In the interview with Dawkins, who is a world renowned evolutionary biologist and author of the new book, The Greatest Show on Earth, O’Reilly immediately attacked him for his atheism, as he did in a previous interview with him. Dawkins calmly explained that there are areas that science has not explained yet, and O’Reilly came to the conclusion that when these areas come up in a public science classroom, Christianity or some other religious idea should be “discussed.” Dawkins tried to show him the warped logic in this, but he couldn’t get through to him. He tried to explain the illogic in even discussing religion in a science classroom, but O’Reilly couldn’t wrap his mind around it. He yelled at Dawkins and called him a “fascist.” This is where I would like to ask again, does he seriously think he is going to persuade any viewers who are not already on his side? 

The simple logic of what Dawkins was saying goes back to many court cases that have been had over creationism or intelligent design in a public classroom. Any attempt that has occurred to get these taught has failed on a basis of constitutionality, and for good reason. It seems reasonable to admit that there are parts of science where we do not know everything, but that doesn’t mean Christianity or creationism or ID or any un-scientific system should be discussed. If you discuss one, you should then discuss all of them, which would be quite a task given the amount of religious creation stories present in the world. It wouldn’t make sense and they should be saved for a theology class, not a science one.

Aside from this age old argument and back to the right wing crazies, the other talk show hosts I mentioned are just as bad. A few years ago when I would watch Glenn Beck, he seemed calmer and more willing to discuss things. Now, he simply yells about Obama and starts crying on his show. He has given in to this infectious extremism. On Hannity’s show where he interviewed Michael Moore, who is a left wing crazy, the two were actually calmer than I expected. Hannity is part of the religious right, but he for some reason talked to Moore in a calmer manner. 

Television media is absolutely part of the transition of journalism, and the men discussed here are part of the downside of it. People are not getting objective and unbiased news, or even informed and logical opinion, they are getting ranting and screaming that reinforces what they already believe, or in my case, reinforces my disdain for such men. It’s not because they’re conservative, there are plenty on the left that I dislike as well, and plenty on the right that I respect, but it is the fact that they are so staunch in an ideology that they cannot get out of their own way to making a reason based argument in favor of their politics. The new media of television only furthers their influence to an illiterate audience who would rather watch t.v. than read a newspaper or book. I hope that time will not be favorable to them, and that people will wake up and demand more intellectual ability from public commentators who have overwhelming influence, but that may just be wishful thinking.

Blogs are double edged sword in this instance. On one hand, they are fun and provide people a place to share their ideas with the world, on the other hand, they do not hold their users to any standards, which means the memetic surge of false information. Many blogs are sponsored by reliable sites, which means that they are most likely worth your time. Other blogs that are independent can say whatever they want, and because the user can remain anonymous, are truly held unaccountable. This is where they fail.

To get away from the blogs, good or evil? question, I would like to go back to the idea of memetics. If you’re not familiar with memes, they are the cultural version of a gene. They are essentially ideas that can penetrate into society and spread like wild fire or be selected out and ignored. This has nothing to do with the truth of the claim, just whether or not it is catchy and will be an idea that people’s minds latch on to. The internet has jacked up the role of memes infinitely. With the amount of information that is buzzing around on the web, some ideas will win out and gain attention, and others will remain unnoticed. To get a better picture of this, let’s think about YouTube. This is a site where users can post videos of anything from tapings of themselves performing ridiculous tricks, to re-postings of sporting events where something interesting occurred, and everything in between. Some of the videos that people recommend to me, while funny, are some of the stupidest things I have ever seen. They do not take talent or intellect to make, but they are simply entertaining and are a meme that people will latch on to. This idea will also work for news.

In the last post here, I discussed the role of Twitter, and how it can be more effective than news sites in getting out information at a quicker rate. Memes can be applied to this because if a groundbreaking news piece is posted by a twitter user, if it is interesting and newsworthy, others will see it and post it on their Twitters, and the story will suddenly spread to millions of users. This is far more effective than a news site simply posting a story on their page and hoping people come to their sight to visit it. If it is posted on a social networking site though, the invisible hand of journalism will take over and the meme of that story will spread. This is a very nice bi-product of the digital age.

We American citizens can nit pick all we want about changes here and there, but the fact of the matter is that in parts of the world where it counts most, social networking is freeing the people, not the opposite. We are not used to this in the US because we don’t have state-run newspapers, and are far less censored than places like China and Iran. If Twitter can have that big of an impact on an oppressed society, it seems that it is serving a positive purpose.

To the claim that citizen journalism is not held to any journalistic standard and that they can spew out any information they like, we are now seeing another way that this is kept in check. I have made the analogy here with Wikipedia. While educators generally loathe this online encyclopedia, I have always found it to be extremely helpful and a great resource. I see it as giving valuable information 99.9 percent of the time because with as many users as Wikipedia has, the second false information in posted by someone, it will be taken down by the next. It is sort of the invisible hand of the digital world that keeps truthful information at the forefront of major web sites. Twitter works in a similar way in that when an event happens like the earthquake in China, there is likely to be an influx of updates from thousands of citizens. Yes, some people may post a false account or not have been correct in some manner, but with that many people updating, there is likely going to be one story that prevails above the rest, with which we can most likely take as the truth. The larger Twitter grows, the more effective it can be. I will admit that I am not on Twitter yet, but I can see why it is not such a bad thing, and why it can serve an important purpose in any society.

Almost every news provider is biased to a certain degree, and there are a few ways of figuring out which way they lean:

1. Who are their readers? Read the comments after any article on the Fox News website and you will see anti-Obama statements covering the entire page. This is a pretty clear indication of which way the network leans.
2. What columnists or talk show hosts do they employ? MSNBC for example, while generally a pretty respected news source, does seem to lean a bit left. Its talk show hosts include Keith Olbermann, Chris Matthews and Rachel Maddow, all left wing commentators.

These are just a few of the ways to tell, aside from the more subtle undertones present in news stories, but some networks are blatantly unbalanced. Places such as moveon.org are obviously not giving balanced information. It seems that more and more people are getting their news from a website of an organization that they sympathize with, which means they will only get the dosage of news that reinforces their already existing beliefs. This is a downfall of internet journalism. It is not necessarily blogs or twitters, but organizations who spew out propaganda for their own ideology and expect people to take it as bone hard fact.

In an article by New York Times columnist Paul Krugman today, he brings up the fact that the staff at the conservative publication the Weekly Standard cheered when Obama “failed” at bringing the Olympics home to Chicago last week. This shows obvious bias in a news staff and is never going to be productive in providing the public with quality information that is the backbone of democracy.

I am going to be scouring the internet for signs of both good and bad journalism to see if the transition to digital media is degrading to the quality of news people get. I would like to think, as I have heard many say, that people still enjoy good journalism and that they will read it if it stands up to the test. I am a bit skeptical of this, but I may be wrong. I am bombarded each morning while eating breakfast and watching CNN with twitter, Facebook and blogging references. Is this such a bad thing if people get their news from twitter updates? We shall see. Maybe Chris Hedge’s new book is right (Empire of Illusion), our culture is losing it’s literacy and the information we get will not be the same if it is only available in the endless abyss that the internet is.

As a starting point for this blog, I would like to refer to an op-ed article from the New York Times columnist Thomas Friedman today, who wrote:

“…a 24/7 cable news cycle that makes all politics a daily battle of tactics that overwhelm strategic thinking; and a blogosphere that at its best enriches our debates, adding new checks on the establishment, and at its worst coarsens our debates to a whole new level, giving a new power to anonymous slanderers to send lies around the world.”

This sums up the blogosphere well. It definitely has some strong points, but there are also the the parts that are degrading to the quality of journalism, even though I would never consider the average blogger a journalist. This brings up an interesting point about the history and current day use of the term “blog.”

Blogs started as online diaries for people to write down whatever they wanted about themselves or about their thoughts on things. They were never initially meant to take the place of newspapers. Fast forward to the current day and we see well respected news sites like Slate.com and the New York Times online edition with blogs that are sponsored by the news source. As I asked a veteran reporter at a recent journalism conference in Ypsilanti, MI, are these bloggers in any way similar to the average independent blogger who is not held to any journalistic standards? And if not, why are they called blogs? He promptly responded by saying, “it’s simply a catchy name. The blogs used on news sites are essentially columns and they do still follow the laws to avoid libel and other ethical measures.”

We have obviously seen a transformation in the medium that the average citizen receives their news through, but it is not necessarily a bad thing. We just have to make sure people know what to take as fact and what to take as a an angry ranters biased opinion. This debate may not be all doom and gloom.