News-Record.com

I feel like the public just doesn't care as much. They want news, but they want it super-sized and fast. The death of a free media started with the birth of the soundbyte and the videoclip. Because of this, I feel like the erosion of interest in opinions has been weened off the American public like painkillers, with the reverse effect of making us numb instead of informed. The less informed the public is, the less resistant we are to a government who caters to the rich and the corporations, not the average people.

What the media in the US needs, is to reverse it's vesectomy and start reporting like a reporter should, with factual information, that gives the whole story and is non partisan in nature to let the people form their own opinions. This is why I enjoy blogs. They are partisan, but I read the right and the left. I can form my own opinion and click on links to actual documents to reinforce the article I read. With TV and newspapers, I don't know where the info comes from, might as well be thin air, especially when reporters won't reveal where they got important info to an important story. The system is broke, but not unfixable. We just need a willing presscore to get back to basics and tell us something we didn't read online 12 hours ago.

You know what would be fascinating? If those of the AP set up something similar to digg.com. Then reporters that had prior access to the news, would push it to the top of the "front page" and become one level of filtering.

I've found that with technical news, digg is not the fastest on everything, but on many things, there are new events that happen that would have never made the blogs and regular news.

It's definitely a easy technological advancement that can be used to help do exactly what N&R is trying to do as well as fits into Jay's comment.

Mr. Robinson, As a teenager back in the 'darkages of the '50's' I worked part time after school for the local small newspaper. It was my job to read the Letters to the Editor and sort them out according to topic, to underline (no highlighters then!) the important parts and to throw the "dumb ones" away. From this experience I can tell you that nothing has changed much; some people are still locked into their own little view points and don't want to hear, or read, anything new. As for the decibel level I agree that has increased considerably because people are just less polite today than they were in the past. In fact, they are down right crude, and a decent idividual can not seem to communicate with them unless he too becomes crude.
As for your newspaper, I would like to see the N&R push all the "cutsy" stuff to the Life section if not out all together. ALL Greensboro news, yes even the Frey story, to the Greensboro section. And use the front section for State, National and International news. Not everyone uses a computer to get their information and the news programs get fixated on the outrageous or sensational and bleed that story for all it's worth. Am so tired of New Orleans, Sheehan and Cheney shooting. In fact the only story of the three listed that should have gotten "some" coverage in the N&R at all was the hurricane. The other two should have been left to the tv commentators who call themselves anchormen, the Enquirer or People Magazine. People want serious news from a newspaper. And they want indepth coverage of news that they won't get from tv. No Cheney junk and no cartoons either until it became a big internation story.

You know it's getting bad when people are claiming that news stories are biased for using the word "shot" to descibe what happened to Whittington.

The Cheney story is a simple one, but not according to the MSM. Since all ended well with Whittington, it will continue to be a source of humor. But the press corps is making it something it is not.

They can't let it go. Republicans, Democrats, American readers are wating them self destruct. One wonders if they will ever regain credibility.

Chip, what credibility?
I thought that was lost years ago.

There are very few real reporters left in the media today. Most are wannabe editorial writers and fill their reports with their own bias, facts be damned if they don't fit the story..

"Why oppose basic news coverage?"

I wish this were all it was. The press has changed; it's no longer the 5 w's -- it if't not investigative, then it's not winning a Pulitzer. The press is almost inherently partisan (Fox News, WSJ, Wash Times, NYTimes) all lean one way or another, and there is no longer a "pure" story. Spin kills objectivity. Spin permeates our culture.

We have come to expect the press to be partisan; we watch it and listen to it because we agree with it or we feel like ranting at it. I almost dare you to read a major newspaper or listen to a network newscast and truthfully say that the reporting is simply 5 w's with some understanding thrown in. Listen to the decibel levels with which some "news"casters spew opinion disguised as news (or worse, as the truth).

OTWism has replaced news. So sad. No, I don't think you participate, but the biggies do so you're the sponge in the trickle down effect.

What happened with the Cheney story?

He dissed the press. He didn't provide the story to the press through proper/historical channels. He blindsided the President and Scotty, he held himself higher than the law and the press and worse, than We the People. The press was outraged and then the whole story was lost in repub/dem spin. ("Shot" isn't the right word v. the "30 foot conspiracy" theory).

The fact is, when the VP shoots someone, it's news. Everything after that is spin.

he held imself higher than the law and the press .

Please tell me what law did he break by not calling an immediate press conference. That's pure barnyard bovine excrement!

The spin is the press- out of control.

mrproduce,

Having met and interacted with reporters from many different media outlets -- both mainstream "traditional" media and beyond -- I can assure you that the vast majority of reporters are still dedicated to getting at the truth and presenting it to the reader in as unbiased, robust a fashion as possible. They're all human beings, mind, so sometimes they fail to maintain an appropriate objective distance from their material, but they try. Hard.

News selection is, of course, ultimately in the hands of editors, who are under increasing pressure to help the "bottom line" as new competition gnaws away at the advertising dollars that typically power large news organizations. I think this more than any other factor is impacting news selection and presentation. A broad swath of Middle-America prizes titilation over relevant fact -- entertainment over enlightenment. Especially among my generation ("gen X").

But don't paint the media with too broad a brush. Most of your working journalists are just as dedicated to the ideals of their profession as you are to yours. But living in a capitalist society, media companies are under the same business pressures as anyone else, and just as likely to try for a cheap buck now and then. Isn't the first time, won't be the last. The 40's and 50's were more of a golden blip in the history of journalism than representative of that history.

Historian, I am going to have to stick by my statement that there are FEW real reporters of news today. In the couple of dozen newspapers that I read each day I have found very few who are not of the kind that I mentioned. Most have given up their belief in true journalism and have given in to worshiping at the alter of political correctness. Now this could be perhaps because their "bosses" have them so enslaved that they must cave in to the pressure or it could be that they no longer really care about the "truth" in journalism.
Yes it is indeed a shame that the "bosses" have sold their souls to the highest bidders in order to reap the gains of the almighty dollar. They themselves have become slaves and have surrendered their freedom to report news without bias. No longer is there freedom of expression or real freedom of speech within the media for they also worship the many "gods" which they require their reporters to worship. Oh for a few Daniels, Shadrach's Meshech's and Abednego's to stand within the firey furnace and refuse to worship as their rulers command them too.