The total collapse of the traditional media in the USA
I was wanting to wait for our podcast tomorrow to speak about the issue of the total collapse of the soundbite media but since it makes such a huge splash today I will comment already and make it more clear tomorrow.
Yesterday was another "primary debate" in the US - meaning the two remaining candidates from the democratic party Barrack Obama and Hillarry Clinton sparred it out with words on TV. It was the 20th debate of the election season (no I am not kidding). I have been following closely whats going on because I was just waiting for this moment to happen (all along and I expected it much earlier). Normally the primary season should be over by now but since Hillary Clinton is loosing by all means even so she was the clear front runner before this all started it gets dragged out and Clinton is throwing the mud around ( I have been watching closely and as said before I could care less who is winning - so Obama is probably the better choice for the whole world in the end seeing the real Clinton) Anyway not get dragged into the issue of who will win the nomination - that is not the reason for this blog post - the real reason is that in the debate last night the ABC news network overdid what turns people off network television and the big media in general - it tried hard to produce sound bites and controversy over absolutely nothing but left out real politics in the meantime - the debate was light entertainment for the right wing. This wouldn´t be interesting in itself but the media has overplayed the 10 second soundbite that say nothing about a candidate for the last weeks or so so to keep the race close and higher their ratings - and quite obviously it has been to much even for the average tv watching couch potato. The outrage is HUGE and comes from all sides - left wing right wing bloggers and even some big media journalist. The talk of the day is that people feel personally offended for beeing treated like they are totally dumb.
Thats the framing. With big media in general decline this event could end the pop culture of the 90s and early 2000s and take down all of big media in one go. Its a significant event that when a huge electorate swallows the blue pill in one evening. There is huge consensus that this was a historical milestone for alternative media to rise to the top for people powered media for media fact checking and for big media to loose its grip on the big swath of the people who have been left behind the information age - at least in the US of A (hey and since trends do come over here to europe with a 5 year delay expect the same thing to happen here too very soon :) I am eager to see how this plays out in the coming days but I think a lot of media moguls will scratch their heads at why their ratings are dropping into the bottomless hell of nonexistence. I truly believe there is nothing these tv network newspaper networks and radio networks can do to turn this around now because they would have to change their whole corporate culture and even if they would start doing that now it would just seem false for those that have been lied to those that have feel they lost half their lifes by being dumbed with britney spears and co. This is a true revolution unfolding in front of us and it will be like the banking crisis - hidden for a couple more month/years but then the graveness of the situation will come to light and people powered media - as chaotic as it is today - will be the only information tool left. The only true Free Press and it balances itself....