All The News Fit to Browse

Peggy Drexler gives us a chilling take on the mind-set of the American journalism consumer with her McClatchy-Tribune distributed column. The gist of the Cornell psychology professor's column is that the cloud that is the media provides everything to the reader -- but not in the best of ways. It becomes incredibly easy to tune into the news that you want, rather than at times the news that you might need. Pointing to the political situation, it is easy to descend into a worm hole of reinforcing coverage to one's preconceived notions. Think Barack Obama is getting poor treatment because of race; there's a blog for that. Think Hillary Clinton is getting the shaft on gender; plenty of news coverage there. Think John McCain's getting the short end of opinion; lots of that too.

Where Drexler goes with this is a bit difficult to accept. The point is this new "mob" of media is bad, and that somehow we may be at fault. Can't agree. America's journalistic past was once dominated by the "party" press; newspapers funded by and supporting particular political groups or points of view. This is as old as our free press. The difference is the ease with which it may be started, and the low barrier to entry. From her column:

How can we blame The Media for stepping out of bounds when the lines have been washed awy like sidewalk calk in a rainstorm?

Better to say that the rain -- in the form of new technology -- has removed the artificial lines created by the professional media.