I didn’t mean to laugh.  I really didn’t.

LaShawn Barber didn’t have time for her blog - she is busy trying to make a living as a writer. So, she came up with a blog ‘class project’ in classic new media style. She gave her readers the executive summary of The State of the News Media 2006, by The Project of Excellence in Journalism.

Excellent idea.
She laid out the parameters for her readers to ‘blog’ in the comments section. 
Her rules are clear.

1. Read the report or the summary of the report. 
2. Share your thoughts.
3. If you haven’t read it, no commenting.
4. 700 word limit on op-eds.
5. Send your op-ed  to a real newspaper.

The glaring thing one notices is this: want-to-be writers don’t separate fact and opinion. The fun begins.
I don’t know anything about the readers, age, location, education level, occupation…which in it’s own way makes these rather endearing.
If one can’t summarize and  know how to separate fact from opinion, one can’t form a potentially publishable piece. One person was quite innovative and called one of the contributors to the report. He took the time to speak to her.

I just got off the phone with Dante Chinni, he wrote two of the chapters in the Annual Report on American Journalism. The receptionist asked where I was from. I told her La Shawn Barber gave her readers home work. She asked: “are you a… blogger!” Yes, I said. After keeping me on hold for a while… Dante answered…hello. Immediately He said: “I know you bloggers hate us”. I said I don’t hate you.

I offer these without edit, spelling, punctuation, grammar, form, and  content and fact check.

Dante, if you are reading La Shawn’s blog please know not all bloggers hate you or your organization. We just want the unbiased reporting. Your answers on the phone to me about the Annual Report on American Journalism were bogus. And as for “beet” reporting you mentioned, how does that relate to my question I asked you.

Yeah, that beet reporting is a killer.

Profits will determine if ideology trumps truth. For the NY Times, their profits have not sunk low enough for them to pursue truth over ideology. Only when sales slump below profits will this happen. I am not holding my breath.

Good for you.

Reporters are bloggers and radio commentators, TV journalists write editorials, bloggers become commentators. Glenn Reynolds, a law professor at a southern university, is well known to the blog reading community and his books about the blogging phenomena have reached a greater audience than they otherwise would have thanks to his prominence in the new media.

Arranging the deck chairs on the Titanic. Interesting metaphor.

The state-of-the-media report comes off like so much Titanic deck chair rearranging. We are in a major cultural shift regarding media.

While it’s still nice to sit down to a newspaper and a cup of coffee, there is the effort of filtering through the overwhelming bias stemming from the journalism establishment’s worldview.

Concise.

No longer are journalists the gatekeepers of our news, determining what we need to know.

Firm.

…Journalist no longer have exclusively title to the press. But, they know that. Crying won’t help.
…How dare they talk about values when they lead “Crusades”. Read: “Journalistic Fraud: How the New York Times Distorts the News & Why it Can No Longer be Trusted”

Curious.

However, I have to ask, as a conservative (read independent), why are not the the political leanings of each entity involved with the annual report not listed, i.e., left or right or middle?
….It is my belief and opinion, that in our lexicon, the structure and use of words in whatever media, can influence readers. Therefore, it is important to know the “who” of a media piece so we can remove the meat from the push of a writer’s leanings
…As to “power moving in the dark”, that is part of what having power is all about for those who have it, want it and finally acquire it: keeping the citizens in the dark has always been the goal. I don’t like it,…

Independent.

Why did the old media ever presume to be our “gatekeepers”? People resent being “kept” within any ideological plantation, especially by the overwhelmingly biased liberal media.

Scorn.

Bah! Humbug!

I believe that newspapers will be around for a very long time, but the news people of today will have gone the way of the dodo.

Yeah, those dodos are really extinct.
Er, historical.

The news industry was made up largely of liberals who mourned the loss of the (perceived) Bobby Kennedy Camelot, Part II. They hated J. Edgar Hoover and assumed that he and Nixon had made a devil’s pact to eliminate Martin Luther King. They hated the war in Vietnam (while never assigning John Kennedy’s role in getting us into it up to our chins) and hated Nixon’s determination to win it even more.

That year changed American journalism from reporting “who, what, where, why, when and how” to thinly veiled editorial, biased reporting. The news people foisted their opinions of good and bad on the public. Anyone can review the media tone of the 60’s and see that this is so.

Scorn.

The common man’s wimpy position of writing letters to the esteemed editor has been replaced by genuine smart guys who catch the news media in their “reindeer games” and blog about it.

All of a sudden, this new force from out of the blogoshere is “glib, even naive.” Well, Mr. Smart Newsguy, you can think.

Take that Newsguy!

The MSM (main stream media) has had a free ride for a long time. Now they are going to have to go back to work to earn not only respect, but a living.

CBS is about to pay Katie Couric some huge bucks to lip-sync the news. Who gives a flying rat’s patoot? That formula is strictly museum stuff.

Lip synching news. The news in singing. Hmmm.

So long as the MSM remains primarily agenda driven, the blogs will be ever vigilant and ready to tie their shoelaces together. That is neither “glib”, nor “naive.”

What is “glib” and “naive” is the thought that bluster and being the “man behind the curtain” can scare poor Toto away.

I hope Toto doesn’t get strangled by those shoe laces.

Jim Jones and Kool-Aid is nothing now. Nothing shocks anymore. Yawn.

P.S. Does anyone still drink Kool-Aid? I actually had a refreshing glass of Hi-C the other day! Strange.

Good for you, keeping well hydrated is healthy and helps with the hard work of writing.

So, where would you prefer to get your news?:^)