craigslist - the new drudge report?

[smoothmoniker]

This is interesting to me. In many ways, I think the "new media" (or whatever you want to call talk radio + blogs + drudge + whatever) explosion and the collapse of institutional media (LA Times, NBC Nightly News, etc.) parallels the collapse of the music industry major labels.

Under the old system, people looked to the major distributors for content. If you wanted news, or music, the only consistent and reliable method of getting it was from the major distributor. With that, you had to accept whatever editorial, perspectival choices they made about content. Which bands got signed, developed, marketed, and distributed relied heavily upon those editorial choices by the major distributors.

All of that has changed now. It's entirely possible to listen to music that you like 24 hours a day and never once support an major distributor, or be bound by their editorial choices. It's possible now to get news content from hundreds of places without having to be reliant upon one perspective.

So what's the value of the major distributors these days? I think it's in exactly that role that we pound them fore: editorial and perspectival choices. If you like schmarmy piano music, you probably don't want to sift through 200 records to find the one that you like, but you may have developed a relationship with Wyndham Hill - if they release it, there's a good chance that it will be something that you like. If you're into indie rock, you probably don't want to listen to 900 CDs that 900 guys smoking weed did in their moms' basements on tape recorders. But you may have cultivated a relationship with a particular internet radio streamer, and you trust that the content they deliver will be something you enjoy.

I think the same thing holds with news. When I see the tagline from NY Times, or from NBC Nightly News, I expect a different level of accuracy, of research, and of scope than I would expect from newsy blogger dot com. Their value is specifically in their editorial acumen. I may see a news story on 50 blogs with conflicting details and sketchy analysis, but if I see one story on it in the NY Times, that carries more weight.

I think this is exactly why there was such outcry over Dan Rather and the faked documents - they violated our expectation of editorial standards. How many times do bloggers get it wrong? How many times has Drudge released a bogus report? Why is there no outrage? Because there is no expectation of accuracy.

-ml