The future of journalism

12.20.2003

You must read this post by Jeff Jarvis (of Buzz Machine). Recently, The New York Times, CNN, and other "mainstream" meadia conglomerates missed out on a major news story — and got caught. An Iraqi blogger w/ a digital camera covered an anti-terrorism protest in Baghdad, and scooped the major networks. How often does this happen? What does this say about media bias & professionalism? What does it say about their future?

Jarvis' post isn't just another (of many) critiques of the failure of mainstream media. It shows exactly what they could've done to cover the gap — by showing what The Weekly Standard did w/ Zeyad's first-person coverage and digital pictures. A dental student from Iraq, w/ a free weblog & a digital camera (donated by Jarvis) beat the most powerful news-gathering organizations at their own game.

Posted by Miguel at 02:33 PM

Comments

Failure of the mainstream media?

It's not unusual for a story to be reported in other forums or avenues before the mainstream media pick it up.

If you want to talk about failures by mainstream media organizations, perhaps you should talk about the growing evidence that Bush ignored warnings about impending terrorist activity before 9/11 -- and the failure of the media to accurately report this.

Posted by: Ralphus Lorenus at December 26, 2003 10:27 PM

You're talking about the failure to predict something that MIGHT have happened. That's a big difference from the failure of reporting something that DID happen.

Posted by: miguel at December 27, 2003 06:11 PM