The Mass Media Industrial Complex

By MJ

Supposedly these blogs keep the media in line. That in turn garners America’s favorite form of questioning: Who keeps the blogs in line? It wasn’t until I had more of an urge to begin my morning reading blogs instead of my daily dose of newspapers did I realize the extent of this new form of information. Now I can’t help but believe that the way people get their news has been forever altered.

This isn’t anything new, however. The fast paced world that we live in demands for new, and not always improved, ways to live life. Like how radio replaced the standard form of written news and television replaced radio, it is the Internet and its plethora of outlets that media once again has taken on a new form. But is this new “who can blog it first” era really media? And are bloggers really journalists?

Now even the old media (newspaper, radio, television) has blogs. Journalists everywhere have started their own blogs to keep pace with those who keep pace with them. All of this has led to a craze, I think, that has resulted in a lower standard of journalism- old journalism that is. Blogs operate in much the same way as the market. It all depends on who can develop it first and get it out there for people to consume. What has happened though, is that the old media is trying to operate like a blog. That’s fine, if you want to only be the first at everything and not necessarily right (i.e., Dan Rather, the NY Times’ run up to the Iraq War, Fox News- this one doesn’t need an explanation.).

For blogs it’s much more simpler. They can be quick and wrong and it’s no big deal. That’s why I don’t consider the majority of bloggers to be journalists. Blogs can also sit back and watch over the media and fact-check it to its knees. The old media doesn’t have the comfort of waiting anymore, because if they do they miss the chance to be the first, the loudest, and also the first to change the subject to something else. This new age of media information has created what I call the Mass Media Industrial Complex.

This Mass Media Industrial Complex doesn’t really benefit anyone. Sure it allows for the normal, everyday, current events expert to posts his/her opinion, but it also has placed media in the hands of those who do not have that moral obligation and respect that professionally trained journalists have been engrained to adhere to. Now some will say that the journalists already lost that obligation and that is why blogs are leading the charge for accuracy in journalism. Well, in a way that is correct, but if the old media would quit acting like new-age blogs then they would not be forfeiting their journalistic duties.

Much like the Military Industrial Complex, the Mass Media Industrial Complex will change society in all its forms. But let this be the first and quickest blog to warn the world of its dangers.