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.

[RogerFGay]

Actually right now they can't .... (at least without making a donation first.)

ENCYCLOPEDIA DRAMATICA IS ABOUT TO SHUT DOWN FOREVER.

I guess I can't say I'm terribly surprised since I'd never heard of it before reading your comment.

[beefree]

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

projectile pelosi alert

[semantic]

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

This statement alone is a load of BS. Long before the MSM held local city/regional monopolies (consolidation only took place 15-20 years ago), competing publications dealt with much smaller profit margins, yet were perfectly able to maintain stables of writers.

How did they do this? Because they relied on LEADS; that is, someone (almost always the opposition) TIPPED them off! All they had to do was perform a cursory evaluation & analysis, summarize the results, and presto, a story appeared.

Bloggers have none of the overhead associated with publishing & delivering hard copy press. There are thousands of interested persons who can perform the same basic tasks from any point in the globe. The motivation for providing tips & leads will never go away.

Only someone who hasn't a clue cannot perceive how the future is going to operate (and is operating right now - re: Edwards).

[ripley]

“you’ll miss us when we’re gone.”

oh no i won’t.

[RogerFGay]

Have you tried it?

[RogerFGay]

Actually, I'd make a list if I wasn't so lazy. Lots of people pooh poohed - which is understandable - the lamestream media has a well deserved bad reputation - but National Post is among the best. They are definitely not your lamestream leftist whore-mongers. They've done lots of really good investigative reporting.

OK, the article is about the lamestream media generally, but it focuses on a National Post article - and that's what I'm on about - for anyone to read who reads all the comments. National Post is an excellent publication, more like you'd want - rather than mostly what you get.

[fish hawk]

I haven't missed them in the past three or four years, why would I start now?

[Paladin2]

Jonathan, after you’re gone, W won’t be there to bash daily anyway. Your whole purpose in life will be over.

[SECURE AMERICA]

I have not used the “old media” for at least 5 years now and I can assure you that I do not miss it at all.......

[RogerFGay]

Checking stats at the publication website, no more than 1 in 7 are reading the full article before posting comments. The actual number is less, since the calculation is based on the assumption that all new traffic to that page comes from here.

[Bitsy]

We would have missed you if you had not lied, made up stories, been biased and used your media as a political weapon instead of just reporting the news as it happened. But, you didn’t so we won’t.

[ronnie raygun]

Kay asserts that the media exists for “a genuine, altruistic desire for an educated citizenry”
YEAH LIKE THE GLOBE AND THE NATIONAL ENQYUIRER

[ArchAngel1983]

How can I miss you if you won’t go away?

[Mycroft Holmes]

Michael Yon does much better reporting from Iraq than the LSM and does it on donations.

[RJL]

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.

Too many times the MSM reporters have been shown to be reporting from a foreign county in the hotel bar reprinting the propaganda brought to them by stringers, who's first alliance is to our enemies.

Yeah, we'll miss that.
/S

[pabianice]

I thought it was already gone...

[hometoroost]

We'll miss them about as much as people miss chiseling letters onto stone tablets, morse code, and teletypes. And that's being charitable because there are sometimes uses for those even.

Although if I had a bird I guess I would miss the Tennessean.

[ripley]

“we really do need them. we just need them to get better at what they do.”

before leftists get better at what they do they have to grow up. the chances for a self-appointed intellectual genius to mature is close to impossible. they’ve poisoned the well. all they have to do now is just disappear and get out of everyone’s face; to blazes with them all.

[Myrddin]

My birds might miss the old press. It gives them a suitable poop target. Fishermen might miss the old press. It provides a cheap resource for wrapping their catch. Intelligent people won't miss the leftist pap. Trees will be saved. Ink will be conserved for more reasonable uses.

[conservatism_IS_compassion]

I, for one, do not want the old media destroyed. I want it reformed into a more ideal, worthwhile industry that will better fulfill the charge of educating the public that Kay posited is its charge. I’d like to see a media reformed away from the nearly monolithic leftism it now peddles to a more balanced presentation. Or, baring that, I like to see the creation of enough media outlets that give the conservative side of the issues to balance the preponderance of wild-eyed leftism seen throughout the current old media establishment.

The problem isn't the lack of enough members of the Associated Press, the problem is that members of the Associated Press are in the business of attracting attention and flattering themselves - and anyone who will help them flatter themselves. And that includes other members of the AP, and it includes "liberal" politicians ("liberal" having by now been stripped of all meaning other than as a code for politicians who promote the idea that, pace Theodore Roosevelt, criticism and second guessing is superior to action).

The Right to Know