]

Anyone else want to point out to Mr Kay that it was the tabloid media and blogosphere that broke the Edwards affair story, and not the “old media?”

[HIDEK6]

Well, I too can write a pecan

Yeah, but can you candy a pecan?

[TChris]

OK, go away. Then I'll be sure to miss you.

...

...waiting...

[Cicero]

I don’t think I agree with you. The media SHOULD be interested in making money. In the old days it was making money vs. being honest. But this post-Vietnam generation of media folks are so absolutely dipped in ideology that they put it before their own survival.

In part, it’s because they move in circles of same-thinking leftists. They don’t even KNOW anybody who voted for Bush. So they just assume that all their readers want to be brainwashed along the same lines that they have been brainwashed. They don’t know any better.

[umgud]

I don’t catch it now, so how the hell am I gonna miss it when it’s gone?