If Bloggers Ran The World
One of the most irritating memes I confront in the discourse that surrounds my work goes something like this: “If blogs continue to overtake the professional mainstream media, who is going to be left to keep a watchul eye on the government?”
Right. What a scary thought.
Just imagine:
If bloggers ran the world we’d be hearing about Michael Jackson’s doctor instead of learning about the opposition in Iran.
If bloggers ran the world we’d be hearing about the custody fight over Michael Jackson’s kids instead of learning the details of the withdrawal of U.S. combat troops from Iraqi cities.
If bloggers ran the world we’d be bombarded with the latest blather from Michael Jackson’s demented father instead of having been briefed on what led to the first coup in Central America in 16 years.
If bloggers rather the world we’d be swimming in the build-up to the viewing of Michael Jackson’s body instead of pondering the administration’s approval of indefinite detention.
We’d probably also be awash with “news” about Farah Fawcett and Billy Mays (unless of course Michael Jackson’s corpse passed gas that day).
Fortunately, we don’t have to fret over such exaggerated scenarios of rule by brainless bloggers. We don’t have to worry because that job is already taken.
As my colleague Jon Taplin points out, a new study by the Pew Center for Media reveals that 93% of all coverage on the cable networks last Thursday and Friday was about Michael Jackson.
Once excerpt of the report:
From the time it was announced
Jackson had died through the end of the day Friday—a little more than 28 hours—60% of the news coverage studied across 55 different news outlets was devoted to Jackson’s death. And that does not include the broadcast network prime time specials devoted to the singer’s demise—two of them for two hours Thursday night and one for a single—the extra hours of morning news and more.
All media sectors covered Jackson heavily, but it was cable news channels that led the way. Fully 93% of cable coverage studied on the Thursday and Friday following his death was about the King of Pop. On the front pages of Friday morning newspapers, 37% of their coverage was Jackson-related compared to 55% of the leading online coverage.
If anyone needed proof of how much the media culture has changed it might be this. When Elvis Presley died in 1977, CBS News was criticized for choosing not to lead its newscast with it.
Who needs bloggers anyway? Not only cable channels, but the MSM networks did a much better job burying us in Michael Jackson than did the New Media.
And it ain’t over yet.
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June 30th, 2009 at 6:55 pm
What you get, in every case, is some sort of special pleading about how the news should/ would/ will be reported in this way, not that way.
Marc Cooper makes X for doing Y.
How much does Marc Cooper make for doing whatever he does?
We will never know. But in fairness to Marc Cooper, he won’t disappear this post. He just won’t publish and admit to his income.
There is some sort of American Left-wingey view of the world, and how American money works, that will never be made available to millions of other Americans.
June 30th, 2009 at 7:42 pm
Hey Biff. Why don’t you just tune out? You’re irrational, pal.
June 30th, 2009 at 7:52 pm
Marc’s now posted twice about Michael Jackson, the first one an absolute throwaway which brought nothing to the dialogue. It sounds like both uncle reg and Cooper need to take this song to heart
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=1zpTQCQEFhg
June 30th, 2009 at 8:07 pm
Give the cable “news” networks their due. They are looking at a huge 24/7 pipe to fill, and they can’t fill it with news because the public doesn’t want it. So instead, they go with, well, “reality TV” except its about real people. It sells. They only do news during the time most people watch for news – early evening (which, since I’m on PDT/MST, means before I get home from work).
OTOH, if we look at the “real” journalists like WaPo, NYT, or LAT – there we see people attempting to do “news,” packaging it as such, and misinforming their readers on many topics far more than Cable News.
Journalism committed suicide by losing its standards and pretending to objectivity while not even attempting it; by pretending to tell you what is going on while not bothering to get even the most basic facts right. by putting opinion in what are purportedly “hard news” articles.
June 30th, 2009 at 9:13 pm
meanwhile, Honduras is controlled by US- armed military thugs
http://angryarab.blogspot.com/
(fewer Michael Jackson posts)
btw, I got your irony, Marc
June 30th, 2009 at 9:43 pm
Moore got it right.
June 30th, 2009 at 10:20 pm
Marc – you and your buddy Taplin have bracketed this well.
It just dawned on me that for the past few weeks, inclusive of the Dead Pop King’s dying, I been so busy with work stuff that I haven’t had time to think about the Dead Pop King. In fact, since the Pop King croaked, I have not had one single conversation with a colleague or any live human about MJ. It’s only been here on your blog that I’ve even exercised a brain cell over this guy. Does this mean that my inner inane media deflector immune system is fully intact? I swear the brain eaters aren’t going to get me!
Formal poll of my two cats on the death of the Dead Pop King — neither cat had any comment whatsoever. One motioned toward the litter box. Time to change up the grains…
I have more important duties to attend.
Go Bloggers!
June 30th, 2009 at 10:48 pm
Not really related to the summary of Jacko’s domination of media, but worth a gander: http://www.slate.com/id/2221856/
July 1st, 2009 at 5:06 am
I have never understood MJ’s popularity (or any “idol” that brings young ladies to tears when they go to a concert. I didn’t understand the mass adulation when Lennen was murdered, when Princess Diana died or when Jackson died. (comments from others that really liked MJ not-withstanding). I made a simple RIP post for Fawcett and Jackson (the Beauth and the Beast).
Marc, go on and admit to “Biff” that you get at least 10 million a year from the CIA and the Department of Defense. It’s easier than arguing against that kind of nonsense.
July 1st, 2009 at 5:46 am
http://www.salon.com/comics/tomo/2009/06/30/tomo/story2.jpg
I love money.
July 1st, 2009 at 6:23 am
Michael Jackson died? You’re kidding, right?
Well, at least we still have Elvis…
July 1st, 2009 at 6:26 am
“…(or any “idol” that brings young ladies to tears when they go to a concert)”
Damn, GM, still jealous of the Beatles after all these years?
July 1st, 2009 at 6:54 am
The mainstream (liberal) media is just playing to its stupid audience…the same audience that they cheered on to elect Obama.
What I do find half-way interesting and laughable in Mike Jackson’s death is the fighting for camera time by the race pimps. Revs. Sharpton, Jackson Jockey for Position in Michael Jackson’s Memorial Spotlight
- – -
Biff, the fact that Marc Cooper doesn’t disclose income from the CIA is all the more reason to suspect that he does receive it. (Paraprhasing Democratic claims about Reagan and the so-called October Surprise.)
July 1st, 2009 at 6:57 am
This post uses the term “MSM” very sloppily. What I think Marc is really going after is the cable networks, which are awful, and the regular network news, which are much better but still badly flawed. In his post he criticizes the entire “professional mainstream media.” But according to the report the only real terrible coverage came from the cable news networks. Printed media, online media, and radio all did a fine job of covering the story without going overboard. And the networks probably walked the line. In my view, this post should be more focused on the crappy cable news nets and less on news media in general.
July 1st, 2009 at 7:15 am
Mavis, no. Look at the charts and read into the Pew piece. The over the air networks carried way more Jackson crap than online sites did. Newspapers carried about the same. No one gets out of this alive. And since when is CNN and NBC-run MSNBC cable networks not MSM?
July 1st, 2009 at 8:09 am
I think the tremendous attention on MJ is not due to adulation – it’s due to curiosity. MJ was a complex and mysterious person, and it is natural to want to know more about who he really was. I know that I’m curious and find some of the shows interesting. In this case, real news is happening, as new information about his life, health and death comes out.
As to the event sin the world, perhaps part of the problem is the public is really tired of being lectured about how bad the US is and how bad everything is going (at least until The Messiah took office), and really don’t want to hear about foreign affairs – especially in a recession. MJ represents something interesting (sort of like finding a weird sea creature on the beach), and nothing at all threatening, depressing or guilt inducing.
July 1st, 2009 at 8:12 am
“I have never understood MJ’s popularity”
As it been discussed much of it had to do with timing (the emergence of MTV), genuine and undeniable talent, the lacklustre music and culture coming out in the era of Reagan and a lot of hype. Still I find it Jackson fans much easier to understand and far less toxic than those who were wooed and won over by a twit of a vice presidential candidate who most rational people would conclude was more than a little dence, could see Putin literally on the horizon and whipped up poor sovs when he accused others of pallin around with terrorists. There were even some who were so won over by this twit that they went agant longstanding oppostion to the McCaain ticket. Now those people are hard to understand
July 1st, 2009 at 10:28 am
Yeah Ahmed, I need lessons in life from Michael Jackson.
Good call…
July 1st, 2009 at 10:40 am
Incidentally Ahmed, having watched a tivo of the BET awards last night, I withdraw any criticism of Jackson’s beautifully executed fluffy stuff. After a wonderful OJay’s “Lifetime Achievement” segment that should have shamed most of the youngsters there, Lil Wayne and Drake proceeded to drive a poisoned spike into the soul of contemporary black music. A scumbag and a moron, respectively. What an embarrassing display…
Okay, I’ve got real shit to do. Sergio, GM, John Moore – welcome. The thread is yours. I’ve already laid out a small volume on this shit…and so glad John is enjoying the Jackson coverage on cable.
July 1st, 2009 at 10:48 am
Inflamed CNBC host calls bloggers ‘digital dickweeds’
July 1st, 2009 at 11:42 am
The MSM wants Michael Jackson all to itself.
Let’s Screw Up the Entire Internet to Save Newspapers
Well, does this work in reverse? If Matt Drudge gets wind of something, then will the newspapers be banned for 24-hours, too? Not likely.
July 1st, 2009 at 11:58 am
I’m sorry – I have to link this prime Jackson-related example of the death throes of conservative thought in the Palin era for Ahmed:
http://mediamatters.org/mmtv/200907010015
July 1st, 2009 at 12:40 pm
Limbaugh is right if he means that the black man progressed more under Reagan than under liberal policies. However, you would be correct in your criticism if your point was that Limbaugh was wrong if he inferred that M.J. was a black man rather than a white woman.
- – -
In the “Palin era,” as you referenced it, here are examples of liberal thought.
Baier: Purdum’s Vanity Fair Hit Piece Example of ‘Palin Derangement Syndrome’
PBS’s Bonnie Erbe Reiterates Her Palin Derangement
- – -
For you, reg, an example of liberal craziness from one of your favorite sources:
Paul Krugman has a problem with representative government and people expressing views other than his own – views which, in fact, could save our economy from one of the biggest mistakes and taxes in our nation’s history – the “cap and trade.” He’s an economist?!
July 1st, 2009 at 1:00 pm
“And since when is CNN and NBC-run MSNBC cable networks not MSM?”
They are part of it, but using the term MSM implies the whole group, including newspapers and, perhaps, radio are culprits. Not the case. On the merits, clearly the cable news networks went way overboard. I’m not sure whether the regular nets coverage wasn’t more defensible. And as the survey notes, interest online was very high: people searching for Michael Jackson crashed google.
July 1st, 2009 at 2:38 pm
The MSM still has influence over internet stories.
Wikipedia held page hostage to protect captive NYT reporter
But, the NYT has no problem telling terrorists how we follow their international money transactions. I suppose the life of one of their reporters is more important to them than the lives of thousands of other Americans.
The blogs and internet sites provide a lot of information that the MSM doesn’t want us to see.
July 1st, 2009 at 2:54 pm
Marc: 93% of all coverage on the cable networks last Thursday and Friday was about Michael Jackson.
But wait! There’s more! Karl Malden has traded his AMX card for a golden harp.
Oscar-winning actor Karl Malden dies at 97
Or, as his friends know him, Mladen Sekulovich.
July 1st, 2009 at 3:18 pm
I would venture I’m not alone in wishing the percentage of the newshole devoted to Jackson’s passing was closer to 1 percent. But to piggyback on Mavis’ point, sections of the PEJ report noted how Google and Twitter temporarily crashed under the weight of user interest in Jacko’s death. That’s a relatively reliable metric of public interest in a given topic, at least among the nominally internet-savvy crowd. With that in mind, I’m a little surprised Marc would try to shoehorn the PEJ study into an MSM v. New Media argument. It would seem to me that both the public and the MSM’s obsession with Jacko’s death is an indictment of a culture amusing itself to death more than anything else.
To Marc’s initial point, I think Paul Starr does a decent job of defending the “irritating meme” that there’s potential negative consequences if professional public-service journalism withers and dies in his TNR piece “Goodbye to the Age of Newspapers (Hello to a New Era of Corruption).”
July 1st, 2009 at 3:33 pm
Last one and I’ll stop.
Just one more thing that the mainstream media failed to report but could be found on a blog — World’s Leading Internet Evangelist Claims Michael Jackson is in Hell
Who would’ve guessed?
July 1st, 2009 at 4:44 pm
Marc Cooper once called me “seriously unhinged” for reminding him of his Impeachment era interview with Hitchens, where he told us he could never again think too unkindly on those southern politicos who had just shown their true, admirable colors. Forget Jim Crow, in other words, you have found redemption n the Clinton Hunt.
Looks like it’s time to get a bit unhinged again. Coop’s faluire to bring up Mark Sandford shows that in my long standing accusation that “equal opportunity offender” Cooper delt to liberals from the bottom of the deck was spot on. MAYBE we could have let him off the hook at first , but it turns out Lindsey’s Impeachment buddy lied his butt off the other day. Back in the day, Coop pretty much took the right’s part:
It’s about the lying you understand.
This is how journalists like Cooper put W in the White House, and makes his absurd attempts on blaming W on Clinton truly, deeply unhinged.
On a happier note, this post is spot on, a hundred percent correct. If more people had been on the internet back in the 90s, Ken Starr’s fiasco, the Whitwater hoax, it all would have been impossible. Liars like Hitchens would still have been flapping their gums, but more people would have been able to see through their garbage. The dying “Mainstream” press is paying for it’s sins.
July 1st, 2009 at 8:03 pm
As if this is anything new. Society has always been interested in trivia and the unusual. There’s nothing new or worse about the fascination with MJ. Think circus freak shows and similar things going back through all of history.
July 1st, 2009 at 10:19 pm
Woody can’t tell the difference between “liberal thought” and a GOP circular firing squad. Even Bill Kristol acknowledges the Vanity Fair piece exposing Palin as a natural disaster is sourced by people who were McCain insiders, including his campaign manager.
You’re full of shit once more, Woody. You’re as putrid as the rotting corpse known as “the GOP.”
Oh, and what about all of those liberals trying to take down the Great Hope of Conservatives, the dynamic, principled, God-fearing Mark Sanford ? I guess that’s liberal Sanford Derangement Syndrome – somehow being driven by GOP cranks like Jim DeMint. (I want a Palin-Sanford ticket in 2012. Dream team… They could finance the entire campaign just by selling the movie rights to Lifetime Television.)
What a bunch of losers. And worse…sore losers driving themselves even further into their little ditch.
Goodnight Gracie…
July 1st, 2009 at 10:38 pm
Forget all all this useless noise.Wholly off topic but this is by far the most enduring news story I’ve read in some time. If only all of us had a wee bit of the decency, humility and compassion that this man has then surely humanity would be far better off
http://www.nytimes.com/2009/06/28/world/middleeast/28westbank.htm
July 1st, 2009 at 10:47 pm
Just listened to the media matters link from reg. As another quintessentially American figure Don King would say “only in America”, Limbaugh is frankly a creep and perhaps a pathological one at that. As Herman Melville set forth in The Confidence Man, America is nothing if not a land where hustlers, grifters, con artists, and slicksters grease the wheel of populism, where the shadow often is the substance and where even those who’ve come to peddle the righteous Truth realize they need to get some hustle up in their game, too.
July 1st, 2009 at 11:00 pm
Hey, Thirdcharmer, are you blind? Or just thick-headed?
http://marccooper.com/mark-sanfords-own-little-stimulus-package/
July 2nd, 2009 at 5:43 am
reg Says:
July 1st, 2009 at 10:40 am
Okay, I’ve got real shit to do.
That’s by far the funniest thing this internet trolling lunatic shut-in has ever blabbered.
July 2nd, 2009 at 7:23 am
Best shot ? Pretty lame for a moron who yammered about going to the Bill Maher show as having some social significance. You’re on the sidelines of life, little man. You prove that with the room-temperature IQ evident in your serial shit-fits about nothing.
I have to say that the funniest thing on this thread was your cueing Marc that you “got” the irony of his post. No shit ? Marc’s post was ironic ? Who knew ? You’re as mindless, one-dimensional and predictable as Woody. No go do some “real shit” – if you can figure out what that might be.
July 2nd, 2009 at 7:44 am
reg: “Goodnight Gracie…”
reg, you brought a smile to my face. I can still see George Burns and Gracie Allen:
Burns: “Say goodnight Gracie.”
Allen: “Goodnight Gracie.”
July 2nd, 2009 at 9:45 am
And, appropriate for you, reg — “Say goodnight, Dick.” Here comes da judge, here comes da judge….
- – -
He had so much potential — Michael Jackson – Math Genius This must have been how he balanced his spending.
July 2nd, 2009 at 1:02 pm
Well, I’m afraid that we won’t learn from bloggers or the conventional media that the opposition in Iran is socially isolated and not in a pre-revolutionary state.
July 2nd, 2009 at 1:41 pm
…or that we have “Mission Accomplished.”
July 2nd, 2009 at 4:48 pm
…or that we have “Mission Accomplished.”
Now *that*, Sergio, is irony.
July 2nd, 2009 at 5:43 pm
“GM Roper Says:
July 2nd, 2009 at 7:44 am
reg, you brought a smile to my face.”
That’s no fun…
(just kidding. Irony, etc. etc. I’ve got all I can handle on this thread with Sergio…)
July 2nd, 2009 at 6:16 pm
This thread is beyond dead and absurd, so here I go
“Pretty lame for a moron who yammered about going to the Bill Maher show as having some social significance.’
You’ve now brought this up a number of times. Can you provide the quote and context this was in. As for Ropes, maybe I’m being a bit hard. Obviously post election you became aware that you had devolved into a completely unhinged character who needed a break or exile from this place for sometime before you reemerged. I hope you’ve calmed down and welcome back, although if your blog where commentators reduce Israel/Palestine to racist idiotic statements like “arab are liars”, statements which are met with silence or approval, then perhaps your go at it here will end in the same kind of embarassment. Lets hope not. cheers
July 3rd, 2009 at 10:14 pm
Marc:
I realize that this is a minor point, but I wanted to ask for a reconsideration of the use of the term “meme.” I can remember when it was introduced (by Dawkins maybe?) something like twenty years ago, and it was intended to refer to ideas that propagated the way life forms propagate — sort of an early construction of the “viral” idea. The ideas behind catholicism were the main subject matter in the original formulation if I recall correctly, and it was intended to model the way some ideas get locked into human thought and never quite go away. I believe that the word was invented to model a much more tenacious (and pernicious) thought-parasite than an everyday political thought or argument that happens to be making the rounds. Satan and hell-fire are memes in the original sense, whereas concern over the loss of paid journalism is a rational concern.