One of those Heavy Issues I Teased Earlier or 100 Post!!

I've been thinking about where the media is heading. That Publish2 contest was part of it. (I think I lost that by the way. Oh Well.) But even before that I've been a little concerned about the future.

I'm definitely not part of the old media who is scared of change, but I'm also not part of the opposite side of the spectrum. I don't worship at the alter of the Internet. I see it's problems and I see how to fix it. Not to stroke my own ego, but I think that might have lost me the contest. Publish2 is 100% into the internet, and I wrote about how that's not necessarily the best thing to do. (Please don't take this as me bashing on the website or upset about loosing.)

But, like everything else good in the world, the internet is far more complicated than most people like to think.

A lot of people often argue about the use of advertising in the media. The argument is that advertising will effect the news. Meaning: If a company advertises in a newspaper, the newspaper is less likely to report on bad news about that company.

This is a flawed argument by people who don't know the inter-workings of a newspaper office. Advertising and Reporting are two separate sections of the office. Reporters don't know what ads will be used and advertisers have no idea what the news will be. And no one knows what the finished product looks like until they read there newspaper. There are moments in history where this balance was corrupted, but too few to be anything but exceptions.

The interesting part of new media is also what I have the biggest problem with. A lot of these podcasts and what-not are produced by one person or at most a small group. This destroys the balance perfected by years and years of the old media. Now the reporter, director, writer, and advertiser are all the same person.

A few podcasts I listen to do advertising like early television. When they would stop in between stories to talk about cigarettes, "Ohhh-that smooth flavor." And then go back to the show.

The biggest problem I see with new media is that the internet wants to forget the lessens old media learned long ago. Maybe like a teenager, the internet needs to learn the lessons for its self. And old media needs to let go and hope the growing-pains doesn't kill it.