Listening to Austin Bay on Hugh's show tonight, I was struck by the thought that it's no wonder that many journalists feel threatened by the new media. The fact is that very few of the smartest people around are journalists. And today, people aren't forced to get their news and commentary from journalists. It's a good thing.Sadly, the 4th estate is not only the Emporer with no clothes, but on balance not swift enough to realize it. The subtext that journalists love to propagandize is that their ranks are filled with the sharpest tacks in the whole world's box.
Simple evaluation buttressed by the law of averages illuminates that not only isn't the MSM uniquely endowed with wattage, but that blogs are becoming to the MSM what (in my profession) open source software has become to companies that attempt to purvey shoddy and/or over-priced software: A brutal and well-deserved ripost.
And once you strip away the curtain from the little MSMan, the only really key advantages he has are 1) generally above average writing (and propaganda!) skills, 2) momentum and capital (including advertising revenue) in controlling the traditional channels of distribution, 3) the ability to use that capital to distribute reporters to where "it's happening", and 4) connections and access to newsmakers (which are also often obscured on purpose as in "highly placed sources within the administration..." ).
The analogies with software are 1) change "writing skills" to "software writing skills", 2) lift as is except perhaps delete the ad revenue, 3) the infrastructure to extract "domain knowledge" from key customers and markets and 4) probably not applicable except perhaps a weak relationship in situations where there are key "lead customers" in developing a new market that may be financially "locked up" through discount plans.
While open source software hasn't exactly destroyed traditional software yet, it's clearly made some serious inroads as follows:
1) While professional software firms by definition have strong software design and writing skills, there are plenty of talented software writers that aren't necessarily employed by the mainstream firms -- many who do it as a passionate hobby. Sound familiar? In fact, many of them are encouraged by their employers (often computer hardware-focused companies) to make life difficult for the mainstream software firms in order to compete on a "substitution" basis and try to maintain a grip on a larger chunk of the total system revenue stream.
2) The internet has emerged as an effective alternative distribution source. Sound familiar?
3) The internet has enabled software folks from all over to collaborate easily and find insiders to work with to extract "domain knowledge". Often this may be the writers themselves! Sound familiar?
4) Bottom line is that the "lead customers" no longer need to wait for big software firms to come to them -- they can even initiate new projects themselves! Sound familiar?
So, how to dismember the MSM? Well, some in the MSM have already examined this subject and concluded that blogs can't win because "blogs bear little resemblance to a glossy publication".
Hmmmm... Yes, in the same way that a personal computer bears little resemblance to ENIAC I suppose. And as I recall, Ken Olsen, the founder of the now gobbled up Digital Equipment Corporation (DEC) couldn't for the life of him think of a reason why anyone would want a personal computer!
But in the end it's all about value and respect. The "folks" are realizing that they're not getting good value from their daily MSM brainwashings even when it's tolerably well written or produced. The folks look around and -- gosh! -- everyone they know DOESN'T seem to be stealing from Tiny Tim or eating Arab children's brains for breakfast! It turns out that that kind of stuff only happens in the imaginations of big city MSM-emporer-type poorly-behaved smart-asses after a night of poor-quality drugs. (As I've pointed out before, you gotta love projection...)
And when folks get REALLY tired of their letters to the editor not being printed, they discover the "Publish Post" button.
And huge numbers of the folks are WAY smarter than ANY MSM-porer when it comes to their "domains of expertise". Columbia Journalism Review has just put out a perfect example that has been nicely dissected by Charles here.
Did I mention that I have a Master's in Computer Science and I know rather a lot more of whence I speak than the apparently vacuous Corey Pein about Dr. Newcomer's analysis?
Did I mention that the MSM-porer has no clothes and that ad revenue is the last prop that can possibly steady him?
Hmmm... Buggy whip time anyone? Time to steal some blogging time and start collaborating on a new advertising software idea methinks. And there may be serious money in them-thar hills -- but I might even give it away for the MSMajor satisfaction of it all...
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