A moment of clarity

A number of things have just occurred to me, the first of which being the Sisyphean task of putting off this blog until now. No excuses exist, and the neglect at times seemed willful on my part, leaving me feeling guilty about pissing on my favorite professor (full disclosure: this is not an attempt to lick the shit I continue to lay off anyone's boots but merely a statement of fact). I won't try and make any excuses, even though this already feels like one. Instead, I will simply make an apology. Scott, I'm sorry. I just wish you hadn't left the country because I would have liked to have done this in person. (Rereading this, it seems horribly awkward, but such is the nature of life, non?)

Now that that's over with, I will file my replacement blog for being "on assignment" in Columbus when the Ruhl and Payne shindigs went down. I titled this entry after the epiphanies attributed to alcoholics when they realize just what they are. While this is nothing so severe, I just realized exactly how democratic the Internet has made the media. Obviously, we've all known this for some time, from reading and thinking about it, but this is the first time it really hit home.

Given that I came across the blog post via Romanesko says something about media gathering in and of itself, but it was the content of the GM blog I came upon that really made me realize that newspapers may be doomed after all. It is an uncharacteristic post on a psuedo-PR site known more for its "Photos of the Day." The content is rather banal and self-serving, including the elucidating post, "The Ban on 'Rubbish' in the New York Times," but this does not detract from troubles it suggests.

Last week, Thomas Friedman wrote a column defaming GM and the automaker thought (rightly, I'd say) that it could publish a response in the letters section, especially given 4 letters in favor of the column were published. The paper, in one way or another, according to the GM blog, routed the attempts of the automaker's PR department, from fighting over word lengths to the final straw, the use of the word rubbish, which the paper deems inappropriate for its letters page. Friedman's article is compelling and it could be that the facts published in the letter are inaccurate, which is the beauty of a newspaper, but the fact is, the complaints still made it out into the (new) media landscape and got picked up by one of its most respected voices--er, does Romanesko really have a voice?

So the problem the major media now must contend with is the unlimited access everyone now has to capitol-m Media. We're all news makers, and while we may not be able to report on Iraq, we can certainly all address what's in front of our face. In the case of Brian Akre, that's GM. In my case, it will hopefully soon be Portland music. Does this mean we'll all bring our uninhibited and in many cases untrained biases to the table? Quite possibly. It's a sad and scary thought that news as she is known may some day explode into cacophony.

Postscript: I found the Friedman column sans Times Select, which serves as further proof of the liberating power of the Web and also the further threat it poses to fiduciary efforts on the part of traditional outlets. Don't get me wrong, I love the Times and would hate to see it go. I just have no idea how they could ever hope to keep this up.