Accountability?

Posted on July 05, 2011

134,000 results in 0.13 seconds. Type in "Varlamov signs with KHL". This is how media works today. Instant- fast - unaccountable. A Tweet is generated and recycled. It leaps to become a story. The story is then recirculated. It goes from online sources to great and established media entities; to newspapers, to cable to local television newscasts. The headlines morph from rumor to fact. It thus must be true. Just look at the headlines and see how rumor morphs to facts. The media gets manipulated by an overseas agent; and a freelance media rep. That was too easy wasn't it? But news moves so quickly. The media is off to the next story and rumor. So who cares? Who cares if the old pixels are incorrect? The monster was fed and the stories are disposable. The media awaits the next tasty morsel from the blogger. In the old days the generator of bad news would be put into the penalty box. In the new world there is no accountability and we await the next feeding. "Ted Leonsis's deleted blog post"-- 30,700 listings in 0.09 seconds. In the old days an established media journalist would call or email and ask "What is up?" What just happened with the blog post going down? What does this mean? But not today. There is an algorithm awaiting feeding. Controversy sells and being first to post matters. Being second to recycle is important to listings into Google crawlers. Deleting a blog post is BIG NEWS. We want our links to be linked back from 30,700 sites. Who cares if it was because of a typo and an editing process? Who cares if what was posted in my blog post turned out to be pretty accurate and transparent. It was more important to be first with the big news of a "deleted blog post". And so it goes. Jagr to DC-2011-71,000 listings; Jagr to Pittsburgh 2011-2,470,000 listings; Jagr to Philadelphia 2011-2,510,000 listings. All in less than a second. Permanently glued into the algorithm. Media have a big responsibility. A tough job; but a higher standard to execute against I believe. Being accurate and trusted is important. Providing context is crucial. It is more important than being "first to post". Off of my soap box now. Thank you.