...but does it matter if no one is listening anymore?

Reason Online and TCS provide us with a rundown of the MSM's retreat from hyperbole in the wake of Katrina's devastation...but as most who follow news stories to their logical conclusion are well aware, once the public's interest has moven on, such efforts are often too little, too late. The perception has been established...and is now reality. Most casual observers of the news will never make the effort to reevaluate those first impressions.

The immediately obvious problem with disaster coverage is not so much that it tends toward inaccuracy (although it certainly does) but that the media tends to breathlessly jump to the next story before taking a thorough enough look at their own initial assessments and redefining them before they become set as matters of public record. But that's understandable. There's a whole world of news to be covered out there. Spending too much time shooting holes in one's own "breaking news" accomplishments is certainly not the best approach to building a faithful following of readers.

So what's the REAL problem? As consumers and producers of media (and opinions), we are still struggling to properly employ the new tools of the Information Age. I've actually touched on this subject previously in addressing the 'lessons learned' from Vietnam and the disconnect between Arab and American reporting on events in and around Iraq.

The vast quantities of information available...and the reading public's general desire to believe 'ground truth' (in the form of on-the-spot reporting, blogs from 'the front lines,' or anything else that avoids the supposed taint of processing by a larger body (be it government or MSM)) create a situation in which we can effectively shape 'news' to fit our personal views without ever getting particularly close to understanding the larger context of an issue. This trend was explored in considerable depth here. So the question continues as the Information Age advances...how can we turn these additional sources of information into a better understanding of issues rather than a method of confirming pre-conceived notions?

Of course, my more cynical side notes the front page efforts still being committed to pointing out governmental errors don't quite match the back page efforts to point out error-prone reporting....

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Katrina
Reason Magazine
Epic 2014
Information Age