Skip navigation

 Login or Register | Member Centre

Way more news sites, way less news

RUSSELL SMITH

From Thursday's Globe and Mail

Latest comment posted at 1:32 PM EDT 08/04/08

What we've ended up with is a million sources reporting the same story ...Read the full article

This conversation is closed

  1. National Action Committee on the Status of Elvis in Canada from Ottawa, Canada writes: The web does gives us more choice, notwithstanding the article. The choices today are infinite because now we have access to the world and to what they consider important: instead of the GM and the National Post, why not try El Mercurio, the Times of India, El Pais or Le Monde? They do have a different perspective. For examle, there is no question that the Canadian media gives short shrift to Latin America unless it's a story about Castro or Chavez. This means most Canadians never read or hear about the real progress taking place in Latin America, just a lot of media hysteria designed to sell newspapers or web advertising.
  2. Rusty Waters from Canada writes: Digitaljournal is the way the news is heading now, where people can write their own news and get paid for it. Most people has lost interest in the repatative news on every site and station and since the Irag War, the obvious cowardness of the Mass Media to report the truth. The educated public knows now that the major networks are just arms of polictal parties, thus no one trusts them.
    http://www.digitaljournal.com/
  3. Dan Shortt from Toronto, Canada writes: That's why I don't cast votes on the "recommend this story" option at the end of G & M articles.

    Most likely, the "recommended" stories float to the top of the page, while those stories with fewer votes get buried.
  4. Craig Cooper from Toronto, writes: The internet-as-media thing is bullsh*t. It is a hype machine feeding it's own brouhaha. Ever notice that the only "success" stories give their services away for free?
  5. Craig Cooper from Toronto, writes: Rusty Waters are you insane? If I want to know about Iraq (for instance) I want real news, not the opinions of know-nothings who have never been there. Hello, fantasyland!
  6. Daniel Roy from Toronto, Canada writes: Craig Cooper, if you think you get the "real" story when reading or watching the mainstream news, I recommend you read "Manufacturing Consent" (by Noam Chomsky and another guy I forget the name), and you will see how these "real news" are produced, especially when it involves war! (hint for you: press conferences and press releases by the army).
  7. James S from Mississauga, Canada writes: I agree completely with

    National Action Committee on the Status of Elvis in Canada from Ottawa,

    There is far more choice and access to so many varied perpectives on events. We can get left, right, and center perspectives on most events; read them, and decide for ourseleves. The scope is amazing. If anyone thinks we have broad-based coverage in Canadian and US media, you are fooling yourself. Remember 80% of the time its not the factual event that matters, but rather the cause, the impact, the repercussions etc.
  8. mark bowden from Canada writes: i think this entire article was biased and self-serving. i go to a lot of different sites and they are the ones that concentrate on stories their readers want more of. a daily covers as many stories as possible and if readers flock to the "britney" site, that's what you're gonna get more of.

    the smaller sites i visit ignore the "britney" stories because their readers aren't interested but they concentrate on the news their readers go for.
    to say that it is "available" to msm is so true. the msm usually give it a 2 line blurb and get to the "ham and eggs." msm has to do this to make a dollar, but don't ignore the "specialists" who bring a "full" story of that 2 line blurb.
  9. Amy Lavender Harris from Toronto, Canada writes: There are several things missing from this analysis. The first is that traditional media were very slow to create online presences for themselves, and did so only once it became clear they were losing market share to blogs and other nontraditional media sources. In this sense 'citizen' journalism deserves considerable credit for showing the way.

    At the same time, the article undervalues the equally considerable role of blogs and other nontraditional media in opening up space for discussion, rebuttal, soap-boxing, radical or otherwise disenfranchised voices, and so on. This too has altered the face of news media, and even the Globe has belatedly if inconsistently made provision for comments, including the one I am typing now.

    I agree, however, that more sources seem to report less news. However, I would tie this not primarily to herd mentality among online readers eager to 'vote' for articles they think should be popular, but also to increasingly narrow monopolies among media corporations who publish the same news in many locations and who have replaced on-the-ground journalists with text borrowed from the Wire services.
  10. Hugh Draper from Vancouver, Canada writes: You get what you pay for.

    It would be nice if urban dailies didn't litter the transit system.
  11. Shawn Petriw from Prince George, Canada writes: It depends on what kind of "news" you're looking for.

    TechCrunch has a tonne of news relevant to me, and BuzzMachine has lots of commentary on the news (and the news business) I appreciate.

    Facebook gives me news about my friends.

    I think the problem is the author's limited definition of "news." In some publishing circles, the definition used to be "News is what people are taking about." The problem for the old media is the definition of "people" has changed - it's been fractured from an undifferentiated mass to a million different tribes.

    So when one of the dancers from the local studio posts a great video from the dance festival, that is news that is very interesting and relevant to me and many of her friends, and something I can't get from MSM.

    Multiply that by a million times a day and you'll soon understand there is plenty of new news, and you'll understand why MSM struggles to "get it."
  12. Albin Forone from Canada writes: I'd agree with RS there is a developing concentration of what one could call "formal" or "institutional" news reporting, which may to some extent mean credible and accountable, witness the announcement that CBS may start outsourcing CNN and reduce its direct international reportage. I'd agree with others that there are more "informal" sources than ever, but they do require even more personal effort to aggregate, decode and evaluate than the formal ones do, unless one wants to join some blogger's cult following. There's also a problem of "monetizing" news and informed or expert comment, with various experiments going on but no obvious solution. So, it's a difficult problem. Nonetheless, most of us don't feel under-informed, but rather better informed than we ever were.

Comments are closed

Thanks for your interest in commenting on this article, however we are no longer accepting submissions. If you would like, you may send a letter to the editor.

Report an abusive comment to our editorial staff

close

Alert us about this comment

Please let us know if this reader’s comment breaks the editor's rules and is obscene, abusive, threatening, unlawful, harassing, defamatory, profane or racially offensive by selecting the appropriate option to describe the problem.

Do not use this to complain about comments that don’t break the rules, for example those comments that you disagree with or contain spelling errors or multiple postings.

Movie Reviews

Globe Insider Lock members can read movies review going back to 1977.

Or view recent movie reviews

Back to top