IS GOOGLE THE BIG BAD WOLF?

Henry Porter of the UK's Guardian wrote a piece today about Google as a worldwide menace to civil society, hell bent on taking over the world and bringing us all to our knees. Really?

I admit that I have shuddered at the thought of an all-powerful storehouse of all knowledge, and the algorithm that allows us to find said knowledge. Sure, it is not hard to let our imaginations run wild and envision a future where we are all ruled by those six little rainbow-colored letters. But it is the way Porter attacks Google that puts me off.

To me our esteemed author seems to take more issue with capitalism than with Google, only finding it convenient to paint Google as a profiteering pirate because it changed the way the game was played, and more importantly I believe, the way the author's own game is played. The bulk of his complaint lies in the way that Google is destroying the newspaper model. He seems to think it is somehow wrong that Google makes advertising revenue off of search; apparently only newspapers have the right to make that money. He even goes so far as to say Google has created nothing. I for one constantly use what it has created, and by engaging this technology my life has made all the easier. Doesn't dear Henry know that he too can be Googled?

Monopolies can be scary. It is terrifying to think that one company can control so much. But I would challenge Mr. Porter to think about the sum total.

He writes about music producers who demanded more money from Google for videos streamed on YouTube, prompting Google's refusal to pay and the removal of the content. Well, what's better: not getting more money but giving people greater access to this content, which in the end arguably leads to more revenue, or not being accessible at all?

In the end the article really reads like a newspaper man bitter about how two college students (by virtue of their own creative abilities, by the way) created a better way to deliver information much to the delight of most of the public. He claims this is an amoral menace that will destroy us. Isn't discouraging innovation and progress an equally, if not infinitely worse, proposition? He reminds me of the antagonists in Ayn Rand's We the Living.

My favorite part of the piece actually has nothing to do with the content itself, and one commenter brilliantly points it out. I absolutely loved seeing the "Ads by Google" box directly following his article.

PROFESSIONAL JOURNALISM AND NEW MEDIA

I found a recent article on Real Clear Politics by Cathy Young (of Reason Magazine) on professional journalism vis-a-vis new media good fodder for (DIS)ENGAGED.

Ms. Young makes a wise statement that professional journalists and the profession are both still as important than ever, and that the new media, while a powerful tool of democracy and spreading information, is not a wise substitute. She rightly claims that both do best when acting as a check on, and complement to the other. There is some additional commentary on how Barack Obama was handled with velvet gloves and also that the media is liberal-leaning. She may be right, but that is not what I am interested in here.

The rest of the article (posted on a blog, mind you) goes on to discuss how traditional media might survive in the new media landscape, and business models that might allow these companies to make profits and survive in the face of blogs and the like. I do think this is important.

Ms. Young closes with a judgment that if Americans still respect quality journalism they will pay to keep it alive so long as the media earns that respect. I agree with this in broad terms, but I am not sure that it is entirely true.

I know more people in my hometown in Illinois that think the NY Times is liberal propaganda than those who take it as honest reporting. I see plenty of people here in the big apple who use The NY Post for one-stop news/info shopping. And I have spoken with plenty of folks who seem to put more faith in user-generated commentary disguised as news than they do in that from professional sources.

I was recently in Seattle when the Seattle P.I. folded, and it seems like each day another one bites the dust. It is sad, and scary. While our new media give us new and exciting democratic opportunities, I agree with Ms. Young. We do need to find a way to at least preserve professional journalism, if not the papers.