It's the content, stupid!

Rayne Today

RadioFreeBlogistan is a sponsor of The Paper Chase, a short-term initiative to promote news that might otherwise be squashed or under-presented by the mainstream media.

But why do we have to resort to alternative, self-help methods to get the news out? Why can't we rely on traditional media outlets to do this for us?

Unfortunately, the average American media consumer is unaware of the forces that have eaten this country's Fourth Estate. They are unaware that ownership is highly concentrated; they are unaware that corporate owners publish profitable infotainment instead of unprofitable news.

Hence the popularity of certain fake news outlets; they provide what their niche market wants in order to make a buck, but not what the public needs. Real news is simply a public service they can't afford to offer; it doesn't pay the bills, makes them no friends within their real constituency, corporate advertisers. Even newsmakers have no care for news; for them it's all about the spin. If a man-whore with a fifty-dollar two-day certificate in journalism represents the newsmakers' chosen delivery boy, is it really news they're making any more? (Really, if this isn't the mainstream media's ultimate shark-jumping moment, I don't know what is...)

Dan Gilmor and Jay Rosen discuss the death of media, but their interdependent monologues are mere semantics. Whatever their pronouncement, the outcome remains the same: le media sont morte, vive l'infotainment!

It's now far more important to discuss the reason why the deceased became an ex-media, rather than if the patient could be revived. The answer is simple.

It's the content, stupid!

Those of us who are real consumers of news left the media. We took our disposable income with us and left the marketplace for the same reasons we've left television programming. We've begun to hack our own solutions to fill the void that mainstream media once filled. The brick-and-mortar media can try to catch up, but it's more likely that something altogether new will be born from our hacking.

What we're hacking together is a new media that meets us, doesn't condescend to us, doesn't treat us as secondary customers. We're creating something understands us to be intelligent and demanding, something as flexible and fluid as our lifestyle, something as immediate and intimate as the technology we adopt. Content must fit us, both in value and in delivery.

The mainstream media spends its time wringing its collective hands at its perceived impending death, indulging in an oh-woe-is-me pity party. Get over it. If media is still a business, it's time to catch the Cluetrain and have a sadly missing dialogue with the market.

We don't want watered-down pap, spin or propaganda; we can smell bullsh*t from a mile away. We get proof of bullsh*t with every cam-phone shot, every MP3 audio recording, disseminated around the world in seconds. We don't want your interpretation of the truth; we can do that for ourselves, discuss it globally with our blogbuddies. Get us the unvarnished truth or we'll find a way to do it ourselves.

We don't want timing to be dictated to us, either. Sure, our elderly parents and grandparents are waiting at the front door for the paperboy to deliver the paper at four o'clock sharp every weekday, calling the Circulation Desk if it's even a few minutes late. Unfortunately, they're dying off, this most reliable and accessible market; there won't be anybody waiting for the paperboy. Nor will there be anybody in the armchair in front of the television, getting their steady drip of cable-fed infotainment. We're out here, earning a living, living a life, unfettered by the constraints of time although in ready reach of technology. Meet us where we are or we will leave you behind. (Hint: we've been pulling away from your station for years. You are already behind.)

Nor will we accept day-old crap as a valuable commodity. There's no reason at all why the media can't give us real-time information with analysis on the fly; heck, we can get a report of an earthquake in Indonesia from internet sources faster than we can from traditional media. Why would we bother with the media if that's the case? Can the mainstream media give us a compelling reason why they should be consulted instead of other resources?

Can they give me a compelling reason why we should part with our hard-earned cash for anything they offer?

Look at what we're doing with TiVo and iPod; we're constructing an on-demand system that provides only the media we want without all the other detritus. We're stripping away all that carefully crafted marketing schtick, consuming it as we want, without constraints dictated by a third party. Give us something we want to rip and burn and we'll talk.

Otherwise, we're going to continue to find ways to bypass the mainstream media; we're going infect others who are ripe for conversion. We're going to let them know you've been feeding them crap on your terms. We've taught them how to use their VCR's and now their DVD players; surely we can teach them how to pull a podcast or to program their DVR's.

So, dear mainstream media: quit moaning and clue in.