Media across the Atlantic not sweating blogs

Steve Boriss hits on a whole lot of truth in his latest post. The lede is that while U.S. media outlets continue to be threatened by the emergence of blogs, the U.K. media has no such problem? There are surely a number of reasons for this, but I think that in the end it boils down to one theme. Simply, as Borris puts it, “there is no such thing as an objective, right-down-the-middle way to look at things.” The difference now is that the U.S. media continues to pretend that there is a middle ground (and do a terrible job of it), while the U.K. media tends to flaunt their partisanship.

What is happening is that American journalism created a problem for itself decades ago that will continue to threaten its existence until it ends its self-defeating ways. It decided that issues of public policy were a science, and journalists were like laboratory workers on a mission to deliver singular, objective truths. They began to treat opinion as a contaminant, and in the process lost the ability to handle it properly.

So when blogs — an ideal platform for pontification — came along, the mainstream media attacked them as unobjective and unworthy. The problem, of course, is that the American people seem to like blogs and their opinionated ways.

Matthew Yglesias, writer for Atlantic, makes a strong case in favor of partisanship. Yes, it might lead to dirty moves, like blocking the vote on bills that would otherwise pass, but partisanship can have its virtues.

In short, the history of civilization is a struggle among opposing ideas. This is no less true today. The difference is that we now have this vast outlet to express these opinions and make the case for our cause. People can then easily browse as many or as few of these opinions as they choose. If someone doesn’t agree with a blogger, then he or she has thousands of alternatives. It’s a democratic system of dissemination.

That isn’t to say that reporters of the news are going anywhere. We still need people in the field breaking stories. But we also need people to relay those stories to us in ways we can relate to. We need each side to interpret stories and display them to their constituency. And if said constituency doesn’t quite buy what’s being sold, they can check out one of the thousand places offering an alternative opinion.

The question, really, is of whether these reporters of the future will be one and the same as the disseminators of the news. I think they can. It’s just going to take a complete overhaul of the system.