Wednesday, January 02, 2008

Horse Race vs. Issues

ABC News partnered with Facebook to provide content via the US Politics application. Old news, I know. The content is interesting - ABC has off-air reporters traveling with each of the campaigns (I believe other networks do this as well). The reporters then blog their happenings via the application, share photos, video, etc. Users are able to follow their favorite reporter / candidate - essentially becoming their friend. However, the content thus far does nothing to improve the discourse and continues to shine the light on the horse race. Given these new tools and resources, why is the media still stuck within the guardrails of traditional media?

The networks are spending tens of thousands of dollars on initiatives such as these, but do we really care that Richardson spoke in Indianola this morning? Is that even entertaining? As the social media revolution continues, democracy is returning to the hands of the people. We are no longer restricted to sound-bite journalism and 30-second TV commercials. Entertainment certainly still sells, but so does valuable information. When will traditional media step up to at least attempt to deliver the cornerstone of journalism: objective information.

1 comment:

Ellie said...

Well written article.