the role of media
I am working from home today, and since I knew McCain would be announcing his VP this morning I left the TV on in the background while I read through my e-mail.
30-60 minutes before McCain's speech was set to happen MSNBC was talking about the "short list" they were aware of, and how they could confirm Romney and Pawlenty were NOT those that were chosen based on them still being at home. That meant they had four people left on their list, down from the original six. As one of the largest news organizations in our country, you would think they would have done indepth research on all six of these individuals.
After this, Joe Scarborough said that one of the other news networks had a confirmed source saying that Sarah Palin was the choice. However, they'd been so misled on the decision that they would not confirm it until it was corroborated by one of their sources that was a different person. After they said this he tried to get some graphics of her put up, and MSNBC had NOTHING handy. One of the "experts" on his show from Denver pulled up a picture of her on his BlackBerry and handed it to Scarborough to hold up to the camera.
A funny side note, while the camera was zoomed in on the phone, a phone call came in so some guy's name and phone number was broadcast nationwide. I wonder how many calls he got?
Anyway, I took a break from email and decided I'd google for her to read more. I took a few minutes to read a few links, first of which was her Wikipedia page here; http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sarah_Palin. Over the next few minutes they talked about various other things I didn't really pay attention to until they came on to confirm that they had talked to their source and Sarah Palin was to be the VP candidate. By this point their crew had some photos of her to put up, but what happened next was really interesting. They basically read through a fact sheet that read in the exact same order and facts as her Wikipedia page. Then as they went around to their experts locally and remote, one of the Washington Post reporters they had on admitted she only knew about Palin from Wikipedia. I poked around a bit more myself on the Internet and realized that all the images they had been using were all found in seconds on Google Image Search, including the one that had been shown on the Blackberry.
In fact, EVERY SINGLE FACT stated about Sarah Palin prior to McCain's speech were things I had read in a manner of minutes in a more concise and clear format with more background than this news network was giving me. All they had added was interpretation of the information (of course none of that was consistent since it was coming from both parties), and the fact that it had been her. Basically MSNBC served no purpose beyond what I could have read in an RSS feed in a single sentence, requiring even less of my focus. In fact, within minutes Wikipedia had been updated stating that she was the presumptive nominee. Go open your World Book Encyclopedia at the Library, I'd be shocked if her name was even in it.
At this point MSNBC were a complete and utter waste of space. Has the Internet ultimately replaced much of the media? In minutes after the speech I had looked at liberal and conservative blogs all posting almost the exact same ideas and thoughts that the MSNBC pundits had been spewing. The Internet let me filter through it, decide what to read, skim, and get more sources. They even offered MORE views and elboration on their thoughts since they weren't talking over each other or being interrupted for time constraints or TV ads. In all reality, if I had found a live feed of McCain's speech on the web somewhere (which I'm sure existed, I just didn't look) the television would have been a LESS USEFUL method of media distribution.
The print newspaper is already in drastic decline due to the Internet, I would be willing to predict that the trend will continue there and in other formats. Newspapers, Magazines, TV News, it will all die in its current form in my generation. It's interesting to see though, as the content becomes the demand, not the distributor, how do we employ the people to get the facts and do the research? Who pays them? This is the new business that has revolutionized the web, and "old world" industries like the music industry are still struggling to keep up. What will the media do?
In fact, beyond the media, I would wager that TV as a whole will change as well. As soon as we make dynamic content in print ubiquitous, that same content distribution will extend to video. You won't sit down at 7:00 on Thursdays to watch Friends. The DVR and VOD have already stopped that. Soon enough they won't even bother setting a time to broadcast it at all. The only shift in business here is advertising. With time shift broadcasting, even less people will watch the ads. How do you make money to produce the show? Will we literally pay for each episode of things? I have to believe that would kill television. HBO is easy, they just change nothing. So maybe we steal their model and pay per channel or group of channels everywhere. The only thing that breaks this model is the FCC.. let's hope the government doesn't restrict technology advancement in broadcast as they do in telephony. The Internet has surpassed them all and the FCC is smart enough to stay the hell out of it.
I think the scariest thing about all of this is that the center of ALL of this distribution of media are IP networks. I work in engineering for one of the largest one of these on Earth. I sure hope I don't screw it up! More important is the fact that I understand the underlying technology, it's reliability, and the fact that I'm not quite sure the industry is ready to support the expectations and demands of cable TV in its entirety. I have absolutely no doubt we'll get there though, which makes this an exciting time to be in my industry.
I know there are at least 10 or so people that read this blog that try to be "green" in some aspect of what they do, and I know they all own some amount of computers. Have you all stopped killing trees and started reading news online? The Amazon Kindle does RSS, you don't even have to be on a traditional computer. Have you canceled all your magazine subscriptions and read online? Have you stopped reading print books and bought an E-Book Reader? The technology is here, the only things I see stopping you are price or your inability to change. Sometimes you have to change to make a difference, and I know all of you have money to spend on want (read; not need) items, so just divert some of it here if you're serious about being "green".
Have you cancelled your magazine subscriptions and read online?
No! But I drive an SUV and don't claim to be very green. I canceled one last week, but not all.
I try to be green. I haven't given up all magazines, but I do get my news solely from the computer and NPR. Also, living in Davis, I'd be an outcast and stoned if I weren't slightly granola.
'Green' is the new 'Web 2.0'.
The only difference is, more people know what it is ;-).
Man, I was trying to talk about digital media, not being green.. that part was a tacked on afterthought. This is why I'm not a journalist.
I have been trying to be green but my steam powered car that runs on trees and baby seals makes it kinda hard. Not to mention the 55 galllon drums of oil I have strapped to the sides that just randomly sling oil on parts of the engine and ground and badgers.
damn badgers.
Baby seals? Chris is off my Christmas card list!