What Happens When Anyone Can Write The News?

from the it's-already-happening... dept

While the Wikipedia folks are debating a Wikinews project that would let anyone come in to write and edit the news, journalists are complaining that the web has made “serious journalism” more difficult by actually opening up commentary to those who have a biased position. Of course, both of these discussions simply show what has been happening for a long time: the process of journalism is being forced to open up. It may make it “more difficult,” but the end product should be better informed people. Sure, there’s a lot of “bunk” out there, but the waves upon waves of bunk should eventually force people to be a bit more skeptical of everything, and learn to trust no sources on their own.


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Comments on “What Happens When Anyone Can Write The News?”

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6 Comments
TJ says:

Gatekeepers

Great, ‘serious’ journalist laments that media organizations can no longer serve as “gatekeepers” against bogus news. Meanwhile such media organizations too often ignore, soft-soap, or distort important stories that have a strong factual basis. CBS pulls a feature about the Iraq war because it might impact the election. Gee, wouldn’t it be awful if news about a war in which we’re a key player gave citizens more information that might help them make decisions at the polls.

I’ll gladly take a wealth of sources from which I can choose. Now that news organizations are mostly owned by Viacom, FOX, and other enormous companies that care more about ratings and corporate interests than responsible reporting, they are far down on the list of who I’d trust as a gatekeeper.

me (profile) says:

Re: Gatekeepers...pah!

blahblahblah “Iraqi War bad”
blahblahblah “big corporations”
blahblahblah “FOX…eeeeviilll”
Y’know, maybe if you got your news from somewhere else than the PROVEN AND OBVIOUSLY left-leaning journalists/CNNCBSNBCPBS crowd, you’d see this issue for what it is…
People are sick and tired of the leftist ‘Dan Rather’s’ out there constantly passing off biased LIES to them as news…
The fact that they’re going to Fox news and other alternatives is driving the left crazy…It’s all about control, so of course, we get the usual bullshit from the left:
blahblahblah “Iraqi War bad”
blahblahblah “big corporations”
blahblahblah “FOX…eeeeviilll”
People are opening their eyes, lefties…your days are numbered

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