Media Is Changing. Get used To It!

The National Conference on Media Reform is presently underway in Minneapolis, MN. If you are fortunate enough to attend you will encounter an inspiring array of media professionals, critics, activists, and others who recognize both the threat and the potential of the modern media infrastructure. If you cannot attend, stay informed by visiting the Conference website.

The mission of the Conference, and its sponsor FreePress, is to build a movement to recreate media as an institution that serves the interests of the people, not the powerful. Such a movement will generate some blowback, as evidenced by Howard Rosenberg’s column in today’s Los Angeles Times. Rosenberg’s article inadvertantly exposes the tender underbelly of his generation’s dismay toward the transforming media landscape. Tucked into a piece that is, on the surface, a critique of Keith Olbermann’s Countdown, it is really an unveiling of the fears of a passing era of journalism.

Rosenberg starts by characterizing the Olbermann model, which he calls a “snide act,” as consisting primarily of smug histrionics, relentless needling, and shameless self-puffery. He also lays into Bill O’Reilly, but contends that the difference between them, in terms of the threat they pose to journalism, is that there will only ever be one Bill O’Reilly, while another Olbermann can be reproduced by anyone with a fairish sense of humor. [Note to Rosenberg: If you think O’Reilly is unique, you might want to do some further study on the subject paying particular attention to Sean Hannity, Glenn Beck, Rush Limbaugh, Laura Ingraham, Michael Savage, Ann Coulter, Hugh Hewitt, etc.] But the real message in Rosenberg’s column is summed up in a single paragraph that is dripping with the lament of one who senses that his time is past.

“Is this to be the standard during this period of media transition? What do we have, a few years at best, maybe 10 before news goes all Internet all the time and moves to fingernail-sized screens that we read with a magnifying glass? Technology-driven change is transforming news media, and news consumers, at warp speed. How many years before newspapers like this one are available in present form only as antiquities, like the illuminated manuscripts on display under glass at the Getty Center?”

Yes, Rosenberg is afraid that the Internet will soon make obsolete the media environment in which he has grown so comfortable. He is suspicious of a transformation that is moving too fast for his liking. He fears that he and his kind will be relegated to the musty corridors of museums. And he even shudders at the notion of a news platform that strains his aging and failing eyesight.

Get used to it, Mr. Rosenberg. Media is changing. Those with influence in the past will find their power waning. New generations of news makers and consumers will define the next phase of journalism. There will be bumps in the road but, if we’re smart and strong, it will result in more honest, more diverse, and more democratic reporting. It will expand perspective and access. And it will diminish the role of giant, nation-less, corporate enterprises, more beholden to profit and their benefactors in government, than they are to their readers, listeners, viewers, and the public good.

Media reform is essential to the progress of every other social movement. No matter what issue ranks highest for you personally, you will need an ability to educate and inform the world as to your goals. Consequently, if you hope to be successful, you must devote at least part of your time to shaping the media into a useful, unbiased, and accessible tool for change.

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6 thoughts on “Media Is Changing. Get used To It!

  1. I’m a fan of olbermann and his protege, rachel maddow. Both — in spite of what mr rosenberg might say — are brilliant in their analysis of the news. both have an extraordinary command of history, and both are articulate. (Watch maddow best pat buchanan or joe scarborough in debate! Eugene Robinson and Harold Ford aren’t too shabby either.)

    i would like mr rosenberg to address those substantive issues, maybe by sitting on camera with one or the other, and debating the news events of the day.

    notice too that mr Rosenberg does not critique the substantive part of olbermann’s performance.

    olbermann’s histrionics are, yes, over the top, but get beyond that and listen to the news analysis.

    • Rachel is truly brilliant.

      Rosenberg also slammed Countdown as being an “echo chamber.” To some extent that’s true, but that’s what I like about the show. It doesn’t try to emulate the (failed) Crossfire model with pundits shouting at each other. It is more deliberative and analytical, albeit mostly from one ideological perspective. There’s nothing wrong with having one program like that amongst all the other headache producers.

  2. I pasted below a link to an interview — on IWT-Real News — of Lawrence Wilkerson, Colin Powell’s chief of staff, where Wilkerson lays out boldly the bad policies — and “lies” of his former bosses — and proposes what needs to be done.

    (Mark, IWT-Real News, the source, is an outfit on a shoe string, but with real promise as an example of the internet-based investigative journalism that rosenberg evidently decries. This movement reminds me of the muck-raking movement of turn-of-the-century 1900s-1910s, and in some ways is still flourishing. The new republic and the nation are two survivors, although the NR has changed dramatically

    Interestingly, Wilkerson does not favor Obama over McCain, in other words attributing to McCain the possibility of — under a mccain admin — of America “correcting” its flawed, “pre-emptive” geo-political strategies. Personally, I have doubts that McCain’s approach will mark a major departure from Bush’s failed ones.

    (Aside: I am waiting with anticipation to see whether Colin Powell is added to President Obama’s cabinet.)

    IWT-Real News Lawrence Wilkerson interview

    Iranian influence is a fact, negotiations a must

    Powell’s former Chief of Staff, Lawrence Wilkerson: War with Iran would reinforce strategic failure in Gulf (2/3)

    “For 26-years we recognized, funded, fueled and helped Iran be the hegemon of the Persian Gulf when it was under the Shah. Demographically, militarily, every way you want to measure hegemony Iran is the dominant power in the Persian Gulf. Reality says that therefore we have to come to recognize that, we have to deal with that and hope we can shape that to a responsible role, ultimately, in the world. The only way you do that is through diplomacy, you don’t do that by attacking Tehran or by bombing facilities”.

    Bio:

    Wilkerson is a retired United States Army soldier and former chief of staff to United States Secretary of State Colin Powell. Wilkerson is an adjunct professor at the College of William & Mary where he teaches courses on US national security. He also instructs a senior seminar in the Honors Department at the George Washington University entitled “National Security Decision Making.”

  3. Raymond McInnis emailed this comment to me. I thought it would be useful to other readers:

    Mark, I notice that newsbusters picked up on the Rosenberg critique of Olbermann.

    Do you know noel Sheppard? While I follow newbusters, am wary of getting involved. Too much of the paranoid style that anne marie cox reminds us of today.

    • Newsbusters was created to be a right-wing MediaMatters. The problem is that they do not back up their stories with video or other factual documentation. It is pure opinion. You’ll notice that the story you linked is full of quotes from Rosenberg’s article but leaves out anything critical of O’Reilly like, “temperamental bully, Bill O’Reilly” and “Bill-O (as Olbermann calls him) is so very mock-worthy.” Nor do they point out that Rosenberg, “dislike[s] the president and his policies as much as Olbermann does.”

  4. Newsbusters, as I’ve mentioned before, is blocking my IP address. My sin? Speaking liberal-ese outside their narrow comfort zone. But with a simple sleight of hand I’m able to bypass the block giving me the absolute ‘thrill’ of reading their spin on Rosenberg’s piece.

    This caught my (actually, a lot caught my eye but I only want to write so much). Newsbusters quotes Rosenberg, in part, saying: “‘Countdown’ is more or less an echo chamber in which Olbermann and like-minded bobbleheads nod at each other.”

    To which Newsbusters soon nods in agreement:

    “… more and more people in the media are beginning to not only recognize the lack of real journalism emanating from MSNBC, but are also willing to voice such pinions.”

    Really now, they’re one to say!

    Mark, as you correctly point out Newsbusters filters out all the criticism of the right to fit their spin – no, this is raw propaganda. Newsbusters’ ‘article’ is followed by a symphony of like-minded conservatives doing high-fives in the comments. Naturally, annoying liberals like myself are prevented from commenting.

    There’s hypocrisy then there’s Hyprocrisy with a capital H. Newsbusters has graduated to the upper echelon of Hypocrits.

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