How the New Media Works

Let me recount a recent conversation with my dad by way of example. He recently turned 70 and used to watch the evening news every single night. My mom would have to drag him away from it to get him to sit down for dinner.

Me: Dad, do you still watch the evening news?

Dad: No, never.

Me: Well, where do you get your news?

Dad: I already got it, online.

Me: Don't you want to see how the anchors are reporting it?

Dad: Are you kidding? I already got the news, why would I waste my time watching them retell the same stories for half an hour?

Me: So, is there anyone whose opinion you trust to bring you the news?

Dad: Yes, Keith Olbermann.

My dad was a conservative Republican who got his news the old fashioned way until about five years ago. First, he lost faith with the people who were supposed to bring him the news. One day when we were both still Republicans, he turned to me and said, "I think this Bill O'Reilly guy is full of crap."

I was really surprised by that, but my dad said he had been watching for awhile and noticed the guy kept lying and exaggerating and making a general ass out of himself.

Then he soured on Fox News Channel all together. He was still on board for the other news channels, but things did not appear to be what they were before. Then I introduced him to the internet.

He said to me recently, "But I don't understand, everything is right here, why would anyone go anywhere else for news?" That's it in nutshell. After the different websites you visit have already aggregated the news for you, why do you need the networks to re-aggregate it? You don't. It's a waste of time.

They do too little and take way too long to do it. Half an hour is an eternity and all you get is the stories they have selected in their infinite wisdom as the important ones. Useless.

And if you're looking for someone to analyze the news, you're certainly not going to turn to the evening news. They're too scared of their own shadow to dare to interpret a damn thing. God forbid someone should call them liberal (or these days, conservative) for giving even the most obvious analysis.

Now that my dad has crossed over to the progressive side (or was pushed there by George W. Bush (you couldn't get my dad to say an unkind word about George H. W. Bush; yes, there are still those kinds of conservatives/moderates/new progressives)), he gets his analysis from the Dynamic Trio - Keith Olbermann, Jon Stewart and Stephen Colbert.

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