As an example: In Australia we have a program called Sunrise. It’s morning current affairs, sort of – really more about social issues and controversy.

The 2 presenters are:

Koch: A balding ex-Finance guy, who started as a leading Finance guru.

Mel: And a parochial Canberra reporter who somehow can read an auto-prompter.

And a team of mostly nice presenters who get shuffled around like a deck of cards, all overseen by producer Adam Boland.

Their competition is more serious current affairs with occasional silly moments, Today show. Who never really survived losing the serious Liebmann and Hayes.

The Sunrise show has descended into a farce of epic proportions.

Why does info-tainment matter?

When entertainment is clearly labeled entertainment it doesn’t matter.

When journalism and serious coverage is clearly labeled so, it doesn’t matter.

When opinion is labeled opinion, and news labeled news it doesn’t matter.

You will note this piece is labeled COMMENT, which clearly states it is an opinion.

The Chasers War on Everything, the most extreme TV show is clearly satire and labeled as such.

The problem is nobody is labeling any more.

In Sunrise Mel voices her opinion on almost every topic, and won’t let the so-called experts get a word in edgewise. People who used to follow her in Canberra told me she was vapid then, and she seems vapid now.

Further, the news bulletins eschew any real news, and play the same ‘puff-pieces’ preceded by the 1 to 3 ‘big items’ of the day. Often recycled from last night.

The brainy Natalie Barr, and the sportsman Mark Baretta look like they could choke when they read out some of the items. Perhaps they’ve been gagged, as is common?

(A big hurrah to Mal Walden who once said what he thought when reading Channel 10’s news: “Thank you Mike and coming up, the call to take cough medicines for toddlers off the shelves and is homework – like that hostess story – really a waste of time?”)

I used to enjoy Sunrise. David Koch used to have an acerbic wit before the show went mainstream. Sometimes controversial, which they ‘tamed’. He seemed real.

Now even the laughs seem hollow.

Mel seems to have something ‘over all of them’, and that something is surely not an intelligent opinion or comment when she talks over top of the experts.

On Finance, she continually makes fun of Koch, who has been one of Australia’s leading commentators.

What is this obsession with elevating the mediocrity of Mel (in my opinion) and dumbing down the content? We obviously think ‘dumb’ is ‘popular’.

I like to believe that people are smart enough to understand intelligent content. I like to believe that by dumbing it down, we stop creating intelligent comment.

Web 2.0 sites, are showing their is a strong interest in real, intelligent debate. Why are we getting served comment as news in some big media?

America is littered with examples of partisan opinion masquerading as News. Fox News is the start of that search…

We have always had ‘Yellow Journalism’, but this was against a background of ‘News of Record’ as the ideal. That ideal seems to have vanished.
And there has been a push to ‘dumb down’ journalism further in recent years.

Tabloids written for 8-year-old readers voicing opinions without any honest analysis.

Info-tainment programs assuming a mediocre presenter has an opinion more valid than anyone else.

Bring back Ray Martin, and the real Sixty Minutes. Sensational: sure at times. Meaningful: often. A complement to printed news: yes.

Now much news is becoming opinion, with real news being mixed up and squeezed out.

Why is this ‘dumbing down’ accelerating?

Simple. Web stats, viewer stats, better tracking.

Minute-by-minute tracking and web stat feedback tell editors what story is popular.

Whereas once a journalist’s discretion and producer/editor’s opinion where the sole determinant now it is the nameless faceless statistics people.

“Paris Hilton is popular, give them more Paris.” This has lead to the creation of vapid, stupid, empty media vessels like today’s celebrities that some of us can project our own inadequacies onto.

AP to their credit, attempted to go a week without Paris, which itself became a story.

What can We do?

Simple if you are reading web news don’t click on dumb sensationalist stories.

If you are lucky to have a viewer meter, switch off anytime a dumb story comes on.

Watch a few hours of intelligent TV a week, and encourage your friends.

If you use DIGG, digg only intelligent stories, and vote against any gossip/trash.

Don’t buy any trash media.

I am not saying become a soy-swilling intellectual…

I am just saying don’t let any statistics catch you reading dumb stories, let then catch you read smart stories instead!

Why again does it matter?

For whilst we discuss the trivial, real issues of basic services wither and die.

But people do care. Americans I have spoken to care.

Australians care, and enough of them will vote tomorrow Rudd who was the only leader to campaign on issues of day-to-day life. My prediction is now 54% to Rudd after preferences.

How about we send a message that Fear and Trivia don’t matter to us any more.

Take care it’s a jungle out there!

Christopher

The media has the wrong idea on what YOU and I want to read and watch.

Wrong, Wrong, Wrong.

News flash for the Media.

People are not obligated to read /watch your media.

Relevance will determine if they do.

An FAQ on the Current State of the Media

Media has lost the plot. Driven by dollars and eyeballs.

“Well I still watch CNN / read the paper.”

Me too. Sort of.

But how engaged are you?

Or is it background?

Do you fast forward, skip the ads?

“OK, I don’t pay full attention – but the Media is still powerful.”

Shocking news here! Only if they aggregate your eyeballs. ie. you pay attention. You control them.

It’s all 5,700 outlets with nothing on.

CNN is wall-to-wall Paris/Britney/Brangelina interspersed with Iraq, elections (that have not have started yet) and get-rich quick schemes.

The media corporations created that whole ‘phony’ campaign by reporting it.

Murdoch’s rags have some great journalists, but the content is commonly described as ‘opinions served as news’.

Fox News, The Daily Telegraph and the Australian newspaper are all often quoted examples given by media commentators.

In the US, there was the Wall Street Journal, but now Murdoch owns that…!

Even the venerable New York Times has had problems, and it’s part of the group containing the respected Boston Globe…!

Fairfax has the best traditional media structure in Australia.

“But if people are losing interest in Media, why are they still powerful?”

The Media is shaping societies interests, and trying to exert influence on what you, me and our children watch.

The more they lose viewers/readers, the more they grab at power, like addicts.

The power grabs are forced to become increasingly overt, in the face of declining engagement (ie. you reading / watching and noticing adverts.)

Think about it? Do you engage with adverts.

For a media corporation executives it’s how YOU watch the adverts that matter. (although this is not the case for most journalists).

“But wait? There’s no evidence of this. I don’t read blogs every day.”

No. Neither do I.

But fact is, change follows generations.

A change is only complete when a physical generation that was comfortable with it becomes older, and relinquishes power.

In other words, people under 30 are massively switching off traditional media.

Ever noticed they like reading off screens, and spend hours on the internet?

And if you think blogs are the final form of citizen media, well… there’s more to come. Blogs are an interim step in generational change.

Like from horse to automobile, we didn’t get to a Toyota Prius in 5 years.

“But this is all hype… media won’t change.”

They’ll have to. If you all switch off.

You know Massachusetts in the US, was once the center of a massive ice industry. They exported ice to India. Successfully. No trace now.

Bill Gates once run a tiny software company. Then came DOS PCs.

Just how profitable do you think newspapers will be once we have to raise the cost of paper to cover the environmental costs?

But you’re right the media moguls like Murdoch won’t let go.

Power wants to preserve power.

Media has been very settled for decades and decisions are increasingly centralized through soft-control and feedback loops.

“Huh?”

I hear you.

That means the media has such good statistics about what they think you read, that they think they know what you want, feel and think.

That’s why there are so many dumb ads that don’t ‘connect’ with me or you.

“Me?”

Well you in aggregate. Aggregated eyeballs.

You as a ’soccer mum’. A ‘dink’, a ‘breeder’ or a ‘pink’.

“Huh?”

All terms to describe you or someone else. As a group.

As a set of aggregated eyeballs. A slice of the demographic pie assigned a dollar value as a market segment.

“But I am person. I live, breathe, feel.”

Yes you are. But a person can’t be aggregated in a database as readership / viewers to sell adverts to.

To a corporation you are an aggregated eyeball neatly slotted in a category.

“But I want to be a person again…
I don’t like being aggregated …

it’s uncomfortable.”

Well writers think of you as a person. Other citizens think of you as a person. Many journalists think of you as a person.

So say hello to citizen media and web 2.0.

“Web 2.0? Isn’t that for techies?”

No. Web 2.0 is user-generated content and communities.

Citizen Media is a part of this. You may not write, but you get to decide what you want to read, and even what other’s read.

It’s your content.

And quite frankly, you don’t have to be aggregated.

“Well that’s a relief!
All that Aggregation was getting uncomfortable.”

I know. Even journalists aren’t keen on it.

take care

Christopher

PS. If you are in Melbourne or Sydney, attend my Web 2.0 seminars.

More globally to follow. www.simple.net.au

You’ll learn a lot. And I don’t waffle in tech-speak into my beard..