Reacting to the announcement of our upcoming (open) seminar “News? Who’s Your Source,” one of our favorite readers let loose a rant about the downsides from the fragmentation of the media.
Back in the old days, a significant media organization in which he served as a manager maintained high quality standards, independence, fact-checking and other sources of trust. Today, unreliable and slanted resources have multiplied, reducing the quality and reliability of public discourse.
There’s a lot of crap out there, to be sure. But let’s consider some of the possible upsides.
Hopefully, in the long run, we will also see some benefits from the competition in the new environment. Some of the new entrants aren’t all that unreliable, and they are filling an important need given a loss of trust in traditional media.
In Truth in Accounting’s neck of the woods, selfishly and otherwise, we believe citizens have been underserved if not misled by traditional media when it comes to the finances of government(s).
An Eminent Person penned a related op-ed in the Chicago Tribune a decade or so ago. He was lamenting the loss of the shared 'town hall' amidst the fragmenting media business. As part of his argument, he asserted that the likes of Thomas Paine would have rued current developments.
I responded to him, taking the position that Paine's "Common Sense" pamphlet -- and others like it -- were flying around the colonies in a version of the Internet of their day.
Our seminar is October 23, 3:30 pm, at DePaul University in downtown Chicago. Should be a doozy.