Smart piece by Antony Loewenstein down under saying that the mainstream media are going away not just because of a technological change but because they're invested more in the establishment hierarchy than in information. I.e., they've blown the story. Or as I like to say, The New York Times and Washington Post got it wrong on Iraq, the greatest disaster in a generation; do you think there aren't consequences of such a mistake? And the incredible force of the internet is capitalizing on that error. Loewenstein:
With notable exceptions,
the American mainstream media shies away from examining the brutal
reality of Palestine. The Israeli occupation is almost invisible. The
influence of the Zionist lobby on the political and media elite deemed
to be conspiratorial.
Witness the recent case of Charles Freeman to chair the National
Intelligence Council, forced to resign after extreme pressure from the
Israel lobby. But it was only online through blogs that the issue
publicly existed. The majors, such as the New York Times, only registered the case after Freeman pulled out. Big media was deliberately asleep at the wheel.
The question in the Freeman wasn’t so much a lack of resources to
report the facts – after all, the story didn’t require overseas travel,
as all the players were in the US – but a lack of will. Much of the
debate about the crisis in old media (and news about the closure of
institutions like the Boston Globe
is certainly concerning) overly focuses on a belief that simply keeping
newspapers alive will continue to guarantee democracy and transparency.
In my view, it will not. Debates over “public trust” journalism are therefore essential. New models are already emerging.
