Out of touch journalism

Eric W. Shamlin • 30th Jun 2010 • Random Thoughts, Politics, Random Thoughts, Pop Culture, Random Thoughts

Andrew Sullivan has a great post on Out of touch Mainstream Media and why neutrality is undesirable.

In an era of monopolistic news reporting, if you are the only newspaper in town, or one of three channels on the tube, you are you going to be a lot less concerned with providing a superior product and a lot more concerned with not saying anything that might alienate a member of your captive audience. It’s not important to have the smartest reporters or the sharpest analysis – after all, people are pretty much forced read the news you give them. Instead, it’s just important to have reporters that are careful (or dense) enough to stop thinking about a subject before they risk suggesting that one interpretation of events might be superior to others.

End result: a perverse culture that values manufactured or feigned neutrality above all else, endless “he said/she said” reporting, and a mainstream media that is afraid to actually let its own reporters use their brains.