I was heartily amused to hear this whistling past the graveyard bloviating from all the “old media” executive types reported in this Reuters.com new story. What fookin' crock! Newspapers are losing circulation and ad revenue left and right, the ratings for the TV news ditto, and yet the Internet just keeps chugging along.
The last gasps from these media plutocrats who are foolishly trying to maintain their monopoly on “real news” as opposed to say the blog you're reading now, and the like are just plain wrong. Sure the CBS Evening News with Katie Couric reaches far more people than I do, but when you sort it all out and then look at the big picture, the honest truth is that more and more people are reading, looking at, and posting to web forums and blogs than ever before, and in all likelihood, this tread will persist and increase. Viacom, the RIAA, MPAA and the rest can sue for royalty payments, damages, and otherwise try to suppress what we read and look at all they want, but in the end it will all be futile. Their tough talk is just BS, and everybody knows this by now, even them too, when they're being honest.
Myself, I haven't given up on viewing TV news or reading the mainstream newspapers and magazines, but now only as part of the mix. I'll bet that's the way it is with you too, eh dear reader? But the days when the New York Times, Wall Street Journal and the big Three TV networks dominated the news and opinion on the national level and the local paper's monopoly in the local markets is going down fast. Why the hell should I care what NYT columnists Maureen Dowd or Thomas Friedman think about world affairs and such as opposed to say what bloggers, posters, and columnists at Strike the Root.com or the Drudge Report have to say? Why should I put an ad for a boat trailer in my local rag when I can post it on Craiglist or eBay instead? Local people read those websites too, eh?
The old media isn't gonna just die off, but it is gonna get smaller and less influential though; the big shot media are now just going to be one voice among many. And that's a good thing.
Technorati Tags:
mainstream_media, communications, independent_media
No comments:
Post a Comment