This link has a James Fallows essay on the problems the media currently faces. It comes by way of Matt Yglesias.
Of course, I don’t know if one can define the “media” in a consistent way, but it’s insightful. It suggests that aside from being recently idealogically driven (like FOX news), they’ve also lost touch with what they’re able to do and become lazy.
As much as I may disagree with Bill Moyers, man of the people, he seems to be an example of what many journalists can strive for nowadays. 60 minutes is still pretty good too.
Is journalism really a subject worthy of its own college degree?
Addition: Perhaps journalism is a subject worthy of study, but one that suffers from too much institutionalization. Journalism can be very important, but only if news outlets gather enough resources to have journalists gather facts, pursue leads and interpret them usefully to the public. Most blogs aren’t exactly meeting this standard.
Note to Self: Beware of people who want to control or blame “the media”, even those like Moyers who work hard to make it better. Usually, they are not willing to think through their own ideas.
chr1