The Archbishop of Canterbury, Dr Rowan Williams, has criticised the new web-based media for “paranoid fantasy, self-indulgent nonsense and dangerous bigotry”. He described the atmosphere on the world wide web as a free-for-all that was “close to that of unpoliced conversation”.

He must have been reading my blog.:^)

I have no problem with unpoliced conversation - if can be or often is self-policing. That is harder than it sounds. A great deal depends on the tempermant of the site owner or blogger and their expectations for their readers. It’s another critical step in social and communication skills that benefit participants.

…Dr Williams wondered whether a balance could be struck between the professionalism of the classical media and the relative disorder of online communication.

Balance is good. Thing is the web is disorderly and messy, just like life. All the extremes are online. Itis up to the editorial staff and the individual to keep a check on their pride for the good of the whole.

Dr. Rowan adressed journalists.

He attacked the “high levels of adversarial and suspicious probing” that send the clear message that any kind of concealment means “guilty until proved innocent”, and he challenged journalists and broadcasters to attempt to regain lost public confidence.

He is correct. It’s not news, it’s gossip and it sells. Did you get tired of Micheal Jackson coverage? Even the CBC preempted on Newsworld for a dreary overhead shot of cars and obscure talking heads.

Dr Williams said that the way news is packaged inhibits the public from becoming engaged with issues and understanding them.

Yes. Media congomerates are less interested in engaging people with issues then cranking out the copy being short-staffed.
Blogs can and do fill that void. Not always well, but they can.

He conceded that journalism has its own pressures that help to determine the way stories emerge and added: “Journalistic communication is bound to a market model, whose ambiguities we have looked at; it is not going to change overnight by moral exhortation.” But he still called for a reassessment of news values. He said: “There are undoubtedly facts which would be of huge interest to a certain sort of public, but are not by any stretch of the imagination matters of public interest in the sense that not knowing them creates or prolongs a seriously unjust situation.”

Assessment will remain minimal. Advertising pays the bills and doesn’t care about unjust situations. Journalists that do, don’t get much space. British media has yellow journalistm honed to a science.

…He recommended a greater willingness to correct mistakes in order to offset “the deep cynicism that is generated by a marked habit of reluctance to apologise or explain”. Dr Williams said that it was important not to scapegoat the media

Like Terri Shaivo concerns reaching the white house, Rathergate and Newsweek being scapgoated by politicans? He is also correct that apology and explaination doesn’t sit well with the corporations caught in leading with what they perceive as strengths.

Blogs can continue to mature and proved reasoned counterpart to seeing apology as weakness. Litigious behaviour toward media breeds defensiveness.
His call is to humbleness, a wise and hard virtue.