Are blogs responding to readers better than the MSM over Mohammed cartoon frenzy?
INQ7 reports on an interesting proposition:
“Technorati, a search engine for 27.5 million web logs, or ‘blogs,’ had the phrase “Mohammed Cartoon” at the top of its most requested items list Thursday.
Google’s Zietgeist feature ranked the controversy at number five in its top 10 searches, for the week to Monday.
Such anecdotal evidence has prompted questions about whether news outlets are properly serving their readers — and if old-school ethics are obsolete in the modern media age.”
and
Many bloggers see the crisis as exposing lumbering media giants as oblivious to a future where the consumer, and not overlording editors, holds the power.
“The public should be able to judge on their own whether these cartoons are, indeed, offensive and worth rioting and killing over (a rhetorical question),” media analyst Jeff Jarvis said on his blog BuzzMachine.
“I don’t need an editor to make that judgment for me, thank you.”
If readers want to see the cartoons, and we believe in freedom of expression, why isn’t the MSM publishing them?? Damn fine point. I just saw a whole pile of anti-semtic cartoons on DieSpiegels English service, it seems the MSM is happy to publish anti-semtic cartoons, but cartoons that are offensive to muslims?? makes you wonder doesn’t it.