A lot has been said recently about moderation with regard to how badly we knock about the Heritage Media. Many are saying that we should cut it out.
The screenshots tell a tale more nuanced than the provocative “new media beats old media” narrative. Rather, they show that while Twitter, Flickr, YouTube and other social media sites are both a source of unfiltered information and a venue for public discussion, we still look to CNN, the BBC and their ilk to add context and meaning to this flood of data. And when they fail us, we demand more of them.
So help me understand… Many of us are flat-out refusing to be consumers of the world’s news media, from newspapers like the New York Times and news channels like CNN, chewing away at their ad revenue. Some exult in the bad news as it streams forth – as newspapers close and journalists are sent packing. Others revel when old media makes stupid mistakes in the new world, like the AP demanding you not excerpt their stories, or other sites threatening to sue when linked to. But when a real newsworthy event hits, we hold them accountable for not being there, first to respond.
Journalism is not a charity event. Its reporters cost money, as do papers and stations’ branch offices, travel expenses, and equipment, yet many of us on the bleeding edge are all too excited to mention how we’re not paying them a dime.
That CNN did not lead the way in covering the Iran conflict this week, after decades of our relying on them to be there, as they were in Desert Storm, Operation: Iraqi Freedom, Somalia, Bosnia and others, is not up for debate. But the question is – did we really not want them to fail, or are you happy that they did?
Even Steven Hodson mentioned something along these lines:
Instead of spending so much time knocking old media or making fun of the new social media tools we should be working on ways to get them to work together. Each serves a purpose and in this changing world they can both help effect social and political change.
You won’t, however, hear me saying anything along these lines. If anything has been shown by the dozens of local New Media ongoing coverage efforts as well as watershed events like the Iran situation and Rathergate, the New Media is infinitely superior to Heritage Media.
Heritage Media has two choices – adapt to the new model, or die.
I refuse to and will never cut them slack for claiming to be superior to our form of emergent media and then continuing along their very long track record of business and journalistic failure.
I absolutely and abjectly refuse to cut them slack. They have the tools to change. It will be a painful change. It will mean swallowing their pride. But it’s a necessary change if they want to survive – and those that refuse to even try to work towards their own survival will never get pity me.
Protesting Iranians are in a hopeless situation. For them to voice dissention is patently illegal. For them to ask to be properly represented can result in persecution and death. Not figurative death, or the death of their business – actual gruesome and bloody death. Yet still they fight for their liberty and survival.
I think that’s the meta-lesson to be learned here. If Heritage Media can’t perform their duties any longer while New Media excels at doing all of that and more, why is there any sympathy for them at all?
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