This past weekend the meme about the perilous condition of print media that’s been smoldering in the blogosphere for quite some time burst into flame with the publication of a blog post by Tim O’Reilly, SF Chronicle in Trouble?
I’d like to highlight four of the more thoughtful articles I’ve read that followed from that piece:
If the future of newspapers is of any concern to you at all, I highly recommend taking the time to read all five of the preceding pieces. What binds these four authors is their deep understanding and embrace of the new technologies of the web. But what is most striking to me is that they also share a deep and sincere respect for the critical importance of journalism in our democracy - though little patience or tolerance for the gatekeepers and entrenched business models of the mainstream media. They argue for journalism to evolve and adapt (radically, if necessary) at a time some old media champions resist change as though they believe they were intelligently designed, even as the evidence of their looming extinction mounts. Needless to say, I stand in the front row of the choir that they are preaching to, echoing the refrain that a new paradigm of journalism is at hand, and the incumbent media needs, in the immortal words of Lee Iacocca, to “lead, follow, or get out of the way.”
I value good journalism. I have tried to support and assist our student newspapers (links in the right sidebar), and have urged them to incorporate blogging and web technologies into their playbooks. I have commented to the Hays Daily News that their website, while a step in the right direction, comes up significantly short of taking full advantage of the web medium. I have offered to help all of these papers make better use of the web, and that offer stands. I don’t know much about how the Journalism program at FHSU is adapting to the paradigm shift - if at all - but I have seen little evidence to suggest there is any urgency in their approach. I would love to see FHSU and the media in Hays take a leading role in this revolution, but I have been disappointed in that hope, so far.
Perhaps that disappointment is no more keenly felt than in reading the words of Dean Paul Faber on the editorial page of the March 7th, 2007 Hays Daily News (available on page 4 of the PDF of that issue). In that editorial, “Democracy, Vigilance and Words on a Page,” Dean Faber argues that the Internet is a threat to our liberty. Specifically, he suggests that “the liberty we have to post things on the Internet and read or listen to or watch the postings of others” are a threat to two conditions of the voluntary agreements that are the basis of our ability to govern ourselves: “our access to all of the information relevant to the agreement”, and “the ability to understand the agreements and the information relevant to them, and [our] ability to use our understanding in making decisions.”
Now, Paul Faber is one of the gentlest persons I know, but his apparent misunderstanding of the Internet and its role to play in journalism and democracy is painful to read. He argues “the Internet… has a tendency to replace truth seeking with entertainment.” I would reply that it is the choice of each person who uses the internet that determines whether they use it for truth seeking or entertainment. To suggest that the Internet is somehow unique in causing its users to lose all ability to make such distinctions or exercise their ability to think critically is a specious claim, at best. How is the Internet inherently different from television, radio, or print media in this respect? I submit that it is not.
Certainly it is more challenging in this day and age to sort the wheat from the chaff when it comes to information and entertainment. But the underlying reason is the vast proliferation of material that needs to be sorted through, not the medium through which it is delivered. Certainly, the Internet lacks some of the recognized authority structures that are well established in print journalism - few would mistake the relative authority of the New York Times and the National Enquirer on matters of information and entertainment, but is that distinction just as clear in watching Fox News and CNN? There is no lack of high-quality, truthful information on the internet, available to any who seek it and can critically evaluate the difference between that and everything else. Indeed, that ability to critically evaluate information is one of the greatest values to be gained from a university education. If there is a failing of the general public to distinguish between fact and fiction, it is certainly not inherent in the medium by which this information is conveyed. (Or did I miss the point of Dean Faber’s editorial because I read it on the Internet and not on a dead tree?)
Yes, the printed word (whether on paper or a computer monitor) lends itself to more detailed critical evaluation for most literate people than audible or visual means, but primarily because we have not traditionally had means of playing back and reviewing audio and video, something we do almost unconsciously with the written word. But if anything, computers and the Internet are revolutionizing our ability to review and play back audio and video, making them potentially just as amenable to critical review as the printed word. What’s more, some information is conveyed much more effectively in audio or video formats than in written words (consider a bird’s call, or footage of an landslide). The Internet has the power to convey all of these media.
The value of the Internet is very much in line with the values of the scientific method and democracy itself. It allows me a platform to point out the flaws in Dean Faber’s argument, and, if he chooses, the ability for him to refine his argument in light of my objections. In the resounding words of The Cluetrain Manifesto, “Blogs are Conversations.” (That’s not to say that newspapers are unable to carry on conversations, but it is certainly not their forte.) When used effectively the Internet has significant advantages as a medium for conversations (including the ability to communicate asynchronously - I doubt the good Dean is awake at 4:00am, as I write this). I hope Dean Faber will engage in this conversation and correct my mistakes, so that together we can work toward a better understanding of this medium and its role in democracy.
