Who will orient the orientators of new media in DC?

Thanks anonymous Jean, my sister in law in NJ for once again providing grist for the mill. And once again you have raised an essential question which by all accounts is a time of great change in the media. Your question is will new media result in honest change in Washington where it is ‘We the People’ who use new media to orient Washington and make government more transparent and accessible to us all – or - will it be used to misinform and control information and reinforce the stronghold of elite interests have on our Government? In the latter scenario media will continue to be a messaging strategy, albeit delivered through ‘hipper’ and more interactive strategies.

We all know reality is rarely an either or situation so both these media outcomes may exist at the same time in the same place. The real question is, which one will dominate?

Jenkins observes at least two major contradictory trends at play in our media environ today. The first trend is the large number of consolidation and mergers across the news, cultural, and communications industries. The mainstream press is caught in the cross fire as they are now tightly controlled by narrow private ‘corporate’ interests. Imagine, Disney doing the news? Newspapers are dropping like flies. The Pew Center on Excellence in Journalism released a report a few weeks ago noting alarming trend in the DC Press Corps. The number of reporters affiliated with the mainstream news outlets in DC has declined steadily since the 1980s. Mainstream journalists with credentials to cover Congress has decline by a third, while those registered with other agencies are down by more than half. In the last quarter of 2008 alone, five newspapers closed their DC bureaus while six others cut staff positions.

At the same time, the number of writers, editors, and reporters working for newsletters, magazines, and specialty news papers, and broadcast media outlets considered to part of the ‘niche media’ has risen by half – with a third of that growth in newsletters alone. This sector offers specialized and a more detailed analysis directed at smaller, often elite audiences or audiences concerned with a particular political interest or cause. In addition, the representatives of the foreign news outlets have grown nearly tenfold since 1968 when it had 160 members.

As you can imagine, these trends have an enormous effect on what journalists can report. Journalists in mainstream outlets are crunched for time and under fire to be more entertaining – they no longer ask the hard questions. Rising to fill the reporting gap are outlets with a mission – they keep plenty of news flowing out of DC, but it is new news – news with a spin and an agenda that goes way beyond keeping us all informed.

The second, contradictory trend is that at the same time new media technologies and practices have lowered production and distribution costs, expanded the range of delivery channels and empower consumers to engage in the media to include the creation of their own media. So new media advocates say these trends give ‘we the people’ the power to storm the new gates to the news.

Gillmore talks about ‘we the media’. Individuals like you and me who care about our government take up new tools and use them to mine information, link it with other information sources, and join with others to discuss, compare and contrast our sources to become more aware of what is going on in our world. Once passive consumers of mainstream news have the power to be transformed into an active and vital part of the larger media environ. People now have to toots to make their own news and this can potentially tip the scales in our relationship with our government. We can use these tools to join with others in making government more transparent and accountable to us all.

So who will orient the orientors of new media in D.C., will it be ‘We the People’ or same old crowd? Although time may tell the answer to this question – the forces that will tip the scale in one or other of these directions are in play in the media landscape in DC today. So you see Anonymous Jean it is not about Washington at all really. It is about how people like you and me assemble with others through the use of these new tools to hold government more accountable. It is about using the new media tools force the orientors of new media in DC to shape a new media infrastructure in the halls of government that supports “We the Media”.

Any thoughts on how we do this?