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Too harsh on the media? What do you think about them?
I realize the last post I made was pretty harsh on the media. I do tend to get frustrated about their level of what I perceive as incompetence. As I mentioned in that last post, I was part of "the media" for quite a few years. I spent seven years as a copyeditor with a daily newspaper (circulation then about 30,000+, I think), then another seven years as the news editor for a major denominational weekly religious magazine (circulation then about 280,000+). In addition, I taught a college class in news writing and news reporting for six semesters.
So I'm biased, I suppose, toward print media. I still think, given the nature of the beast, newspaper and magazine reporters are more thorough and more competent than so-called "broadcast journalists" -- certainly a far league above the talking-head "anchor" people on television!
Biased or not, each of us has a responsibility to pay attention to what the media are doing, in every form. We own the "airwaves," be they television or radio, used by broadcasters; they just rent 'em with our permission, i.e., that's what the FCC is supposed to be all about. So we owe it to ourselves and to the future to monitor what's going on, to express our concerns when journalists do well and to try to get them back on track if they're doing poorly.
I have a friend who has contacted me about a possible collaboration on a new blog that will focus on, as he puts it, "pummeling" the state of today's journalism. If that works out, I'll let you know and hope to see you as regular readers.
Technorati Tags: media, journalism, monitoring the media, take time for living
