It's Dying, but It's Not What They Say It Is

Zooming the camera back from the Providence Journal's reluctance to expose some questionable science behind the global climate change panic, John Nolte argues that the death throes of the mainstream media were self inflicted:

A non-partisan, unbiased news media simply doesn't exist anymore. All that remains of this once somewhat respectable profession are two kinds of media: those who lie about their agenda and those who don't — and Mr. Gerson's employer is one of the liars. Whether it's Glenn Beck, Arianna Huffington, National Review or MSNBC, tell me your biases upfront and we can at least start a dialogue from an honest foundation. On the other hand, the Washington Post, New York Times, Newsweek, Time, CNN, NBC, ABC, CBS and the like, have spent years making jerks out of us — lying to our faces. We knew this, there just wasn’t any alternative. But now that there is, their time is just about up.

Having procured a still-distant peak inside media professions, I've been gaining a sense of what they do wrong. Just look at the output of the typical motivated blogger versus that of a well-paid, perhaps unionized journalist. I'm not denying that many of the professionals do good work and that many bloggers produce a good deal of garbage. Moreover, bloggers obviously rely on journalists' product to a great extent. What I'm pointing toward is the working model.

Frankly, some of the contributors to Anchor Rising would very much like to delve more deeply into research and investigation, but we're tied to day jobs. The demise of some of the major media players might just free up societal resources to finance independent journalists who can pretty much run the whole show for less cost than a single reporter. Again, I'm not necessarily hoping that it takes the downfall of (say) the Providence Journal to open up opportunities for online revenue; I'm just suggesting the possibility.

And this is before we get to the more common part of the discussion:

What profession could [Gerson] possibly be talking about? Certainly not the same profession who set out to destroy Clarence Thomas, circled the wagons to save President Clinton, summoned all their resources to lose the war in Iraq, told us more about the background of an unemployed plumber than our current President, dragged Sarah Palin's family through the mud, and on this very day refuse to investigate three of the biggest stories of the year (if not the decade): ACORN, CzarGate and ClimateGate.

"Since the whole of the MSM put their blinders on and jumped in the tank for President Bows-A -Lot," bloggers and independent media groups have been stepping up to fill in the gap. The Internet has made that sufficiently easy and inexpensive to do that the gaps that the giants leave as they fall will not take long to fill.