October 21, 2008
Ethical Conundrum Solved
Bloggers -- and I am not immune -- love to celebrate the missteps and economic failures of traditional media. The New York Times Stock Chart is a better laugh to me than all the comics the paper lacks. The disappearance of any viewers younger than 90 for the evening network snooze fests from Brokaw and Couric and Williams are chocolate covered frozen schadenfreude on a stick.
Yet, as news consumers and specifically as bloggers, we require a robust hard news reporting segment and would revel in moderately objective and accurate news gathering from the major dailies and networks.
I've got your ethical prescription: enjoy the demise of the Associated Press! Glenn Reynolds links to another daily dropping its subscription:
Unhappy with both the A.P. service and its price — more than $800,000 a year at a time when The [Columbus] Dispatch’s finances are severely pinched — the paper on Friday took the once-unthinkable step of saying it would drop the service.
The AP had led the way in bias and groupthink. Indeed, its very existence is anti-Hayekian, giving a few individuals massive control of the voice and direction of national newscasting. Papers could replace the AP's homogeneous, biased garbage with original reporting. And there are moves afoot to syndicate these features from the bottom-up instead of the top-down.
So feel free to cheer as the AP goes down in flames. Coverage won't get any worse -- and may well get better. Tell 'em jk says it's okay.