MUITO BOM! A ler, todo.
Is Media Performance Democracy?s Critical Issue? Now just because I have a white beard and a long resume doesn?t mean that I?m going to stand up here and regale you with stories about the good old days of newspapers. The most fundamental reason for this is that except for a few places ? newspapers owned by civic-minded families in St. Louis, Louisville, Des Moines, Nashville, and Hartford come to mind ? the good old days weren?t so good. [...]
I care about journalism down to the marrow of my bones ? it?s in my DNA ? but without democracy meaningful journalism is impossible. And vice versa. That?s why I?m here today, answering the call to address the question, ?Is media performance democracy?s critical issue??
Well, my answer is yes. [...]
Citizens who have no access to serious journalism about the issues that are relevant to their lives end up awash in the propagandistic opinion media and in the sound bite vapidity of standard broadcast news. Without serious journalism that they can read to equip them with facts and engage their reason, some respond to this sorry state by disenfranchising themselves in hopelessness; others vote the opinions drilled into them by the manipulative cable news diatribes. [...]
Many of us think about citizen journalism and blogs as the saviors of democracy, and while they certainly have impact and show lots of promise, so far they reach a much smaller and much more rarefied audience than daily newspapers. We talk of readers as the audience, as the users, and as the people formerly known as the audience, believing that they are participants in the news process now. It?s much more accurate to say that some are participants now, and to acknowledge that the majority do not participate, and that no small number never will. Many of us are committing the marketing sin of thinking the customers are like us. Some are like us, but most citizens are less educated than us, and make less money than us, and have far more uncertainty in their lives.[...]
Media performance really is democracy?s critical issue. Much responsibility rests on us. If we can?t do better ? lots better ? I fear for our nation?s future.
