Marketing Technology

They must have put something in the sherry at The Times this Christmas. In today’s anti-Internet edition (ironically, littered with adverts for their own online services) their leader column lashes out at bloggers:

Many [bloggers] are unsophisticated, prejudiced, conspiracy-obsessed, hyperinflated and plain wrong.

Unlike newspapers, of course. But it doesn’t stop there. They even take a pop at the BBC:

The stories [on the BBC website] are often unamended agency copy without any attribution given to Reuters, Agence France-Presse or the Associated Press. Such a muddled and muddied provenance merely encourages cynicism about large news organisations.

And Google isn’t immune either:

But newspapers also suffer by offering free access to the fruits of their journalism while Google grows rich.

I had to dry my eyes at this point. They argue that “good journalism matters more than ever. Without it we as a society will reach the wrong conclusions about important questions.” I agree. What I find rich is the implication that only newspapers like The Times will help us reach the right conclusions.

Good journalism, as opposed to citizen journalism, does not just happen. [my emphasis]

It is pretty clear from this and other items I have read that mainstream media is trying to distance itself from consumer-generated media by claiming the accuracy and fact high ground. They try to demote citizen journalism to chitter-chatter, which may be fast and easy to access but couldn’t possibly be trusted. I think this is fine, but you have to be pretty damn sure you can live up to it.

In the case of The Times, they’re not doing too well, if this recent correction is anything to go by:

Strong comments supporting the execution of Stanley “Tookie” Williams posted by a reader on Mark Pincus’s blog were erroneously attributed to Mr Pincus (Blogs pass judgment, World News, December 14). We accept that these were not the views of Mr Pincus, who has campaigned in defence of Mr Williams and condemns capital punishment. We apologise for the error.

Comment or fact? I’ll let you decide.