They Still Don't Get It!
Mood:  incredulous
Now Playing: Mostly Autumn---Catch the Spirit
Topic: Vox Populi
092029 MAY 05

They Still Don’t Get It!

The other day, while watching FOX News Watch, an interesting topic came up for debate. Recently, CBS News posted some of its lowest Nielsen ratings in its history! Likewise, NBC News also saw its viewership decline, with ABC receiving the best news: stagnant viewership with no appreciable change. Print media has also suffered similar declines in readership. A spirited argument promptly resulted amongst the assembled media experts with each offering a reason why the mainstream media (henceforth MSM) were doing so poorly among contemporary audiences. Some offered that hard news was losing out to softer entertainment news. One suggested that the medium was to blame---print and TV was just unable to compete with the instant delivery that wireless devices and the internet could offer. That was the best answer, but still short of the truth.

The reality of the matter is that Generation X’ers just do not trust the MSM!

Once upon a time, people were content for heavyweight reporters to prepare and package the news for them. Murrow, Cronkite, and Rather were considered inerrable. Likewise, CBS, NBC, and ABC, or, for that matter, the New York Times, Washington Post, and the Los Angeles Times, were considered to be the paragon of veracity and analysis. The American people were content to have others do the hard work of gathering the facts and presenting the core issues that were so crucial to understanding the events of the day. After all, what else could they do? Unless they were prepared to go out and gather the facts themselves, their hands were pretty much tied. The professional news outlets had presented a fait accompli.

This is no longer the case.

Gen X has resources available to it that those of the Baby Boomer Generation could scarcely dream. With an ordinary PC and an internet connection, or even an AM radio, one is now capable of ferreting out the core facts for himself by way of Alternative Media. No longer is he forced to be satisfied with the selective reporting of a particular name-brand journalist. Now, an individual is free to research a topic to his heart’s content with the massive resources available via the internet. Want to know what is happening in Iraq? Do not take Koeppel’s word for it, check it out yourself. With websites such as GlobalSecurity.org, one is able to get a detailed review of the military situation that provides far greater detail than anything ABC is willing to offer on their night newscast. Want to know what really is behind the ethics investigation into Congressman Delay? Check out FederalistPatriot.us or www.DrudgeReport.com for some snappy investigative work into the issue.

The point is this: the mainstream media is redundant at best, obsolete at worst. Gen X’ers can get to the heart of a matter quicker, and with greater depth, via alternative media than an entire newsroom of reporters could do with an unlimited budget.

As a bonus, via the interactivity of the internet, we can now have the news custom-tailored to our liking too. Superficially, this includes the obvious tailoring to fit an ideological perspective. With the recent meltdown of the MSM, whereby major news networks openly attempted to skew the coverage of the recent presidential elections to the Left, most net-savvy news junkies now know that the major media outlets are no more objective, or biased for that matter, than any other source available to them via the World Wide Web. If your news is going to be spun, you might as well as have it spun in your direction.

However, this tailoring also extends beyond the ideological. With the increasing capabilities of smart search agents, a person can now specify exactly what type of news he find relevant and wishes to read. Politics, entertainment, international news, even the much neglected black sheep of the family, science news, can now be culled and emailed to a specific user on a daily, if not hourly, basis. Needless to say, this is an ability that the MSM will never be able to match. With the less flexible nature of print and TV, the rule of the day is “one size fits all”. This is a deficit that may well prove fatal as interactive news becomes more powerful with every passing news cycle.

But there is another aspect to alternative media that the MSM will find increasing difficult to match as well. This ace-up-the-sleeve of alternative media is interactivity. That is, with talk radio and the internet, one is able not only to read about the news, but also contribute his own point-of-view for others to consider. Whether he calls into a talk radio program, posts a message at a news website, or adds his own thoughts to a blog, he can directly participate in the news process. Need I remind anyone that it was a blogger who broke Rather-gate? THAT is the power of alternative media. The news is no longer a passive experience; quite the opposite, it has become an active, give-and-take, process where every man can be his own Thomas Paine.

These are the reasons why the MSM is losing disciples like never before. In a turn of events quite the opposite of anything George Orwell might have envisioned, the power of the people has come to eclipse the might once wielded by the so-called Fourth Estate. Not content to be told the news, the American people are making the news---yet another example of what it so right about the American experience. This great nation has shown the world the true power of the Vox Populi! And that, dear readers, is something the mainstream media may never be able to contend with….