The internet and its woes… February 15, 2012
Posted by WorldbyStorm in Uncategorized.trackback
Conor Brady’s piece in the Irish Times recently is worth a look at… He’s mighty exercised about the internet…
The proliferation of internet-based news providers, and particularly the emergence of the social networks, has immensely expanded and enriched the business of news delivery. But while much content is original or “citizen-generated”, too much of it is unashamedly pillaged from traditional news media sources. It is theft on a grand scale, ripping off the work of reporters and editors whose organisations have to pick up the bill. Worse, the information thus plagiarised is hardly ever sourced and is frequently misrepresented. As [Minister for Education Ruairí] Quinn told his audience, the problem with the internet is that its “inhabitants are unaccountable and live in cyberspace . . . a playground for anonymous backstabbers.”
These seem to be massively different and distinct complaints. Anonymity is one issue, pillaging unreferenced content from various sources another, misrepresentation a third. And actually it brings to mind a certain entertainment value pointed to in a writer to the IT letters page who noted that:
Sir, – In relation to the online copyright statutory instrument introduced by Minister of State for Enterprise Seán Sherlock, Miriam Lord (February 4th) writes, “One popular website published his mobile phone and landline numbers” which “resulted in an avalanche of voice and text messages”. I wonder if this unnamed popular website was www.labour.ie/seansherlock/, where these details have always been freely available?
My own emails to Mr Sherlock have gone unanswered. Perhaps if I had included some swearwords I could look forward to a response. – Yours, etc,
This on foot of a piece in the IT at the weekend which outlined the misfortunes Sherlock was suffering due to people texting and calling him on said numbers. Old media good, new media bad, except when its not. Or something like that:
Anyhow Brady continues. A bit of praise…
There are, of course, some fine internet-based news media. For example, high standards, combining accuracy and urgency, are set by storyful.com, established by RTÉ’s former man in Washington, Mark Little. David Cochrane’s politics.ieis a valuable and intelligent forum for discussion of important public issues. thejournal.ieis an excellent public notice board.
Okay. And a bit of…not-praise.
A great deal of what is put out on the internet under the label of news is either stolen property or unverified gossip. Traditional news media values – verification, getting the “other side” of the story, checking against archive material – sometimes seem to get short shrift. What has been described as a “culture of assertion” appears too often to prevail.
I’m hugely intrigued by what he means when he says that. Which sites is he referring to precisely? He’s not quite as specific about them…
There’s a fair bit of shite being talked there at least in terms of much of the provincial press. Not looking gift horses in the mouth here, but the local press out this direction are more than happy to print press releases almost verbatim. Looking through the weekly editions of the local papers, apart from the court reports much of it is padded with stories which clearly come from commercial or political press releases, there’s precious little getting other sides of stories or critical engagement with issues raised. Of course I’m sure the paper of record doesn’t allow itself to be treated as a propaganda conduit, lord no.
Or ever to sully its hands in markets far beyond the provenance of the media. Never!
Praise for the “intelligence” of politics.ie? Brady has clearly lost his marbles entirely.
Not saying anything about that, but from the tone of the article you’d wonder how much he’s exposed to the internet.
Much to laugh about in that piece and others orbiting it. The role that the papers see themselves occupying and almost blanket denial of their own failures are probably for another thread but given the amount of hack who are active online it’s interesting that almost every one was penned by the old guard .
Miriam and Noel were out not so much to bat for “polite Sherlock” but to denigrate many citizens who found themselves politicised for the first time only to see the Minister laugh at them in the Dáil chamber. Fionnan gave twitter a go the day after Micheál was named new FF leader (news which broke on the site) but didn’t last long.
Pat Kenny the day after the presidential election was interesting. Fionnan and Pat Leahy were over picking the bones and the entire discussion was punctuated with reminders of the enormous influence of old media throughout the campaign. The triumphant atmosphere thinly masked the siege mentality which we see so much in Brady’s article and others.
As I commented on that piece
Serious news media needs to get serious about the news because it’s readers can check the facts for themselves.
Very true. There’s no question about decline of traditional media but this predates new media and possibly wa initiated by th truly pervasive tv of the 80s and 90s.
I just wonder what Irish web sites if any he thinks repackage trad news without attribution, like who would bother?
The problem with the “Traditional news media values” is that they assume that the story is defined by what the last press release said. X issues a release; some papers print it more or less verbatim but others do engage in “verification, getting the “other side” of the story, checking against archive material”. But all that does is to allow the issuer of the press release to create an issue and have it debated. What the “Traditional news media” rarely do is tell us who sent the press release, who rang up to ensure it would be covered and why the sender might want the topic discussed. bjg
+1
The likes of Quinn and Brady are rightly worried. I frankly find it utterly pointless to spend my time on the Irish Times or RTE, because they are the willing victims of ‘news management’.
And that’s the likes were (until the recent protests) queueing up to support SOPA/ACTA etc. The collateral powers granted were going to be mighty handy in suppressing dissent.
Quinn told his audience, the problem with the internet is that its “inhabitants are unaccountable
Isn’t he confusing them with the IMF?
The mainstream media has been turning out crap for centuries and unashamedly pillaging from whoever they chose to rip off, yet the Conor Brady’s of this world did not write a single argument against it.
Now that the boss man has finally woken up to the threats the Internet ‘may’ pose to his wealth and privileges, Conor and co put pen to paper. Not to tell him to fuck off you toe-rag, but to put some meat on the bones of his oppressive argument.
All property is theft and with his article Connor is simply trying to live off the process of such crimes.
Good, duly noted.
Reading Brady’s comments on the internet I’m reminded of the fact that there was a time (long before public money created the internet, email, hyperlinks, http, the world wide web and newsgroups and provided for its commercial exploitation) when people were informed simply through pictures, referred to in history books as religious iconography. Usually the only book they were exposed to was the single copy of the Bible which was chained to the alter rails in their local church.
-One reason that propaganda often works better on the educated than on the uneducated is that educated people read more, so they receive more propaganda. Another is that they have jobs in management, media, and academia and therefore work in some capacity as agents of the propaganda system–and they believe what the system expects them to believe. By and large, they’re part of the privileged elite, and share the interests and perceptions of those in power….
For those who stubbornly seek freedom around the world, there can be no more urgent task than to come to understand the mechanisms and practices of indoctrination. These are easy to perceive in the totalitarian societies, much less so in the propaganda system to which we are subjected and in which all too often we serve as unwilling or unwitting instruments. -Chomsky
http://www.zpub.com/un/chomsky.html
The internet offers the possibility of a counter-force to the propagandists; hence the growing attempts by the power elite to denigrate and control it.
Would this be the same Conor Brady who is one of the three “Garda Siochana Ombudsman Commissioners” and so responsible for that body’s, em, independent, fact-checking, fearless treatment of Garda behaviour at Rossport and elsewhere?
You’d swear the IT or other print media never lift stories from the Internet. My own experiences of old leaflets being shown in papers uncredited is one small part.
Another bigger and far better example is the Ministerial /TDs expenses stories done by Gavin Sheridan /Gavins Blog / The Story etc. They were also carried by The Sunday Tribune.
Through crowdsourcing people were able to go through reams of stuff uncovering links , working out stuff like ministers using chauffeured Limos to go between terminals in Heathrow, links with political parties and Limo companies and much much more.
This in turn eventually led to the resignation of John O’Donoghue .
There are other sites which actually lead the news in their various niches.
As has been done before, Its probably worth inventing a story, posting it and then seeing if it gets carried by a newspaper such as The Irish Times.
I see the IT are back on about The Online world again today..
“Online ethical problems not so different from offline”
http://www.irishtimes.com/newspaper/opinion/2012/0216/1224311852781.html