Ethics

Balko on New Media vs Old Media

By Ed Brayton

There seems to be a single story from mainstream media pundits when they consider the issue of blogs and other forms of new media. That story has become so commonly repeated that one must wonder if Microsoft Word has produced a template for the story that allows the byline to be changed and the simplistic arguments to remain the same. The thesis goes like this:

"Newspapers, that bastion of objectivity and rigorous investigation, are dying. They're being replaced by blogs and online news outlets that are all written by untrained interlopers sitting in their boxer shorts in their parents' basement, interlopers who do not hold to the deeply thought out and always followed ethical standards of Real Journalists. This is a national tragedy."

Full post as published by Dispatches from the Culture Wars on December 03, 2009 (boomark / email).