Blogetary Track For The One About Like It Or Not MSM, We're Part Of The Family.

For the original version of this article visit The One About...
(Something I am always dealing with in regards to the header picture, is how to play it as it were. Should I go for something that's on the nose and representational? Or something a little bit more abstract? The decision is usually a little different every time. There are a number of factors including how much time I have, and what I find online. What I do is put the article title into a Google search and see what results that generates. Sometimes I'll just use key words. Then I salt through the images and see what strike my fancy. In this case I found some literal family tree pictures with blanks that I could have filled in using a paint program. However I didn't really have the time. So I decided to go with a tree picture, hoping that the more abstract image wouldn't confuse people.)

I have this uncle, my mother's brother. Uncle Jim. Uncle Jim, was frankly a bit of a jackass. He wasn't really mean or anything, just kind of obnoxious.(Seriously. Uncle Jim was loud, brash, and liked to give “charlie horses”. To a quiet shy kid, this made him a person to be avoided whenever possible. Jim also had a big tender heart that most of the bluster hid.) But still despite any failings he was family, and it never would have occurred to any of us to deny our connection to him. Because that's the way family works. You may fight with each other. You might trash talk to one another's faces, and shit talk behind each other's backs. But you don't deny them, and when needed you make sure that they are taken care of. You (ideally) don't seek your betterment at their expense, nor (ideally again) do they seek theirs at yours.(Yeah, yeah, I know that there are a lot of families that are nothing like that. But the Ideal of family is largely as I've described.)

Right now however there are many in the so called “Mainstream Media”(I have an idea knocking around the back of my head for an article some time talking about how “Mainstream Media” has nothing to do with method, and everything to do with content. One can be a blogger or Twitter user and can still be supportive of the establishment and the status quo. Likewise one can be a print, television, or radio journalist and can be working against the faceless minions of orthodoxy. But as is so often the case many people confuse the medium for the message.) who are having a little problem with the fact that the family especially the journalism branch has gotten bigger. Currently there is a law in the works that would protect journalists from prosecution for not revealing their sources. It's called The Shield Law, and journalists have been campaigning for one, for a very long time now.(And for good reason. It flabbergasts me that there is not a Federal standard of protection for journalists.)

The problem is that some people have attempted to define journalism in the narrowest way possible, so that only those who get paid to do it would benefit from this law.(Frankly this is not surprising. There are basically some in journalism that have resented having the fact spread about that strictly speaking one does not Have to go to school for journalism, any more than one Has to go to school to write fiction. Does schooling help? Absolutely. But you could say that about a great many things like cooking, that also don't absolutely require formal schooling.)

There are some who suspect that even though the amendment was defeated, we will see another one much like it end up in the final bill, as bloggers and other new media types get left out in the cold for the sake of political expedience.

If that happens, I fear that down the road, those in the old media will discover that what they've really done is slit their own throats.

After all, I read stories quite often about this journalist or that reporter who have involved themselves in some next gen. Journalism project after losing their job. Projects that probably would not meet the extremely narrow definition that some would like to see imposed. As a result a traditional style journalist who has the experience and the connections, may find that as they are trying to work a story that they are doing so without any of the protections they are used to simply because of something as arbitrary as whether they are drawing a paycheck for their work or not.(Frankly I strongly suspect that the ones pushing for an amendment of the type mentioned aren't actually journalists but rather the owners. And at my most conspiracy theoryistic, I suspect it's so that if any reporter is working on a story that is contrary to the interests of the corporation, they can be fired, or threatened with firing, so as to be deprived of their protection under the shield law.)

Ultimately blogging, and things like Twitter are not going to be disappearing.(At this point blogging is pretty much here to stay. Tweeting however may not be more than a flash in the pan, but something like it, quick bursts of information, aren't going anywhere.) And as more and more people start to embrace them, any of the traditional media who have treated their new media cousins like poor relations are going to be increasingly sorry, as they are eventually going to find the shoe on the other foot.

I'd like to think though that bloggers like myself, when that day comes will remember that traditional media types are still members of the family. Even if they happen to be members we don't like very much.(I was meaning not liking as an entity rather than individual bloggers having a grudge against individual reporters.)

Keep The Faith My Brothers And Sisters!

The following resources were used in the creation of this article:

The Shield and the Power: Will Bloggers Benefit?

Good Riddance To Mainstream Media?