Thursday, December 08, 2005
Journalists to the rescue!
I just came across this quote, which is directly relevant to my post the other day about the us/them dynamic between media orgs and readers/users:
"It is the first amendment that protects our society from being ill-informed, not the people who work for our culture's institutional media corporations."
--Terry Heaton, the POMO blog
Ha!
Take that.
Seriously, though - I believe that journalists provide value. They provide access to information, and the good ones provide information that's accurate and fairly presented; the best ones not only provide fair and accurate information, but also they do so in a way that's compelling (style and substance don't always have to be at odds). I just don't believe journalists are a special class of citizen who know what's best for everyone else -- "the poor public, we must keep them from being ill-informed." I have this image of Edward Murrow in a superhero cape, smiting bloggers...
"It is the first amendment that protects our society from being ill-informed, not the people who work for our culture's institutional media corporations."
--Terry Heaton, the POMO blog
Ha!
Take that.
Seriously, though - I believe that journalists provide value. They provide access to information, and the good ones provide information that's accurate and fairly presented; the best ones not only provide fair and accurate information, but also they do so in a way that's compelling (style and substance don't always have to be at odds). I just don't believe journalists are a special class of citizen who know what's best for everyone else -- "the poor public, we must keep them from being ill-informed." I have this image of Edward Murrow in a superhero cape, smiting bloggers...
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Ha! I want to see George Clooney play Murrow (as a blogger-smiting super-hero, of course) in his next movie.
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