Does anybody read these?

For my professional colleagues...

(Not that they read this blog, but anyhow...)

It's been a long time since "Dewey Defeats Truman," which was such a rare case we all studied it in school (both in Journalism and in PoliSci for me). And let's face it, 60 years ago news was a little different. It wasn't 24-hour, around-the-clock coverage. It took people days to find things out, if they ever found out at all.

Now we have CNN, MSNBC, (unfortunately) Fox News and countless print and online places where folks can get news as it happens. Newspapers even update their front pages online if something happens after it goes to press.

And since this real-time news started, it's created even more competition in the media industry. Media are driven by advertising. The more ads you sell the more pages you get, the more reporters you can hire, the more cameras you can have or the more hours you are on the air. And it gets more expensive everyday. So the stations that are pereived to be better are the ones with more "breaking news," and they get more ads. And more and more, the media are screwing things up in the race to be first. Sometimes they apologize, sometimes they don't.

I should know this. I see it all the time, probably more so than the average casual observer. I'm a little pissed that I let myself believe -- even for a second -- that the miners might be alive. And that's sad.

I am not going to analyze this anymore, because I think this article did a very good job for me. Just one more black eye for a profession of which I am normally very proud to be a part.

posted by Laura at 11:09 AM