Thursday, January 29, 2004

Bloggers vs. (?) Big Media

While I was perusing his blog for stuff about the Hutton report, I found this post that probably does a better job of expressing what I'm going to try to say here.

It seems a fact of life that (at least for the moment) despite the words posted on blogs decrying the sloppiness and the limits of 'Big Media', bloggers are utterly dependent on it for information. Yes, the analysis provided by the professional journalists is often biased or just plain silly ( yes, Reuters, I'm pointing a finger at you!). And yep, sometimes their asses desperately need fact checking. But for all the buzz about the blogosphere being the 'better' way, we still depend on the major news organizations for the raw material. With rare execption, the basic reporting is done by the news organizations and their people in the field. Bloggers analyze and criticize the results, but the means by which the raw information hasn't changed much. As access to the internet becomes easier to get everywhere in the world, it is conceivable that reporting will become an activity pursued by one and all, since anywone will have the ability to post what they see/know in the window for the whole world to see. My question is, will the signal to noise ratio be better or worse?

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