BIG MEDIA DISENGAGEMENT

Besides the fact that the Queen doesn't look nearly as interested as the Obamas, can you guess what is wrong with this picture? It may not be obvious at first, but there is something VERY wrong with it. Give up? The problem is that it has been the dominant news story every since the G-20 summit opened!

For the past two days all I have heard about is Michelle's fashion, meeting the Queen, an apparent non-violation of royal protocol when Michelle got her hands all up in the Queen's business, and similar stories. Oh yes, and there are some pictures and videos of college-aged hooligans marching in support of a total lack of government. Great idea.

But what about what is going on INSIDE the summit? Sure, there is some discussion about this, but if you flip on a TV or look at the front page of most major publications, it is the Queen (didn't we revolt to get rid of this?).

I am not saying don't cover it, but when it becomes the headline for more than a day, and the coverage of this meeting rivals, if not exceeds, the coverage of how the leaders of the world's top 20 economies are going to help get us out of this mess, it is a sad day.

I haven't really done an in depth study as to the level of coverage, so maybe I am off here, but it seems to me that this should be the side item puff piece about how nice it is that our President is suddenly liked by Euro-land and the rest of the world. I also have not looked too deep into the coverage on blogs, but on social media, it is the Queen and Michelle, holding hands or whatever.

I usually talk about new media, and discuss how it might be aiding in a general movement to disengagement, or how it might be helping us to connect more. But forget new media for a minute in deference to my disappointment with old media. Please CNN, NY Times, and the whole lot of you - MOVE ON!

NEWSPAPER LINED COFFIN

I just wanted to follow up my post from last night on the importance of professional journalism's survival in the face of the new media onslaught.

CNN online ran quite a fitting follow up piece today about the very same topic. It is a scary proposition, as some of the comments following the article express, if user-generated content becomes so dominant that the news becomes something difficult to trust and is by and large unsubstantiated opinion.

The article claims that large national newspapers like The New York Times and The Washington Post will most likely survive, and may indeed thrive under this new order. But I still think there is a danger.

It is pretty ironic that web 2.0 and the new media are promoted as handing power back into the hands of people, but at the same time manage to destroy the Fourth Estate which is arguably one of the most important checks on our democracy.

I have to think there is some sort of happy medium, but what that might be is unclear right now. It is a red flag when it becomes increasingly more difficult to find any source of news that is worth trusting, even marginally, without extensive checking. Not that one should trust everything they read, but if at any time the impetus to do the fact checking falls primarily on the shoulders of readers, the corpse of our democracy will be laid in a coffin lined with newspaper.