Sunday, March 4, 2007

Blogpost #4

It seems that a I hear a lot these days about the demise of newspapers and the growing preference for information made available through blogs.


Don't get me wrong, I think blogging is a valuable tool for getting people involved in the world around them. But I worry about the ease with which some people are saying that newspapers no longer have a place in modern American life, and about the difficulty that newspapers companies are having keeping their businesses afloat.

I keep thinking about one aspect of newspapers in particular that we as a society
would sorely miss if they disappeared, and that is investigative journalism. The role of the press as the fourth estate as described by Mick Underwood at http://www.cultsock.ndirect.co.uk/MUHome/cshtml/index.html
could be in serious jeopardy:

"However, from the perspective of those researchers who see the media as situated
within the model of a pluralist liberal democracy, the mass media are often seen
as fulfilling the vitally important rĂ´le of fourth estate, the guardians of
democracy, defenders of the public interest."

The recent series of articles in The Washington Post that revealed the conditions at Walter Reed has also (hopefully) prompted the government to admit some of its errors and to clean up its act regarding the treatment of vets. The reporter apparently worked on the story for 4 or 5 months. How likely is it that bloggers will take that kind of time to delve into a story, or that blogs will maintain the watchdog function that our democracy relies on?


Just something to think about.