Is One Truth worth a Thousand Opinions?

7 thoughts on “Is One Truth worth a Thousand Opinions?”

1. Through most of human history, including in the U.S., news has been clearly biased and many papers were merely mouthpieces for their interest group.

   We hit this more even handed news really with WWII and the fact that there was agreement across most groups once we were attacked. And that then held into the ’70s.

   We now face two issues at the same time. One is that news is going back to it’s old approach of having a clear bias. And we are hitting the problem of newspapers have lost have of their profit with the death of classified ads.

   We will get a replacement for newspapers. But just like the telephone eliminated the telegraph, the web will replace the printed sheet delivered to your door each morning.

   And just as Western Union did not embrace telephones and so disappeared as AT&T took over, most existing newspapers will go out of business and new businesses will replace them.

   But we will have this in some form – because Jake Jabs, Dealing Doug, and every home builder need a way to reach us. And there is a major opportunity here for someone who’s got the bucks to create the new approach and nurse it along for the 5 – 10 years it will take to make it profitable.

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   1. 
      From one of the panels at YearlyKos, Colorado Confidential’s Cara DeGette and Minnesota Monitor’s Abdi Aynte declared traditional media’s “obsession with objectivity” a thing of the past.

      “The model of mainstream journalists is and should be dead,” DeGette told the audience. “There is a right and there is a wrong, and the new journalism needs to address that.”

      “Should we be obsessed with objectivity?” Aynte asked. “We should be obsessed with fairness.”
      

      … perhaps at least advocacy’s call to action will motivate our children to take a positive role in setting the course of their futures.

      But mostly, I hope they learn to be properly skeptical and seek out multiple sources of information, learning to tell the difference between fantasy and reality.

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   2. Publishers are struggling to find a business model that allows them to publish news profitably.

      I’m not sure that’s possible.

      More likely, I see shoppers taking over the advertising market while journalism will become an even less attractive career than it is now.

      Business, governents, individuals will publish their “facts” and “information” and social networks will help separate the wheat from the chaff with varying degrees of success.

      Readers will learn who they can trust and will trust with those that agree with them, not too different from today.

      There is no question that a good story in the Wall Street Journal beats most financial blogs, but a lot of financial blogs beat the pants off the wsj.com with both facts and analysis.

      Similarly in politicis, a congressman can post a position paper here and stimulate a long thread with comments that include new information, corrections, praise and skepticism. And that may be the model for the future if the papers don’t survive.

      Certainly, the bare bones Sunday Denver Post is not as useful as a good blog. I get through the post in 5 or 10 minutes these days. It used to take more than an hour.

      I’ve been on this blog longer than I spent with the Post this morning.

      There are a lot of ideas about what to do with newspapers, but I haven’t seen any that make economic sense, and no one has really come up with a new newspaper.

      Do you think MediaNews Group will declare bankruptcy before the Rocky closes?

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      1. I just don’t think it will be the Post (or News) as they seem incapable of anything more than just putting a copy of the paper up on the web.

         The way ads are delivered on the web today, including Google, is version 1.0. In 5 years it will be done so much better, and a lot of that will be tied to news.

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         1. With content shrinking in all forms of print media (Time, Newsweek, etc.), dinosaurs like myself have less and less reason to subscribe.

            There is a generational shift going on, but the medium is still evolving — what new handheld A/V device will they come up with next?

            Even my wife is experimenting with Web 2.0 (3.0?) technology for her business — twittering to her network about how to survive in this new business climate (sorry, nothing that will help the newspaper industry).

            I’m less concerned with how the information is delivered than how it is received and interpreted.  AS’s thoughts about ideas being vetted in the blogs is absolutely correct.  

            Currently, the web is still quite flat — in other words, most sites and contributors are of essentially equal standing.

            Over time, filters may evolve where sites that earn credibility will provide key facts and opinions, and useless noise-makers will be tuned out.

            Imagine if Captain Picard of Star Trek had to listen to the constant chatter of a thousand shipmates on his communicator?  

            Obviously, a hierarchy of communication priorities will need to be developed, but we also need the critical thinking skills with which to process what information we do choose to hear.

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            1. and good post A.S. Wow, I’m feeling all kumbaya.  I have subscribed faithfully to the GJ Sentinel since I came to CO 11 years ago.  It’s really, really gone to sh*t in the last year.  It use to have a Local News section everyday.  Now it only has one ‘news’ section–covering national, international, and local.  On Sundays it’s unusual for it to be longer than 8 pages, about 1/3 ads.  Usually its only 6 (on Sunday).  

               I like reading the local news, and the Sentinel use to cover it well.  I generally disagreed with their right-wing editorial slant–that hasn’t changed (there might be one Democratic syndicated columnist a week to 8 conservative ones), but the local news is now very thin.  I probably won’t be resubscribing.  
               

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2. But do I/will I trust their reportage as we gear up for another war, after the pure B.S. and nose-up-the-rears-of-the-Generals exhibited by the reports of Judith Miller? Uh…no, not uncritically. No more than I’d trust the Denver Post on foreign policy, for that matter.

   Judith Miller:
   
   http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/J…

   That’s where blogs are essential: to counter the B.S. of the mainstream media, who often do little more than parrot what the White House Press Office says.

   The credibility factor cuts both ways.

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