The Demise of Journalism
My cousin uses a quote from Mark Twain as a tag line in his emails: "If you don’t read the newspaper, then you are uninformed. If you do read the newspaper, you are misinformed." This Twain-ism has taken on new meaning during the 2008 election cycle. Journalism, in the classical sense, may have completely retired from the field. I remember one of my "vacation things" when the kids were growing up was to purchase a copy of the New York Times daily and read a good portion of it. While I did not agree with the editorial policy of the NYT, I did enjoy the depth of the articles and the high standard of English composition and grammar. Even twenty years ago, our local newspaper was full of typos, misspelled words, sentence fragments, poor grammar, and a general disregard for the King’s English. Reading the NYT daily was a refreshing break from all that sloppy writing and editing.
Today, those vacation memories seem like a myth. Other than the Wall Street Journal I have not picked up a newspaper this year that did not look and feel like a tabloid. I’m not saying that there is no good reporting to be found in newsprint — its just very hard to find. More importantly, the subtle bias of yesteryear has been replaced by in-your-face political propaganda written into almost every article. Maybe the worst, (I say maybe because there was so much other stuff I just refused to read) were the attacks on Sarah Palin. These went beyond the pale in every respect.
It was announced a few weeks ago that the Christian Science Monitor will cease producing a newsprint copy of their publication in the near future. The publication will still be available online but the only thing you can hold in your hand is your laptop. Our local paper, the Tennessean, shrunk its page size a couple of weeks ago and it is beginning to look like some third world rag. The response of the journalist establishment to decreased circulation is to "dumb it down another notch." Sounds like the same approach our professional educators apply to the school system. All this seems like we bidding farewell to a thinking America. (Check out this blog http://www.twistimage.com/blog/ )
3 comments:
You know, I have been having some of those same thougths lately! I remember being in school and getting a newspaper once per week so we could learn how to use one. I was thinking of doing that with my kiddos, but I honestly have not been all that impressed with the ajc lately. I've been buying the Sunday edition for the coupons, but I'm about to give up even on that. So many trees wasted on such mediocrity and falsehood!
I also heard an NPR piece (of all places!) about Brit Hume retiring from the anchor desk at FoxNews. He cited similar reasons for losing his taste for the business: the obvious, unapologetic bias; and the fact that there is no more real journalism. Too bad.
It seems like we're moving in the wrong direction. Shouldn't we be cutting down on the mass amounts of global perspective and buffing up the local? It amazes me what the newspaper industry is cutting.
great bekasi post!
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