First (past the) post

Still feeels very self conscious. This first post is partly motivated by an interesting brokkie I found on PressThink, about how bloggers are sometimes journalists. Especially poignant perhaps, as I plot my long overdue departure from that (ig)noble profession. Apathetic journalists should be shot and shouldn't be allowed to get sloppy (like me, for the last few years).

Although I take some consolation that my worst compares favourably with some journos best. All the more reason to quit while you're ahead.

Watch closely now as I quote without crediting... ah, freedom from the press.


Bloggers vs. Journalists is Over

Some excerpts:

They all sense it, what Tom Curley, the man who runs the Associated Press, called "a huge shift in the 'balance of power' in our world, from the content providers to the content consumers." If there is such a shift (and Curley didn't seem to be kidding) it means that professional journalism is no longer sovereign over territory it once easily controlled. Not sovereign doesn't mean you go away. It means your influence isn't singular anymore.

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Orville Schell, dean of the University of California at Berkeley's journalism school and a conference participant, told Business Week recently: "The Roman Empire that was mass media is breaking up, and we are entering an almost-feudal period where there will be many more centers of power and influence."

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If my terms make sense, and professional journalism has entered a period of declining sovereignty in news, politics and the provision of facts to public debate, this does not have to mean declining influence or reputation. It does not mean that prospects for the public service press are suddenly dim. It does, however, mean that the old political contract between news providers and news consumers will give way to something different, founded on what Curley correctly called a new "balance of power."

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This was the year when it finally became unmistakably clear that objectivity has outlived its usefulness as an ethical touchstone for journalism. The way it is currently construed, "objectivity" makes the media easily manipulable by an executive branch intent on and adept at controlling the message. It produces a rigid orthodoxy, excluding voices beyond the narrowly conventional.