Media, News, and Information
My post here has gotten some attention, so I thought I'd expand a little on what I believe, rather than on what seened like some other interesting posts. (1) Local news sucks. The only marginally useful information for me is the weather report. I don't care that a house burned down, that someone got into a fight, or that a local restaurant had some problems on its health inspection. And sports generally don't interest me, although watching a close game can be fun, so watching a summary of various sports is pointless. I don't watch local news unless I'm with someone else who is watching. (2) The same kinds of problems apply to national news coverage, to a less extent. In general I prefer to get information through reading rather than being lectured to; I prefer reading a newspaper to watching TV to get info. (3) Most of my friends are more liberal than I am, especially economically and politically. And, OK, they don't trust the media either. Basically, they're generation Xers. The post on Dean's World was primarily, though not exclusively, talking about baby boomers losing trust in the government and the military and reinvesting that trust in the institution that brought those institutions down, the media. (4) The media errors that have had the greatest impact seem to have been anti-Republican, anti-current-government and anti-military. There was a short-lived meme that Senator Kerry had an affair [if I remember right] [maybe from Drudge?]; compare that to Rathergate and Newsweek. I'm ignoring Jeff Gannon; that whole affair is something different. (5) Readership in newspapers is down; viewers of CBS, ABC, NBC news are down. That is probably evidence that everyone has less trust for the media, rather than just conservatives or just liberals. Oh, and this Ace of Spades post? I agree.
- posted by owlish @ 5/17/2005 07:04:00 AM