Steve Greenhut, a senior editorial writer for the Orange County Register devoted his entire Sunday column to a topic other than policy or politics, his normal fare. Rather, he used his precious column space to talk the phenomenon of how websites and ‘bloggers’ (editorial note: I really dislike that term) are really changing the news business. He especially focuses on the idea that the internet-age means that if you have opinions, you can more easily express them.
Greenhut’s piece begins:
Forget about the whining from news industry pros
Newspaper navel-gazers are having a field day writing about the death of the news industry, as newspaper circulation numbers are stable or falling, and as Internet Web sites, blogs (Web logs, or news diaries produced online), talk radio and cable TV are becoming the main news sources for many people.No doubt, we are witnessing a Wild West world of journalism, a far cry from the days when Americans read the same newspapers and chose between one of three liberal talking heads on the 6:30 news.
You have an opinion these days? No need to depend solely on the gatekeeper on the op-ed page to give you access. You have a breaking news story to report? No need to cajole a reporter or news director to go after it. You can opine yourself. You can cover the story yourself and post it immediately.
My favorite excerpt from his piece, of course, would be this one:
For years everyone (whether admitting it or not) has followed the Drudge Report, which has broken some significant stories (i.e., Monica Lewinsky) and links to bizarre news events worldwide. Now we have the Smoking Gun, which did a bit of old shoe-leather reporting this month and found that author James Frey, whose "memoir" has sold more than a millioncopies thanks to the endorsement of Oprah Winfrey, appears to be a fraud. There is no evidence of his law-breaking exploits detailed in "A Million Little Pieces."
Even locally, the news is reported instantly. Earlier this week, I was reading the OCBlog, which linked to my blog post of 9:55 a.m. Jan. 16 that confirmed Assemblyman Van Tran’s entry into the 34th District Senate race. OCBlog (www.ocblog.net), which breaks quite a few local political news stories each week, also linked to the FlashReport (www.flashreport.org), which reported that Jim Righeimer might run for the Assembly seat Tran will vacate.
Steve, thanks for the ‘shout out’ to the FR, and our sister conservative weblog, the OCBlog.
You can read Greenhut’s whole piece here.