Lamenting the news media

The news media is dead.
The internet is the smoking gun, and the people are the bullets. Watching the nightly news used to involve talking heads who we believed in and trusted. The anchors were bringing us news from around the world, straight to that magical television set, information we couldn’t get anywhere else, and they did it with class and style. For a good part of the last century, news was revolutionary, CNN’s 24 hour channel was mindblowing and new. Today, it’s nowhere near interesting anymore.

A microphone! as seen on TV!
Today’s anchors are pitiful renditions of the giants that came before them. Carefully planned out formulas dictate what to cover when, they lure the viewer into watching just enough for the ad spots to pay out. Coverage is relegated to the tragic, the shocking, and the superficial. The only lifeline that has kept the news media relevant is our implicit trust in the fact checking that we think happens, even when they fall short. The “political news” arena has done such a poor job, a healthy percentage of twenty and thirty-somethings get their news from a late night “fake news” satirist on Comedy Central.

The nail that seems to be pounding itself into the coffins that they’ve neatly arranged for themselves, is micro-blogging. In the shortest time span, services like Twitter and Facebook have convinced the anchors that rather than deliver the news, they should be delivering us our words back, but this time, on television! Maybe, just maybe, if I say something interesting enough on their Twitter or Facebook pages, Brian Williams will say my username and tweet on the big screen! Good night and good luck indeed.

Let’s check twitter to see what’s happening in the world
The landscape is changing fast, and old media isn’t adapting, they’re throwing it against the wall in hopes that a model for the new way will stick. While sad, it is very exciting, a revolution is upon us. A democracy to the news and delivery of information is a big gap that needs filling, the internet and technology have been laying the groundwork for making that a reality. A shining example of this was the Iranian elections, a flood of information coming through the twitterverse about an actual news event, and CNN and others are covering granny having to buy a converter box for her old set!

All good things, must come to an end. Today there are 1,001 entrepreneurs building the revolution that will one day, replace for good how we consume our current events. It probably won’t happen tomorrow, but it will happen. Just as the music and movie industry and the newspaper in a coma on life support, they don’t look the same, and they never will again.

¡VIVA LA REVOLUCION!