Newspapers' troubles have raised concern over who will defend and promote informed democratic debate if we lack a vibrant and viable Fourth Estate. But it's not at all clear that traditional media outlets are currently providing that service on a regular basis in any case. Two stories over the past few days remind us of the important role of independent bloggers to tell a story straight in a manner that traditional journalists still simply cannot.
Glenn Greenwald at Salon has two disturbing posts on how GE's (GE) control over NBC and MSNBC, and News Corp.'s (NWS) control over Fox have driven editorial decisions at these outlets - see GE's silencing of Olbermann and MSNBC's sleazy use of Richard Wolffe and The scope -- and dangers -- of GE's control of NBC and MSNBC. (And don't miss the Charlie Rose hypocrisy item in the first post.)
Meanwhile, Eric Etheridge at NYT has a helpful wrapup of the latest blogs-are-killing-newspapers kerfuffle: a discussion around Gawker blogger Hamilton Nolan's re-use of Washington Post reporter Ian Shapira's juicy quotes from a recent WashPo column. The upshot as I see it: Nolan was able to speak in a real, direct, candid voice about the very items that Shapira produced but was unable to present in the manner that he himself wanted to due to the institutional restrictions of traditional journalism. But Matthew Ingram is certainly right that Nolan should have more clearly cited Shapira in his Gawker post. There is a problem of fair and balanced citation and linking of authors in the blogosphere.
Now of course, Greenwald's GE/NWS item has to do with corporate control over the political debate, while the Nolan/Shapira item addresses the stubborn lack of point-of-view in traditional journalism. But there's common ground: It's not just the economics of online content that threaten lively, direct and constructive debate. The conventions and ownership structures of large, traditional media outlets remain problematic to that end as well. While Shapira laments a lack of equity in Gawkers' use and (top-heavy!) profit from his work, the question of why Gawker blogs are so popular remains - and a good deal of that is due to the independent and opinionated point of view. As Gabriel Snyder says in a follow-up at Gawker: "blogs say the things that hidebound newspaper editors are too afraid to let their reporters write."
This is why we carry truly independent market bloggers at Seeking Alpha - and push the best of their writing to our homepage and Editors' Picks. You'll find unique, well-researched insight and critique of publicly traded companies here, because we have hundreds of independent contributors who thankfully lack any corporate or conventional media shackles and can simply call it as they see it.
We can therefore count of more of what John Reeder observes:
Members of the televised media are now resorting to taking on bloggers in order to draw attention to themselves.