tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-20372724.post1814586411539210287..comments2023-09-01T09:38:54.262-04:00Comments on Dumb Looks Still Free: Three organizations: one quagmireA Jacksonianhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/07607888697879327120noreply@blogger.comBlogger2125tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-20372724.post-72330817242531148872007-10-30T10:25:00.000-04:002007-10-30T10:25:00.000-04:00Dear Mr. Opie - My thanks!The MSM problem is on in...Dear Mr. Opie - My thanks!<BR/><BR/>The MSM problem is on in which its older organizational structures allow it easy access to homes. That it is losing viewership and the print media circulation tells the story that their views are no longer guiding... they are 'Mainstream' only in their access, not in their acceptance or delivery. The alternative that is being developed is a disagreggated New Media, that has great wants in accuracy at times, but nothing worse than is seen at NYT, TNR, WaPo... indeed the accountability to factual presentation and interpretation is much higher in New Media than in the older forms.<BR/><BR/>With the preponderance of new devices and ways to deliver information comes a growing need to organize disparate media sources, and it is only in that area that New Media lacks are preventing wider acceptance and utilization. The MSM cannot morph to this as it is a decentralized concept of information gathering and distribution.<BR/><BR/>We are barely past the first decade of the first web page, and yet we have seen concepts like 'disintermediation' take hold in business, finance and commerce. Middlemen must *add value* to transactions to be worth having around, and many non-value added middlemen are no longer around. The MSM has two problems in regards to this: first monopoly control in print and, second, value added full-spectrum analysis by individuals. To date the only ability the MSM had was as a 'funnel' or 'gatekeeper' that could get some reasonable 'value added' content along with advertisement so as to keep them going. That monopoly position has diminished diversity of input and promulgation of same, and the numbers in the print media have been in decline since the late 1970's just due to that.<BR/><BR/>Consider that 1439-1639 saw the first disintermediation of religion and the nastiest religious wars in Europe due to the printing press. Monopoly position in information distribution moved out of the hands of the Roman Catholic Church and into distributed hands. While the Catholic Church is still powerful and has the largest number of followers, it is *not* the sole source of religious information and only considered the first amongst many. That is happening to the MSM in the first *decade* since the web was brought about. The tools put into the hands of individuals to decide, for themselves, what they will get as *news* are now developing. What there will NOT be is an old-fashioned, trusted, media source. That day is over. A distributed trust system developed by individuals willing to be accountable to their readers and the wider public is starting to hit the punditry industry and seep into the actual news reporting business. The MSM will not 'disappear' but will no longer be a sole-source or even main-source provider of information. Today the best pictures and reporting from crises are not the reporter blown around in hurricanes, but the individual on a wireless remote setup in a basement looking out the shielded windows and telling you what they see. The best war reporting its being done by those that embed and by soldiers... not 'reporters'.<BR/><BR/>Apparently reporting does not depend upon journalists, but upon those that report: reporters. This 'Army of Davids' also gains a distributed trust system of people who can verify and bring valid criticism to bear - those that cannot are throwing ideology before facts.<BR/><BR/>The best reporters after Iraq will be those who 'know what they are doing': Yon, Roggio, Ardolino, and members of the Armed Forces that believe in getting accurate information to their fellow man trumps all other things. That is slowly happening in politics, the last bastion of the older order of things... disintermediation has yet to happen in that and the old two party system will hold on for a few more elections. But its monopoly position will also disintegrate, and we may see the first sub-50% turnout for a Presidential election next year. At that point democracy, itself, becomes unstable and prone to overthrow. There will not be a 'rise of a third party' but the rise of an accountable system of parties and interests... it will have party structure of sorts, but will not be a traditional old party concept. The two main parties will still exist in 'strongholds' but those will be limited population bastions.<BR/><BR/>Democracy is in its distributed form, not the limited form we have today. That was the case at the Founding all the way to the industrial age... now we are going post centralized industrial in all things and politics *must* follow. That will diminish the roles of the parties as the American People are far more diverse than two limited positions... that is the way things are heading, as of today... tomorrow it could be different...A Jacksonianhttps://www.blogger.com/profile/07607888697879327120noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-20372724.post-16461998129639709162007-10-30T09:55:00.000-04:002007-10-30T09:55:00.000-04:00Hi -Kudos. I've rarely seen anyone nail it as well...Hi -<BR/><BR/>Kudos. I've rarely seen anyone nail it as well as you have here. :-)<BR/><BR/>The real question is how we can hold the MSM responsible: changing the channel and finding other sources of information is all well and fine, but given the preponderance of MSM - after all, they *are* the mainstream - this is virtually impossible.<BR/><BR/>The only way I see to do it is for true alternatives to show up. Perhaps when the wars are over and those who did the fighting come back and decide that there needs to be an alternative...<BR/><BR/>I'd buy stock in that.John F. Opiehttps://www.blogger.com/profile/00445399643146235960noreply@blogger.com