What Do We Really Know?
So where do you get your news and information? What sources do you trust and how do you confirm the validity of what they offer? What do we really know after consuming reports, stories and other claimed facts that form our opinions? Questions like these are usually only answered after someone working for a large news organization is caught plagiarizing and the competitors are only too quick ‘going to press’ and gaining a leg up.
Print journalism and book publishing as well as traditional broadcast giants are feeling there way through the new information age where stable strategies of the past are losing ground. More and more people are getting their news from the internet, abandoning the former news leaders in larger numbers for on demand sources online. The way news is distributed is changing, the mechanisms that check the facts may be lost and the art of writing has taken on a less formal standard than in the past.
Book publishers struggle with the brick and mortar or online presence as business models of the future. Recently it was reported that Borders resisted the internet and chose to remain a traditional retail outlet. An arrangement with Amazon.com will end next year as they try late to enter the new game. They will be closing many of their acquired Waldenbooks outlets and this serves as another example of the strength of the internet and its popularity.
The broadcast news networks all have a ‘web’ presence. RSS feeds, video and other interactive options are or will be developed as they attempt to lure readers/viewers to their sites with free exclusive news video and even webcast reruns of their prime time programming. Print news media sources have been on the net for a long time. But it is the businesses that were born of the internet that rule the new kingdom.
The BBC news ticker is listed in the top 100 at Alexa’s Top 500 Global sites. The New York Times and the NBA’s website make the top 200 but one is hard pressed to find many traditional news and information sources ranking high on net viewership. The younger you are the less likely your are to stay informed with the old standard sources for information. What does this mean for what we know and how we respond to events and conditions developing around the globe?
My personal take on gathering the information I need is one dominated by skepticism. Not to pick on them but the recent information glitch at Wikipedia from an imposter is an example of why net reliability for information is always suspect. Not that plagiarism incidents at the New York Times or Dan Rather’s damage done at CBS during the 2004 campaign are any different, but in a time when broadcast and print ruled the information game, standards had been developed over a long time to largely reduce the occurrence of yellow or tabloid journalism. Maybe it is that the internet community is so real time and quick to expose the cheaters that as well as being a serious contender for top information source it may be developing the public as top critic and fact validator.
Stanford Matthews
MoreWhat.com
Trackposted to The Pink Flamingo, Rightlinx, Cao’s Blog, A Blog For All, Jo’s Cafe, and Walls of the City, thanks to Linkfest Haven Deluxe.