It has become increasingly apparent that we wait in vain for mainstream media to wake up. Even the name should make the reason why obvious: they are part of the media, a synonym for the entertainment industry. Instead of being watchdogs looking out for the peoples' interests and journalists writing the first draft of history, they have become complicit in the propagandistic games those in power play to maintain their power. The quest for profits, and thus ratings, has thoroughly adulterated the ability of the fourth branch of government to keep accurately informed, threatening the very foundation of our Democratic Republic.
We can no longer afford to delude ourselves that there is a functioning national press with a wide audience. It took a disaster of biblical proportions to shake up and shame the talking heads who call themselves journalists into action, for however short a time it will last, and they will inevitably slip back in to what has become their accustomed role: tools of distraction ("infotainment") and propaganda.
I will attempt to examine our options below the fold.
The first solution that immediately springs to mind is the blogs. Sadly, the overall signal to noise ratio and echo chamber effect makes this unworkable for reaching the normally passive masses. Blogs also suffer from the passivity of the posters. With the exception of a few posters some of the time, blogs are like giant jellyfish - anything that happens to drift within their tendrils gets sucked up and processed, but it does not actively hunt (sorry if I'm factually incorrect about the behavior of jellyfish). Sadly, to save costs much of the media masquerading as a press operates the same way. Where blogs have an advantage is that they're much bigger than any news organization. That way, even with a low efficiency of original information per member, they can amass a lot of it.
B logs are part of the solution but they are not sufficient. Don't get me wrong when I say that, though. E Pluribus Media and others have done a bang up job putting together facts and even investigating stories the media couldn't be bothered with. Those involved should continue with their excellent work in the future. I simply feel that more is needed than volunteers can be reasonably expected to provide.
We need a funded organization expressly purposed with gathering and disseminating reliable information. This sounds vaguely like Media Matters, but not quite. Correct me if I'm wrong, but Media Matters has the same shortfall that blogs do in that they are a research organization. They simply reprocess what is available from other sources. They serve a valuable function in exposing the media for what it is and providing accurate information, but they, too, are not sufficient. We need original content, especially video, audio, and pictures targeted at that goal and others. We need to be able to vouch for the accuracy of that content and we need people who aren't afraid of losing access to gather it.
Some possible tactics that such a funded organization can use includes:
- Having a staff of investigative journalists for gathering information through traditional channels and write articles based on information gathered through all of the organization's channels.
- Hiring private investigators to gather information through less traditional channels.
- Equipping "observers" to gather information under cover (essentially outfitting innocuous people with spy sized audio and video gear to record what they observe in public places for posterity).
- Setting up media servers (using bittorrent or something similar to keep bandwidth costs down) to disseminate the information as widely as possible.
- Aiding in the dissemination of information from non-anonymous sources (for instance, people taking pictures in New Orleans who would have no prior affiliation).
- Attempting to substantiate information from anonymous sources, but never citing them without substantiation.
The point is that because the organization will not have stock holders it won't be beholden to a profit motive. Also, because it is not funded by the government it doesn't have to worry about getting its funds cut off for telling the truth to power. Granted, it will still need funds and will thus have conflicts of interest, but as long as it is up front about them I doubt that it could do any worse than what we presently have.
I think that everyone acknowledges that the budding Vast Left Wing Conspiracy needs think tanks. Just think of this as the independent (of outside parties) fact gathering arm necessary to keep us Reality Based.
Would that be enough to fix the lack of a press of national scope? I can't say. It is obvious, however, that we need the ability to gather and expose the facts that the media will not, that think tanks cannot, and that blogs are unlikely to.