You're Selling Truth

Knowing my colleague at Arizona State Dan Gillmor has expounded on this at length, there is a real need for the entrepreneurial aspect of journalism. I see it today locally with our recently laid off members of the media. What sparked the idea was a catch-up night of listening to Dennis Miller's podcast where he was interviewing Tucker Carlson. Late of the cable news channels, Carlson is on to a new blog-news site and mentioned he was getting ready to launch another on-line news project.

So there he was, selling the brand that was Tucker Carlson, promoting two business ventures and doing reviews and columns. Is he a journalist? In the old-school mentality of creating virtuous vessels for pursuit of the objective truth, no.

In the net media world, Carlson is the embodiment of punditry. Even in college sports coverage, who's the biggest name in the state of Alabama -- Finebaum. Multi-platform, multi-format presentation of reporting.

Is this a bad thing? No, and those who might cluck at the commerce aspect are painfully naive. The idealistic cub reporter was making coin for his publisher every day. Now, those roles can merge.

Is it dangerous? Think about it in these terms. When you go to the doctor, do you stop and think about the fact he is selling health? Really, when you get down to it, if the doc is any good, you pay for the service and for that practice to stay solvent, it better make money.

Members of the media sell truth. It is the primary commodity. Any person who moves from pundent to pedantic risks damaging the veracity of the main product.

We need to make sure we're teaching the rising generation that hard fact, as they may spend more of their working years operating closer to the 1920s hometown publisher/station owner model than the existing corporate media world