Good: It's gratifying to see the Media doing some good. Common sense prevails in some quarters, for example, of the issue of the Scorpions staying or going. What does etv do: it runs a quick poll beside the breaking news story. Great idea, even I particiapted. 33000 votes, an overwhelming majority voting 'No, the Scorpions must stay.' Next Zuma faces hard questions at BBC, and for once, Mbeki has a tactical response to 'outflank' his opponent at the opportune time. The front page of The Times today: 'Media stiings ANC'.
We have a situation here. JZ is trying to crush (or own) those institutions hostile towards him. They are roughly, in no particular order, Dave Bullard, the Scorpions and...the company where David Bullard works. Hmm. Interesting. It is certainly in the media's interests, some may say, to make sure goes away and never comes back. Can they pull it off? Furthermore, can they powerfully bring public sentiment to bear in order to maintain the services of a major anti-crime and anti-corruption Force?
The Bad: Hmmm, where to start. The amount of tabloid shit making the news is sickening. Is this news? is this important? Is what's popular important? On 94.7 they did a great parody on U.S. President's speeches today. It started with Roosevelt (I think) saying "All we should fear is fear itself." Then Kennedy's "Ask not..." Then they played a clip out of Hillary Clinton's speech. It sounded like something out of a soapie. They played it again this time with violins in the background. Worked perfectly. And this is what is happening. Even politicians are starting to to get so good at the game (of saying what we want to hear) that they basically no longer lead (in a sense), but attempt to follow the 'market's' schizophrenia, our shallow impulsive whims. The media is starting to do the same, with more and more newspapers becoming like the super-popular tabloids.
A blogger that I often refer to who epitomises this 'make-a-soapy-out-of everything' is Mushy Peas on Vomit. We invest ourselves in this wishy washy daydream stuff to our tremendous deteriment. The reason is we are no longer deailing with reality, but with wishy washy opinions, likes and dislikes. It's self-indulgent and unimportant.
The Ugly: Media 24 have inflated their figures. Microsoft is making a play for Yahoo. Newspapers are seeing revenues diverted to the internet. We can expect to see the shedding of some very valuable resources: top reporters. Modern journalism: No time for the truth More and more bloggers are infesting the news space...thus increasingly we're seeing stories like 'Spotlight on School Tennis' appearing side-by-side (on the Aggregators in particular) with 'Ideas on Growing a Herb Garden', the 'Color of God' and 'A tale of two singers, a child molester, the media and the law' flighting alongside each other. How can we filter out the chatter.
There's this odd haze where the news, and newsmakers, and the general public is all being meshed together. Is this good? I believe the little man can now add to the zeitgeist, but based on some of the drivel and hate-speech, it may incite more hurt and harm than anything else.
This sort of massive streaming of public data is not only bad for business and bad for the brain, it's ugly. Because the vital and valuable information gets lost in the clutter. How do we communicate emergency signals, or important, potent truths... And if this vital information has to compete with Britney Spears we are in serious trouble. This is how and why 9/11 was so successful, and why future emergencies will be characterised by inane chatter, fatal bottlenecks and 'the movie zeitgeist'. We will increasingly refer to reality as something we saw or experienced in 'a movie.' There's a world of difference though...which we may soon discover to our collective chagrin.
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