This is the season of media Christmas parties. I'm still connected enough that I get invited to a few, in Gotham, and I wanted to convey the following urgent information before passing into the arms of Morpheus. The old media are over. You can feel it. I had a few conversations at this unidentified party that all said, the center is not holding, the old way is passing before us, with grief and denial and glacial calving of icebergs. To wit:
–A friend said that the era in which a journalist would be given a rental car, an air ticket, and an expense account, and told to go report on something, was coming to an end. And what would replace it? Some boohoo followed.
–A friend said that his expense account had been zeroed out, at a certain media corp in a certain influential burg.
–An acquaintance said that Obama's victory was on the backs of new media, and the old media are gonna feel it, in terms of lawmaking and policy.
Very anecdotal, I know. But walking uptown from the party afterward, I had this strong impression that the currents I'm feeling in my own career, of big paydays passing, and blogging engulfing us, and media social networks losing their power, aren't just personal to me, they're happening all 'round us. And the people doing twitter feeds in Mumbai last week are now journalists. And experts like Adam Horowitz who know more about a country than any traditional reporter are now journalists. And the era of The Journalist, as professional generalist, as bigfoot, as flyover boy, as instant expert, is ending. Mixed feelings. But mostly: the blogosphere wouldn't have given us the Iraq war/it's progress.
