[ExI] death of print news

[Lee Corbin]

spike wrote:

>> We may end up losing public accountability once people are 
>> glued only into their own information channels in an infinite 
>> sea of information... Lee
> 
> Interesting take, Lee.  It looks to me as tho it would create exactly the
> opposite effect.  The coming age of exploding news channels, we get a
> plethora of amateur reporters.  An example is the YouTube phenom; a specific
> example is the reporting of a 17 yr old girl from Afghanistan being flogged
> for refusing to marry the local warlord...
> 
> Another example: instead of reading about former Illinois governor Blago in
> the papers, accepting whatever they choose to tell us, anyone can google the
> actual conversation transcript or even the audio if one is sufficiently
> curious.
> 
> It looks to me as tho we are truly entering a time which we talked about a
> lot here about 10 years ago: the dramatically increase in the transparency
> of government and society...

I hope you're right. It's just hard for me to visualize how
---when people are no longer watching the same few accounts---
any sort of constructive public consensus will form.

YouTube---like television---caters to the non-reasoning and
non-logical parts of our brain. We're overwhelmed by the
tragedy afflicting a single dramatic incident visually
related, and become more immune to the more abstract stats.

The best example, of course, is the common person's belief
that the world is becoming more violent. Well, for most,
*seeing* is believing, whereas belief ought to be formed
from ratiocination at least as much, if not more.

Pinker is great on this: Notice he's not one of those apes
who thinks he's the greatest standup comic since Jack Benny,
and who actually speaks from, yes, gasp!, a podium! Now
how uncool is that??  But just *listen* to those fast,
marvelous facts and analyses reel off his tongue!

http://www.ted.com/index.php/talks/steven_pinker_on_the_myth_of_violence.html

Contrast it---if you can tolerate it after Pinker---this lame,
slow-thinking, slow-talking, showy, phony, Robert Wright talk:

http://www.ted.com/index.php/talks/robert_wright_on_optimism.html

Lee

> We have the potential of weeding out government
> corruption.  Granted the recent trend has been for society to become
> appallingly more tolerant of government corruption.  We have a long string
> of federal government appointees who are tax cheaters for instance,
> including the head of the treasury.  They somehow manage to be affirmed
> anyway.
> 
> spike