McChesney:
In our current society, it’s journalism vs. the world at large. The systems that have been slow-to-evolve over the past century have now led traditional journalism field to the brink of destruction and financial collapse. But many have asked how we arrived at this critical stage? How did we really let things get this bad? If we look at the proceeding history of journalism, it’s not hard to see all the turns of where it went wrong.
1. Loss of Advertising Revenue
Since the first printing press, we’ve relied on paper to pass information. Pieces of paper could hold stories, articles, drawings, photos, pictures, but most importantly it could hold ads; ads for everything you could imagine. The advertisers paid for those spaces in hopes of generating their own revenue when readers would see and ad and be curious enough to go and find the product or service that was being offered. The reason this form of revenue worked was that it allowed journalism entities to sit back and write stories while the advertisers came to them. Publishing firms and news agencies didn’t need to work to secure other sources of revenue. They had their readers who faithfully ordered newspapers and magazines, but the game has changed. Consumers are no longer paying for the paper forms of news and are now turning to the free sources of the web. Since News agencies first started using the web, their stories have been free and they did not charge the public if they wished to access them, but instead of slowly charging their customer base, they have waited till this last minute, letting their customers grow so used to not paying that it is unlikely that they will begin to pay for the content even if it means the destruction of some of the biggest and most well-known news agencies in the country.
2. Changing and Source of Journalists
We are no longer in the time where journalists need to go to college and receive their degree in journalism. You can be a journalist no matter your background as long as you have the drive and access to the Internet. We have evolved to trust the written word of bloggers whose words are always free. They report on the same subjects that traditional news agencies do and they can have the same weight as well, but can’t this also dilute the news we are receiving? How can we be sure to trust their words when we don’t know of their integrity of having a news agency backing them? How can we really trust their professionalism when we don’t know what is it to begin with.
3. The Bias of News
Journalists are taught to be objective in their reporting. They need to keep their personal bias out of their writings, but as mergers occur and news agencies are looking for new customers bases, it’s hard to remain objective. We can clearly see the biases in the news programs of the television channels. Fox plays to a more conservative base, while NBC writes stories with a liberal customer base in mind. We are now seeing this happen across the country even at smaller news agencies. They are giving their readers what they want even if it’s more celebrity gossip than news. They want to keep their readers and not lose more revenue than they already have.
Auletta:
Google: it’s become a term we easily use in our everyday lives. Don’t know something? Just Google it. What to know how to do your laundry? Just Google it. Google is now a verb and only a click away in most cases and in some not even that. We rely on the search engine to provide us with answers to all of our questions and to provide us with easy access to information, but at what price do we give over all of our searches to them?
Auletta was able to look into the company and knows how they rose to the top and how they operate and instead of coming out feeling relieved, he only grew more concerned with the privacy issues surrounding the company. After all, how can you not be concerned with a company that collects data on billions of its users and can hold onto it for as long as they want? They should be monitored and watched carefully with the ever-expanding growth of the company into multiple sectors including Operating Systems, mobile devices and now a rumored tablet computer.
Solove:
We live in the age of information. We can have access to nearly anything at the click of a mouse or the push of a button on our phones. Should we be surprised when some of our most embarrassing moments wind up on the Internet when nearly every mobile device has a camera capable of taking pictures or video? These hand-held devices have opened up a whole new world of embarrassment and emotional harm than before.
We are dealing with exploding rates of cyber bullying and reputation destruction on the web. It is incredibly easy to destroy your reputation or that of another person, but it nearly impossible to get it back and salvage it once it’s been put in the gutter, especially with the widely disseminating nature of the Internet.
How to we combat this? Employers are already dealing with the brunt of these issues in trying to come up with policy that will help employees better understand what boundaries they cannot and cross when using social media tools and sites. What you put on Facebook or post on Twitter can mean the difference between you maintaining your job or losing it. Users need to be hyper-vigilant with the personal information they share on the Internet because it could potentially lead to their harm.
Zittrain:
Haven’t we all wanted to create at least a little something in our lives? Whether it’s a birthday card for mom or rebuilding and enhancing the engine of a car, we have the power to create or to generate new things. On the Internet today we have the largest tools of generative possibilities in the form of Wikipedia and blog sites such as WordPress. Users drive the creation of the content on these sites and allow for more generativity to continue.
But what happens when you have corporations refusing to allow their users the creativity they are capable of? Apple has shown time and time again they do not want users having access to the core of their devices and keeping control over it. These types of devices such as the iPad and the iPods don’t allow for creativity to flourish. All the user can do is use the device how the company wants you to and nothing more. There is no creativity in that. Apple has claimed that by keeping the computers they create closed and out of the hands of consumers, they are keeping them safer from viruses and worms, but they’re really not. Just because you allow users to modify their computers is not going to make them more acceptable and those users are not going to blame the company if it happens at all. Some would say that those creators of viruses and worms are contributing to the overall generativity that is so prevalent on the Internet.
Critique 1:
Let’s take on McChesney and his blame-centric ideals:
McChesney talks a big game and loves to blame anyone and everyone under the sun, but what he doesn’t do is tell people how to fix the problem or give them ideas that could possibly work if refined. It is one thing to claim the sky is falling, but it’s another when you don’t do anything about it. Traditional Journalism is a dying breed and I will be the first to admit that. It’s now time to evolve with the times and learn to reach a new audience who doesn’t care for the physical paper, but want to be convenienced when they go online. If the news is there and they can purchase a yearly subscription to a paper for the content, they will pay for it if the news is relevant and timely.
Consumers still want the news and they still want to know what is going on in the world, but want it in a way that is convenient for them. With the addition of the iPad, users can subscribe to newspapers and receive all of the content that is on the web, streamed directly to their devices. If these companies would stop mourning the loss of their advertising revenue in the print sector they could see a whole new market to access.
The one thing that many will agree with McChesney on is his thoughts towards Bloggers. I believe that yes, probably about 85% of the bloggers out there aren’t creditable, aren’t providing unbiased news and don’t really care if their work is quality as long as someone reads it and they gain followers. Only time will tell whether consumers will decide on their own to abandon these less than savory sources in return for the good bloggers who are showing professionalism.
Critique 2:
Tackling Solove’s Cyber Bullies
I cannot possibly imagine what it would be like to have your life ruined by something that was posted on the Internet, but for the countless cases that Solove points out, they do. One glaring reminder of how terrible an invasion of privacy is happened in the case of Nikki Catsouras and her family. The humiliation and devastation that this family has faced after Nikki’s crash photos were spread on the Internet. They have been unable to have them removed and it’s a disgrace. It doesn’t matter who’s responsibility it is concerning privacy when something of this nature happens. The family of Nikki didn’t ask for this to happen and they protected their privacy, it’s other people who posted her photos without permission or decency.
This is what happens in the online community. It seems as if our morals vanish because there is now this device sitting between us and the person on the other end of our chats or reading our blog posts. We forget that there are people on the Internet and we are not all Anonymous. Words, whether they are said to someone’s face or posted online, they can still do damage.
It’s more important now than ever to protect yourself and what you decide to share online and in public forums. We have access to each other at a greater degree even if we don’t want that access. Sites such as Spokeo gather all of your information and sell it at a low cost. Why would it even be necessary for burglars to canvas the old fashion way? They can find out where you live and where you work and how long you work for without ever needing to try. If you’re not careful, just let the burglars come to you. It’s much easier that way.
