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Net: Now Our Most Serious News Medium?
from the the-shooting-war-begins dept.
Even heads of state get the significance of the Net these days. So-called "serious" journalists had been dumping every imaginable rumor - that the State Department had blown up, that crop-dusting planes were about to shower us with anthrax live on the air without any filtering or substantiation. It seemed to me that, unlike any previous big story, the Net had become the place where people were going for more accurate information -- including all kinds of content unavailable in most traditional media.
Who would ever have thought that George W. Bush would do his primary fund-raising appeal before Congress and the public by announcing a url: libertyunite.org? Or that British Prime Minister Tony Blair would publish the evidence against Osama Bin-Laden on a government Web site? Bush's advisers grasped the fund-raising potential of the Net, and Blair realized it is a new way to reach the world, including remote, even hostile corners.
The Net was not only the source of heavy traffic to conventional news sites like Cnn.com, Usatoday.com or the Washington Post/New York Times sites. Literally thousands of new sites sprouted information -- there are way too many to list here -- offering information on the tragedy itself and its survivors, working for disaster relief, presenting discussions about the Taliban and Afghanistan, Islam, Arab resentment against the United States.These news sites were a source of clarity and accuracy for many millions of people, puzzled or frightened by alarmist reports on TV and elsewhere. People posted video online from the disaster site, and broke important news online of the plane attacks, the building's collapse, and the rescue. It were these accounts that reported for the first time that planes had had hit the tower, that the towers had fallen, that there there were likely to be few survivors in the rubble. Two sites I saw were devoted to airline passengers stranded in hotel rooms all over the country seeking information on alternative forms of travel. And it was on the Net, on the Onion's terrific site that the first witty, tasteful and necessary media and political spoofs of the response to the tragedy were pulled off.
Many more sites devoted themselves to personal testimony: from people who saw the disaster, who were sending e-mail news dispatches to friends, who sought to clarify rumors or post accounts, who needed to discuss how they felt about the new "war."
Transcripts of 911 calls from the World Trade Center are posted online, as are the transcripts of reports by Islamic and Arab TV news organizations. This new kind of personal reporting offers an invaluable archive of a global tragedy. In the understandable patriotic frenzy that followed the attacks, it was on the Net that dissenters, peace activists and privacy advocates first surfaced, not the mainstream media. The Net has thus become a bulwark against the one dimensional view of events and the world that characterize Big Media. All points of view appeared, and instantly.
This kind of in-depth discussion and information was rarely available in conventional media -- on CNN and other sites, activists in Arab nations directly debated and talked with Americans, for example, something never before possible in media, which has neither the air time, space, resources, or inclination. Newspapers publish much too infrequently to compete seriously for long on a breaking story like this, with either TV or the Net. (An exception: localized cases like New York or Washington, where coverage in daily papers, particularly the New York Times and The Washington Post, was important and thorough).
Big media, already fragmenting, appears to be dividing this way:
- Commercial TV is a medium of images and entertainment. Nobody, certainly not the Net at this point, can compete with TV's ability to present powerful imagery live, from the plane attacks to speeches before Congress to Ground Zero to the aftermath to global reaction and soon, military conflict. In fact, TV arguably transmits powerful images too often and for too long, creating an emotional, almost hysterical climate around big stories even when there?s no news to report.
- Cable TV is the medium of political argument and confrontation. Channels like Fox, CNN and MSNBC are institutional media, the place where politicians and lobbyists gather to press their viewpoints, talk indirectly with other leaders elsewhere, share insider information and float options and ideas. These media are striking in their overwhelming tilt towards officials, bureaucrats, lobbyists, politicians and academics. You can watch them for days and not hear from average people, beyond the silly handful of calls or e-mails they occasionally cite.
- The Net offers not only breaking news -- mainstream media companies all have sophisticated websites -- but is the medium of individual expression and additional, more in depth information. Instant message systems played a crucial role in transmitting information, both accurate and false, especially in and near the disaster sites. IM will almost surely become a dominant and significant information source in the future, especially as it moves beyond college campuses and networked companies.
But for all the mainstream media phobias about the dangerous or irresponsible Net, it's seemed increasingly clear in the weeks since the attacks that the Net has become our most serious medium, the only one that offers information consumers breaking news and discussions, alternative points of view. Sadly, the Net seems to be the favored medium of the terrorists who planned the attacks as well. (Countless sites sprung up to detail what Islam is really about, and how diverse opinions in the Arab world are at play in this disaster).
It's the medium of personal expression -- people e-mailed friends and relatives to tell them they were okay, to get relief information, to volunteer time and money. And, of course, unlike conventional media, which still give ordinary citizens little or no opportunity to participate, the Net is architecturally and viscerally interactive. Feedback and individual opinion are not ghettoized in op-ed pages or in a handful of "we-want-to-hear-from-you" (no, they don't) phone calls, but are an integral part of Net information dispersal, it's core.
The Net has had its ups and downs in recent months. It's still beset by intrusive regulators, eager law enforcement officials and greedy dot.com entrepreneurs and corporate interests who want its profits but not its values. It's still going through a shaky phase economically. But the WTC attacks remind us of the extraordinary openness, open distribution of information and sense of community-building that are the heart of the wired world's promise.
The net was used on Sept 11... (Score:4, Interesting)
Re:The net was used on Sept 11... (Score:5, Insightful)
People may believe its 'trusted', but that doesn't change the simple fact that TV News is BIG BIG business, and totally controlled
Big business Valid stories (Score:5, Interesting)
National TV showed virtually NO pictures of the "celebrations" in Gaza, West Bank, and other locations. And since there were no pictures, they didn't discuss WHY videos had been supressed. (Or why they're being surpressed again by the Palestinian Authority)
Consider this: How many times have you watched TV coverage of a subject you know and understand and you find yourself thinking "they're getting it wrong, that's false, they're missing it,..."?
Now think about their coverage of things you know little to nothing about.
Mass Market TV exists to sell airtime to advertisers based on estimates of the number viewers and their demographics. The news departments are under great pressure to attract viewers and their coverage reflects this. (Even small things like leaving the weather until almost the end of the 10:00 or 11:00 PM news shows.)
IF you are prepared to do your own digging and think about what you read, the Net is FAR superior to TV news. Especially for stories that require some background, require thinking about details, or lack captivating images.
Milk is NOT better for 70% of the world... (Score:5, Interesting)
Milk is not better for you than Coke, because, from an evolutionary standpoint, mammals have internal mechanisms that prevent them from properly digesting lactose after they are a certain age. It's a natural weaning process. This is discussed in most evolution/natural science college classes. The reason 30% of our population is able to digest milk is that that percentage of the population had ancestors in northern Europe who were goat herders -- those ancestors needed to be able to digest milk at any time. Yes, almost all of the people who are able to digest lots of milk at any age are white and originally from Europe.
The milk commercials, however, neglect to tell people this, and instead label the vast majority of our population "lactose intolerant", like it's some kind of disease or something. (They even sell a "cure" in the form of Lactaid and other pills!) Americans/Europeans also don't often realize that sending milk in CARE packages to other countries makes people sick more often than not.
I know this is a little offtopic, but it's an important fact that most people don't realize, and the brainwashing of those damned milk commercials doesn't help. I would also like to state that I agree with the poster's main point. The commercials for milk even prove it: TV sells you what you want to hear and not necessarily what is the truth.
Re:The net was used on Sept 11... (Score:5, Insightful)
Personally, I dont think I've ever seen a TV newscast (or general newspaper article) about anything where I have knowledge about the subject where they get it right. I suspect the same is true about the subjects where I do not have knowledge, which means they likely dont get anything right. At best there is massive omissions, at worst there are huge amounts of factual errors.
Apart from that most mainstream media is rather biased (of course, if we get our news only from the mainstream media we dont realize this and we start believing that they are reporting the truth the whole truth and nothing but the truth, which is the whole idea behind propaganda). Bias means it isnt reliable or trustworthy, since you get only the parts of the story that promote the media interests point of view.
Streamlining ala cnn, ap, reuters is also bad, since the mainstream media is just spewing the same thing (usually with the same wording!) a large number of times. Biased unreliable news with factual errors repeated on many channels many times makes it _appear_ more true, but it doesnt make it more true.
The net has one large advantage. You can find many different viewpoints, all of which may range from idiotic to completely kooky, but here at least you _know_ you are dealing with unreliable newssources and you can sift through them with that in mind.
TV appears to be more anchored in reality than the average slashdot comment. But that's what you get when you present put money and control behind the presentation. And the appearance is just appearance.
Re:The net was used on Sept 11... (Score:4, Insightful)
I remember Sept. 11th and when I heard Howard Stern on the radio announce the attacks, I immediately tried to go to several major news organizations' web site only to find them down almost all morning. The sites couldn't handle the traffic. CNN.com failed me. The radio kept me informed when the internet failed, and, unlike CNN, Howard Stern is not a journalist.
Not only that, if I was on the subway or bus, I wouldn't have even have had a chance to check the net, because it is very inaccessible. On the other hand, radio and TV waves are broadcast all over the air, accessible wherever you have a device to pick up the signal. And a walkman or a small portable TV is cheap. The argument for wireless internet may be brought up, but try to find a wireless provider in your area, an affordable phone to get that signal, and a speed decent enough to get info.
Also, the news content on most of the non-major news organizations web sites are unreliable, can be extremely biased and have no standards of excellence like news organizations at CBS, CNN, ABC, FOX, NBC, etc. I have seen some of the most conservative and liberal opinions ever on the net, truly hammering away at their agenda's under the pretext o news. I have even read some radical Islam papers on the net (very interesting).
Yeah it's easy to point and laugh at the "standards" of the big 5 networks, but they so have some journalistic integrity and the journalists do take their jobs seriously. It's the parent company's that are all about the $$, not the journalism departments.
The only good thing I can say about the net is the vast choice of news outlets available. Where other than the CIA HQ, major book store, or Christian Science Reading Room can you get such a variety of opinions and points of view. Just use judgment when reading and don't let the info be spoon-fed to you. Create your own opinions
What about ... (Score:5, Interesting)
Blair and the evidence (Score:4, Informative)
Email, not WWW news (Score:5, Interesting)
Ummm. No. (Score:5, Insightful)
Don't get me wrong, I love Slashdot, but as an example of the independent news the Net has to offer, one can't help but come to the conclusion that CNN and its TV-based family will continue to be the norm for a long, long time.
September 11th was a great example of this. When the fit really hit the shan, all the major news sites got slammed, failed, and people went back to watching CNN, MSNBC, or whatever.
Yes, there are plenty of inspirational stories of independent websites helping to feed the public's quest for more information, but these are in the minority. Joe Sixpack and his grandmother still relied on good ol' television to find out what happened.
Is the net a serious news source. Certainly not. Not yet anyway.
How the Net was won - revisionist history (Score:3, Insightful)
[disregarding the flashing banner from Planet Hard Drive - who will never get my business now
The reality is that we still depend on the radio for news in cars and when we wake up. We still look to TV for full coverage. We use the Net because we're not allowed to have the other two at work.
But we do use the Net to spread misinformation, rumors, and to get all paranoid. When we're not using call-in talk shows on the radio and TV. It looks more beleivable on the PC monitor than when we phone up and people can tell by our rushed voices that we're loonies.
There are always nutsos out there. Most of the time they're not dangerous, so long as you keep them away from sharp things.
A contrarian advantage (Score:3, Interesting)
If something is printed in the New York Times, or broadcast on CNN, it is much more likely to pass without critical evaluation than something that is posted on the web. "I saw it on the web" is almost a synonym for "it may be true; I want to get more data, cross check some facts." To my mind, that is a very valuable for new media in a free society, especially one that intends to stay free.
-- MarkusQ
Don't forget print media (Score:5, Insightful)
1. There's a level of fact-checking in print journalism that doesn't exist in any other news source. I'm not claiming that newspaper reporters never make mistakes, by any means, but I get the strong feeling that the information they provide is more accurate by an order of magnitude than anything that comes out of my TV, radio, or computer.
2. Generally, when we commit words to paper, we feel that they have more import than if we speak them or type them on a computer, and thus we are more careful about what we say. Newspaper articles in the wake of the 11 September attacks were much less overheated and emotional than reporting from any other source.
3. Similarly, reading something on paper is a fundamentally different experience from hearing it on the radio, watching it on TV, or reading it on screen. I can read and reread at my own pace, thinking carefully about the information I'm taking in, which I can't do with CNN. And newspapers hold my attention, unlike the Net where something different is only a mouse click away.
Don't get me wrong here -- I very much like the instant access to information I get on the Net, and I do get an increasing amount of my information there. But until both Net journalism and the experience of receiving it are up to print standards -- and they aren't, by a long shot -- the newspaper will remain my primary source for the information I use to shape my views on world events.
News sources in order of usefulness: (Score:4, Insightful)
2: Print - the best researched and most respected news is still carried out by folks like the WSJ, Washington Post, etc.
3: Radio - radio continues to feature in-depth reporting, although much more dumbed down than in print sources.
DEAD LAST: TV - the boob tube continues to be the news source for the illiterate, with the maximum amount of information transmitted to be contained in a two minute blurb. Everything Chomsky says about TV news is true. This is the gutter of information and news.
Most serious? (Score:3, Insightful)
Definitely most abundant. Net users at least have the opportunity to see multiple sides of every issue or event. It's a matter of diligence though--the lazy will be force fed a re-hash of the Big Five censored-and-ready-to-eat television "news"; but the curious and driven can become more enlightened as time goes on.
I am startled by not only the diversity of opinion--an endangered species in meatspace--but the growing animosity against the "other" side, much like what is going on in meatspace (try standing on a busy streetcorner with a sign that says "Make love, not war"). The willingness of Americans to waive their Civil Rights for a continued false feeling of security presents quite a danger to the diversity of the 'Net. Maybe the combination of general delusion and hostility will bring in the notion that minority points of view are terrorist expression and should be hastily punished in a most hostile fashion.
If this happens, the terrorists will rejoice in their victory.
Hold On A Minute... (Score:5, Insightful)
Ok, are we going to read the same thing after every US tragedy? Oklahoma City was the Internet's "proving ground," Columbine was the Internet's "proof of usefulness," Monica Lewinsky was evidence of the Internet's "advantages of traditional media." Every tragedy produces comments like this, but the Web is 10 years old now - the Internet became mainstream 4 or 5 years ago, at the latest. People know what the 'net offers, it doesn't take a disaster to "prove" it again.
Conventional journalists are still obsessed with hackers and pornographers; still fuss about whether the Net is safe or factual. But increasingly, they steer readers to their websites for more in-depth information and conversation.
Unfortunately, the mainstream news sites are almost all that remain. ABCNews.com and cnn.com are our most important sources of information online, but does that change anything? It leaves information in the hands of the monopolistic communications behemoths and gives them an excuse to provide less coverage through their traditional print and broadcast outlets.
"Freest and most diverse" my ass. Independent sites like The Industry Standard and Wired News (they need Jon there more than Slashdot, obviously) are being shut down or cut to the bone as funding and advertising dry up, leaving only the major media outlets to continue shoveling out the same crap they've always produced. Yahoo and the rest all rely on triple-filtered newswire trash like Reuters or Bloomberg news, which provide only the basest of information that seems to be typed up by robots.
The Internet had potential, but more and more we see the mass media outlets choking that off and turning it into just another way for the same old companies to reach people with the same information they've always provided.
Net reports were not better than TV & radio (Score:3, Interesting)
Second, the independent sites were not doing any better than TV in general. We make fun of TV for jumping the gun too quickly and reporting unconfirmed information, but the weblogs were much worse about this. Dave Winer started beating the war drum right away at scripting.com, putting up scare-tactic surverys like "Will America go to war?" within hours of the attacks. Metafilter.com ran a whole bunch of really dumb stories that never would have made it to TV, like the Nostradamus nonsense, and the headline about a small, unmarked plane circling Manhattan. Were they trying to get people to think it was another terrorist-controlled plane? In reality, it was a FEMA plane surveying the damage.
In general, the weblogs and independent web sites have been too quick to pat themselves on the back about September 11.
Emerging vs. Established (Score:5, Insightful)
Television is not and can never be truly interactive.
The net (email, web, IM, etc.) is primarily interactive. Even if you are primarily a consumer, your consumption statistics are fed back into the system. But that is just the lowest level, of course. Many people have personal home pages, many people can contribute to weblogs, discussion groups, usenet news, email lists, etc. and their contributions are archived, responded to, and have a real impact on the future direction of information exchange.
Although Katz does not state it explicitly, this interactivity is what distinguishes the net from the old forms of media, and is one of the really cool aspects of the information flow following Sept. 11th. Slashdot, for example, experienced record levels of comments for the several articles about the distaster that were posted - often well in excess of 1000 comments!!! That just isn't possible with any other media.
And because it is still an emerging media, yes - the signal to noise ratio isn't the greatest. But mechanisms are being developed and tested to improve this.
For truly interactive education, check out Oomind:
Credit where credit is due (Score:3, Informative)
Um, the news that the towers had fallen wasn't a first on the net. The TV stations had their cameras trained on the towers and broadcast it live for everyone to see. Same with the second plane hitting. Let's keep the credit where it's due, ok?
What the net did provide was eyewitness accounts and various viewpoints. It was a more personal kind of reporting, but it didn't "scoop" the news networks that much. Yes, the Internet did prove itself useful for disseminating that kind of information. The rest was merely recycled stuff from the majors.
Deja vu? (Score:5, Interesting)
We get it, Jon. The net is evolving to the next stage of media. Can we talk about something else?
Communications yes, news no. (Score:4, Interesting)
My main use for the Internet on September 11 was communications. I don't have a television or a radio in my office at work, so what I did was SSH into my tv-card-equipped machine at home and fire up XawTV and view screen grabs from ABC and CNN. I was on the CNN.com IRC server reading their closed-captioning server so I had a basically real time transcript to go with the pictures. I was also on EFNet talking to people. The Net allowed me to circumvent the physical barriers blocking my access to non-Net-based information, but I was still getting my news from traditional sources. Most Web-based news sites were terribly behind the curve; those that weren't were overloaded and unreachable.
As for reporting since September 11, the Net isn't that great. The only sites that are terribly informative are ones run by big media outlets. It's true that the Net allows you a much wider perspective, since you can get news from all over the world. But it's not the chaotic rumor mongering and pontification of most independent web sites which is interesting; it's the well researched and disciplined reporting that happens at major media organizations.
You argue that old media is monolithic and overly consolidated. But the Web allows you to get around that easily. It's not the independent news sites that allow this; it's the fact that every major news organization on the planet has a presence on the Web. Don't believe the New York Times? See what the South China Morning Post has to say instead.
The problem, Jon, is that you seem to believe that just because something is on the Net, it's automatically great. But most people who write on the Web aren't particularly skillful or talented or well informed; they're just people. You still need money and resources to gather news effectively. CNN and ABC News and whatnot may not be as hip and cool as LeetNews.com, but they have the resources to do the "serious" reporting. The Net is great because it makes more of this sort of information available, more quickly. But it doesn't empower anyone to suddenly become well informed and interesting.
Props to the Onion (Score:3, Insightful)
Seriously, this is what the net is good at - it's so new, a site like the Onion can get away with finding the humor in the attack. SNL would have had a hard time doing it, Bill Maher is in a lot of shit for doing what he does, and newspapers still think Mallard Fillmore belongs in the comics section.
On a more personal note, the repeated clip of planes crashing into buildings, the footage of New Yorker's reacting, the climbing death tolls, the speeches of pundits and politicians - none of this moved me on an emotional level, except to push me into further shock. But, when I read this article from that Onion issue [theonion.com], it moved me to tears.
I think TV still has the edge. (Score:3, Interesting)
I heard 3 or 4 times today on the TV that they busted 3 Pakistani men at the Hudson Valley Water Treatment Plant. I can't find any mention of it on the net from any major news outlet.
I heard of a couple of hijackings on the TV yesterday that I've seen nowhere on the web.
With telelvision, they have talking heads sitting there live, and if information comes in it is handed to them and read on the air. The websites seem to be far slower to update.
As far as long-term information goes, however, there is nothing like the internet. I have been able to study the history of Saudi Arabia, Israel, Afghanistan, Oman and the foreign relations between all of them and the US. A couple of web searches, and you've got historical information.
I wish more Americans would stop obsessing over knowing *exactly* what the military is up to at the moment and start concentrating on why we have troops there in the first place. As a nation we are rather uninformed on what's going on over there. Yes, we are more informed than many other nations, but we also meddle more than most of those nations.
Net vs. TV - Rumor and Conspiracy vs. Propaganda (Score:3, Interesting)
Look at the information you're seeing, and if you were old enough to be media-literate during the Gulf War, think about how the messages were managed then, including coverage on TV, news wire services, editorials, interviews with government sources. It was done better during the Gulf War because Bush Sr. could take his time, while Bush Jr. had this thrown at him, plus the press has a strong talent for going for the emotional, intense stories around the WTC scene, which creates an energy that Bush can use but can't control as easily.
Email was more useful than the web for the beginnings of the story - I first heard by phone call from a friend who'd been watching early-morning TV, and then started getting emails. CNN.com was slashdotted, and did extremely well getting anything at all up and running with that demand load - just because the web lets everybody publish information to everybody else doesn't mean you don't turn to a few centralized sites for breaking news :-) Email also had the advantage that it's much lower bit volume and scales better than the web because of the large peer-to-peer connectivity, and it has different failure modes than wired and wireless telephony so people near the affected sites could get messages out more reliably.
The net being what it is, I googled for Esther Dyson conspiracy propaganda and found a bunch of references including this interview with Esther Dyson: [paraview.com]