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The Decline of Journalism

Posted on December 16, 2008

 


 


            The media has taken a battering lately.


 


            They don’t know how to monetize the Internet. 


 


            They produce content but don’t know how to get paid for it.


 


            Advertising revenue is down.  Journalist standards are collapsing. 


 


            The  Quixotic campaign of Barack Obama would never have achieved its success without the active support of the largest media organizations, including the New York Times, the Washington Post, NBC News, etc.


 


            Journalism, which used to make a pretense of objectivity, has pretty much given up the charade. 


 


            While there are a few old pros out there who try to be assiduously objective (Carl Hulse of the Times, Dave Espo of AP) most simply would rather give us their opinions than the facts.


 


            And now, some high profile journalists have taken the final leap from hackery to flackery for the Democrats.


 


            Jay Carney, a long-time writer at Time magazine joined another long-time journalist Linda Douglass in the Obama Administration.  They are just one of a long-line of Democrats masquerading as journalists before they dramatically shed their disguise and magically appear as advocates for the liberal cause.


 


            Now, I personally like both Jay and Linda, but it sure would have been nice knowing what their true beliefs as they were promoting themselves as journalists.


 


            It is as if a referee changed out of the stripes at half time and suited up for the other team. 


 


            Journalism faces a huge credibility crisis.  Because there is so little objectivity in the newsroom, there is really very little difference between newspapers or blogs.


 


            At least with the bloggers, you pretty much know where they are coming from.  With journalists, you can only really venture a guess.


 


            And if you guess that they are lean far to the left, you would probably be correct.


 


            Most surveys show that by a 90 to 10 split, journalists vote far more for the Democrats than they do for the Republicans. 


 


            That startlingly unbalanced ratio leads to biased news coverage.  And biased new coverage leads to a diminished product, which leads to declining circulation, which leads to bankruptcy (just ask Sam Zell).


 


            Journalism is facing some big decisions.  Does it want to continue to exist in the digital age?  If it does, it better start restoring its image by producing a more balanced product. 




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