I hate using trendy catch phrases like 2.0 but we have definitely entered a new phase in news and information. We are at a tectonic shift in the way news is dealt with. I could get into a discussion of were I feel Free Speech 1.0 rose and fell but I think it is sufficient to say that the information age has changed the concept of freedom of speech. The ability of the average person to publish their thoughts on daily events where the world can read them has clearly unsettles those who feel their prowess with prose gives them the unique position of information interpreter.
Joseph Rago writes “The way we write affects both style and substance.” in an article titled “The Blog Mob – Written by fools to be read by imbeciles” in OpinionJournal.com. The way we write has nothing to do with substance. You can of course find significant substance in a mathematical formula. But he bemoans the lack of “loquacious formulations” by us imbecile bloggers, no wait we are fools, the readers are the imbeciles…anyway.
The press was once comfortable in their cultural uniformity, unfettered by internal political disagreement. That safe culture allowed them to believe in their self designated objectivity in spite of the clear desire to effect public opinion and policy. I have some good friends in the newspaper industry and they are sure they are very objective. But there is a phrase that you hear virtually every one of them say at one time or another. It goes something like “I got into this to make a difference” or “it feels good to know you have made a difference”. The problem is that “making a difference” is really for activists. Reporting is supposed to be objective. Someone who is determined to be objective should be saying something like “I am entirely unconcerned with whether my article affects public opinion or governmental action”. I have yet to hear anything like that from anyone I have known in journalism.
But this shift in the way news is dealt with means that those of us who are linguistically challenged now get a say. In the instantaneous back and forth that is the blogosphere, the logic of the argument, not the eloquence with which it is presented has become most important. While at one time the documents that Dan Rather has become infamous for presenting as facts would have passed through unquestioned by the majority of the country, they can now be logically ripped apart, perhaps ineloquently, by a few people for the whole world to see.
“…the bloggers, in all their variety, with all their different skills and abilities and interests and biases, are reshaping the world in which professional journalists operate just as much as the telephone shook up the profession in the first half of the 20th Century.” technology analyst Bill Thompson BBC News
Journalists are correct to point out that bloggers for the most part aren’t digging up news. I have to say I know a few journalists who “dig up news” by sitting at their desks waiting for press releases from interests groups or other “sources”. Maybe one day there will be a significant group of bloggers who do go out and dig up news, who knows, the fact is that no one believes newspapers are going away entirely. But their standing as objective and intellectual superiors who digest and disseminate “The News” for us to consume is over. They always pointed to their editorial process as proof that the information they pass on has been pre vetted for our convenience. Of course this all happens within the monolithic political culture of the newsroom. But their refrain of, “we have editors” while having always rung a little hollow, is now irrelevant.
Free Speech 2.0 means there is a new editor in town…Average Joe, Editor At Large.
