Reflections on Frontline’s “News War” series
I haven’t been a big watcher of PBS since “Seasme Street” and “Mister Roger’s Neighborhood,” but after watching the last 15 minutes or so of Frontline’s “News War” series on the local PBS affiliate, I just had to watch the rest of the episodes.
I just finished watching all four parts of the series online this afternoon, and it was time well spent.
The series progresses from the Valerie Plame affair to the right to use confidential sources and then to the tug-of-war between the presidency and the media. While certain parts were stating the obvious to many in the media profession, I felt it served as a good primer for those who might not be following the “inside baseball” media news.
The more interesting parts, however, come in the second half of the series, starting with part three, which took a look at how the idea of news is shifting from providing investigative reporting to “infotainment.” Throwing in a look at the rise of Internet media along with how we’re consuming news more differently than before, this episode builds up to the greatest worry of the news industry: the fall of the newspaper.
The most emotionally compelling and distrubing segment comes at the end of the third episode, as the downfall of the L.A. Times is chronicled. It’s sad to watch as the major players narrate the harsh realities they faced. Perhaps we’ll see an update or follow-up episode in the future now that the Tribune company has been bought out by Sam Zell.
The final segment seems like a compressed version of the 2004 film “Control Room,” where it documents the rising influence and Arab media. While its interesting as a topic, the segment felt disjointed and a bit thrown together.
One of the more interesting segments that I think was an online-only segment on OhmyNews, which helped facilitate the election of South Korea’s most-recent president.
What I’ve taken away from “News War” was both a sense of depression for the news business and also a slight bit of optimism for the future of journalism reborn in a new fashion.
The scary side is the demise of authorative institutions providing the voice of truth, but in a way, perhaps they deserve to lose it. The hopeful side is the rise of millions of voices telling it like it is, hammering away on keyboards or recording themselves for the world to watch and read.
I don’t know really where I stand on the idea of whether or not we should maintain the structure of the media as it is now, where we have consolidated powerhouses, or should we be decentralizing the media — giving power back to the people.
After all, doesn’t the news belong to the people? Why shouldn’t the people create it?
Technorati Tags: media, journalism, PBS, Frontline, news+war, Tribune, L.A.+Times, Sam+Zell, citizen+journalism