Learning How to Read

There has been a lot of talk about how the advent of social media and things like blogging has changed media, transformed writing and allowed for the rise of citizen journalists.  There has been some discussion about the responsibilities of writers in social media (including in this blog.)  There has been less discussion about the growing need to be a responsible reader.

When our primary news and information sources came from mainstream media (newspapers, television, books, radio) it got to us after having passed through several filters of journalists and editors.  These filters had many effects on the news we consumed, including the fact that a news story had to pass muster with numerous people to make it on the air or on the page.

With the explosion of "news" sources those filters are greatly reduced or removed altogether.  While this allows for more and more diverse voices and a more immediate access to information, it also allows for more deception, inaccuracies and lies to be paraded around as news and facts.  In the absence of editors, and probably despite them, we must learn to be more judicious and critical readers.

There has always been a difference in the reliability of news sources.  Walter Cronkite in the 60s and 70s was above reproach.  He signed off every newscast with "That's the way it was..." and it WAS the way it was!  Mostly because Walter Cronkite had said so!  I have no idea if Mr. Cronkite was any better of a journalist than the newscasters today.  I do know that he had the trust of the public.

To be a responsible consumer of media these days, you need to do more that to turn to wherever Walter Cronkite is broadcasting.  You need to assess the sources of the messages you are consuming.  Are they coming from a reputable journalist or a lonely writer (your truly included) who is expressing opinions without access to resources for fact checking and data inputs.

I do not mean to suggest that lonely writers are always less credible or that established journalists are more credible.  I am only urging that as a responsible reader, you should assess the "quality" of the source of the information you are consuming.  In a way it is no different than how you would judge a restaurant.  You can still get food poisoning from a restaurant with white tablecloths and four forks and you can eat the best burger you will ever find with a hole in the wall place with cracked linoleum floors and a creaky fan in the corner.  But those would be exceptions to the rule.

As readers in the internet age, we are no longer constrained about reading from our local sources of information.  While that means we can more easily learn about events in Bangladesh and popular music trends in Omsk, it also means we are reading from unfamiliar sources.

Ultimately, as with so many things, it comes down to trust.  As a responsible reader, you need to pay attention to your sources.  You need to figure out if you can trust the ramblings of a favorite blogger (ahem) or the anonymous sources of the established reporter.

You have the choice.  Choose wisely.

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New Year's Wish List

This is the time of year when bloggers and pundits and "experts" or all sorts make predictions for the new year.  I am not smart enough (nor arrogant enough) to come up with predictions.  Rather, I will present, for your enjoyment, my wish list for the new year.  None of these wishes have any specific relation to what I think is likely to happen.  It has no basis in reality.  It's just a silly little New Year's gift for you!

• I wish someone would figure out how to do a 24-hour news channel that actually provided 24 hours of news.  Just news.  For 24 hours.
• I used to have a watch that was self-winding.  It never needed a battery and always ran.  Why can't my cellphone work like that?
• Will 2013 be the year that it stops being called "new" media?
• I wish that marketers of poor products or weak messages would stop trying to compensate for both by being louder than anyone else.
• I hope, unrealistically, that the 2016 Presidential Race will take at least a year off before we start getting barraged with predictions, ads and news stories. 
• I hope that someone finds several unaired seasons of The West Wing, MASH, The Dick Van Dyke Show, The Mary Tyler Moore Show, Cheers and Saturday Night Live with the original cast.  And they are available for free.  Sorry Netflix.
• I hope that social media stops being the strategy and starts being a means to accomplish a strategy.
• I wish that someone would successfully clone Walter Cronkite and have him re-teach newscasters how to deliver the news.
• Since cloning is now available, I also hope someone clones Buddy Holly, Walter Payton, Abraham Lincoln (assuming that Daniel Day-Lewis is busy), Frank Capra, Martin Luther King, Jr., Mark Twain and Billie Holiday. 
• I hope that marketers will learn to embrace two-way communications and learn to seek out and embrace feedback from customers and non-customers, even negative feedback.
• I hope that Cubs fans no longer have to "wait until next year."  And I don't mean because the team goes out of business.
• I hope that we can go for a year without a prediction of the end of the world.  If there is such a prediction, I hope that the media is mature enough not to give it any attention.
• I hope 2013 brings more smiles and fewer tears.  More joy and less sorrow.  More life and less death.  More patience and less intolerance.  More growth and less destruction.
• I wish that you have a wonderful new year.  As my Dad always says during toasts, I wish you Peace, Prosperity, Happiness and Health! 

Have a Happy 2013!