Enlightening but not terribly reassuring: The media isn't liberal... it's lazy!

"The press has bravely and nobly eroded the public trust. What I'm advocating is the media come back and work for us again... the bias of the media is not liberal. It's lazy and sensationalist." Jon Stewart

That certainly sums up the state of our local (Hudson County) media. The Hoboken Reporter and Jersey Journal have reported local scandal after local scandal over the past couple of years. Problem is - these stories come out only AFTER the culprits are on their way to jail. Not one of these dozens of stories, from Janizlewski to Barry to McGreevey to Russo, was broken by the local papers. Not one single article led to an investigation or an arrest. Not a single, solitary one.

Although this problem is sorely evident locally, the mainstream media as a whole has long needed a kick in the ass and bloggers, finally, are giving it to them. And wow are they hating it, but the survivors will adapt and live with it, and Mr. Snitch thinks we'll all be better off.

We're looking at a recent New York Sun review of the media-bashing site Little Green Footballs. (This was pointed out to us by Steve Silver's site.) LGF has become wildly popular in a very short time - or at least, it sure gets 'hits' (which might not be the same thing after all). It's hard for us to disagree with LGF's owner/writer Charles Johnson when he says something (defending Bush's policies) like: ""When you see that 19 guys can take jetliners and wipe out two of the biggest symbols in America, it would be fatal to be passive. If we let it go, one of those groups is going to have a nuclear weapon." And give the guy credit for detective work on the Rather thing, which was a service to the whole country! He's the one who broke the story - the media basically missed the whole deal. (In the article, he misspeaks comparing 'Rathergate' to Watergate, implying that they were NOT both attempts to influence an election. Silver calls him out on this.)

A good observation by the Sun's writer: "He relies heavily on the very journalists he castigates, without whose reports he would have little to comment on or criticize." Very true, and rarely mentioned by bloggers who are piling on the mainstream media. The piling on is understandable, however, and largely due to widespread public frustration over its powerlessness to confront the media as needed over the years. Conventional wisdom says, 'Don't pick a fight with someone who buys ink by the barrel.' For bloggers, the ink now is free. Take as much as you like.

We (the unwashed masses, in whose number Mr. Snitch counts himself) still need paid mainstream media hacks - uh, journalists. What we DON'T need of course is to let them have the final word on what's real. Much of what we see in the media is the result of the media's self-interest and inbreeding. At last we have the tools to correct that, or at least let them know there's a price to be paid for their self-indulgence.

Categories: Media, Blogging