February 12, 2005

You Heard It Hear First


Well, no, you didn't actually hear about Eason Jordan first on this blog, but rather on blogs in general. One of the things I haven't touched on in my earlier posts is the fact that nearly all the major media outlets were silent on the matter, until today that is. Jeff Jarvis wraps that bit of the story up quite nicely.
I would have to think that this morning, The New York Times, The Los Angeles Times, the Chicago Tribune, USA Today, CBS, NBC and ABC ... and CNN ... are or should be embarrassed that they are reporting the dramatic climax of a story they never told their readers about.

The news judgment of the professionals meets the news judgment of the public. And they sure as hell aren't the same.
Posted by Peter at February 12, 2005 09:34 AM
Comments

This "choosing" of what is newsworthy is a unique form of censorship. And this outcome is going to start to swing the tide in the proper direction. Away from Mt. Olympus, or wherever the print and broadcast media elite reside.

Posted by: dan at February 12, 2005 12:47 PM

I know where you're coming from, but this isn't about censorship. Censorship is when someone says "You can't say that" and then fines or imprisons you for saying it, or fires you for it when the right to fire you for it does not exist.

There are lot's of words that might be used to describe what's going on when the MSM doesn't cover something, but when lot's of other folks have the ability to talk about it too, one of those words isn't censorship.

Posted by: Peter at February 12, 2005 02:44 PM

Actually, I do think this is a form of censorship. It is suppressing a story in the hopes that it will go away. It is certainly closer to censorship than what CNN decides to call it:

http://www.cnn.com/2005/SHOWBIZ/TV/02/11/easonjordan.cnn/index.html

How does this story possibly fall under the classification of Entertainment?

Posted by: dan at February 12, 2005 07:11 PM