Newspapers are in a free fall, and here's another forum on whether blogging can save journalism, passed on by a newspaper editor (Peter Voskamp). I hate these conversations. Journalism is going to the internet, like it or not. There's only one real issue: Are people getting their information?
Do you read a newspaper? Me, less and less/I confess. I have so many hours in the day for information-reception. Now it's the computer. Just the way of the world. Don't attach moral value to pulped trees and foreign bureaus, that was old world. (And yes, elitist.)
Do we lose something? You bet your ass. It's always a tradeoff. I had a friend who used to write articles about how he wanted 60 minutes of nightly news, not 30. He's a journalism Critic. Then the cable explosion happened, and he didn't like what he got. Not sober and pious enough. But he'd gotten his wish, many times over. Not 60 minutes, but 600 minutes of television news. Just not the New York Times-y journalism he wanted.
The blogosphere poses the same issue. This is the way a lot of people are going to get their information, in little jolts. Not sitting down and drinking their coffee and having a semi-leisurely conversation with a newsprint authority. They're going to get a lot more information, but of a different character. Less filtered, more sources. They're going to learn to trust those sources or not, in the same way folks used to say, Do you believe what you read in the newspaper? Is it good for the Congolese people? Is it good for the Palestinians? I say, yes.
