The other day a story on NPR's "All Things Considered" raised many questions regarding the nature of blogging and the interplay between bloggers and the media. More specifically, this story discussed the controversial Andrew Breitbart a man who typifies the 21st century journalist. Breitbart is a blogger out of San Francisco. He sits barefoot in his basement, kids running in and out, answering hundreds of emails, including those from politicians, actors and actresses, and business leaders.
Breitbart communicates frequently with conservative journalists mired in the trenches of that dying art called investigative journalism. Essentially he seeks to expose what he believe is a liberal narrative in mainstream media. He is a journalism critic. Yet, the greatest irony is embodied in his dysfunctional relationship with the media. "His sites rely heavily on [mainstream media]," NPR reports, "even as they tear it down."
So what are we left with. On the one hand Andrew Brietbart is critiquing media from a conservative perspective, the Huffington Post and Salon.com provide commentary from the opposite end of the spectrum. USA Today allows readers to edit their stories and I'm left wondering - where are Bob Woodward and Carl Bernstein, the legendary muckrakers of the Watergate Scandal?
The paradigm that heralded Bernstein and Woodward has shifted. That paradigm of black and white, communism and socialism, truth and error, dare I say, right and wrong, has dissolved into the postmodern paradigm of subjectivity. I believe blogs are evidence of how postmodernism has approached one more sphere of society. True, blog have positive components. People like Andrew Breitbart or other special interest groups are able to break down the supposedly liberal metanarrative. However, even as postmodernism seeks to undermine truth claims in the interest of relativity, the information structures built in this paradigm allow intolerant groups (e.g. neo-nazis, religious fundamentalists) to have their own blogs, news story comments, and wiki edits.
Furthermore, what will happen to the news media as it is dispensed into the hands of the public? Call me an intellectual elitist, but I shudder at the thought of this happening. Even with a million fact-checkers, how will we ever be able to know if the news we are reading at the moment is "true?"
Perhaps the greatest irony of this post is that I'm doing the very thing that I'm skeptical of - relying on mainstream media for inspiration and using a blog to tear it all down.
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For a while, I agreed with you that "viral" news, with incessant onslaught of twitter feeds and ireports, would eventually take over the news market, but I have seen a new light recently. VBS.TV, which CNN is apparently in love with and how I found out about them, is owned by viacom. While certainly not without its bias, it adds an interesting mix of journalism with modern information distribution. From youtube accounts to online videos of their journalistic adventures, it does a good job of melding traditional journalism and news reporting with the new market and method of distribution added into it. I don't think local news will ever die because of the unique market that needs it, but for national news outlets to succeed, they will have to realize the technology available to them and use it effectively, not just because it is available.
ReplyDeleteThat's so interesting Mandy. I think that you pose a good question. I gets me wondering about the similarities (from then to now) in how we allow the respective media into our consciousness. What are the standards through which we legitimize information?
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