Space and Time

Idealist over at Idealist Action asks an interesting question about why blogs seem to cover some issues in more depth than other mediums:

Why is it that the mainstream media fails to cover so many important stories that the blogs do cover? Is that they are afraid of upsetting someone, or of losing access to key sources? Is it that they have a lack of resources and therefore don't search for the stories, or don't go after stories that may be difficult? Is it that they have to use their resources on commercial stories - the Jackson trials and the runaway bride, stories that sell? While it is significant that blogs cover the difficult, important stories, the majority of people are not getting their information that way.

Having read a hell of a lot about the way the media operates over the past two semesters, I'd say the answer is a mix of economics and entrenched habits. By sticking to the stories that are already in the news, media outlets don't need to waste time and resources in educating the public about a new issue; and the way the media beats are set up (another cost saving move), reporters are more likely to to stick to typical news items (such as a presidential speech) and to use establishment sources for stories, who are unlikely to push new issues. And, of course, there's the "if we cover that issue we'll bore our audience to tears" mindset, which in today's day and age certainly overules the "serving the public interest" concept.

Of course, there is also the issue of space available: broadcast news has 22 minutes or so, a newspaper a well defined number of column inches, and even the cable news nets generally run the same stories every hour. But the internet doesn't have this problem, as the sheer number of issues raised by various bloggers shows. Whereas a mainstream media outlet may not find tackling a new issue to be worth it in terms of either resources or space needed (or both), there are many bloggers who have plenty of space available and are willing to put in the time to really tackle an uncovered issue.

I think this is especially the case for the numerous specialty blogs that have sprung up, such as Talk Left (legal issues) or Brad DeLong (economics). The authors writing these blogs are able to use their sizable body of knowledge on a specific issue and really help to interpret the issues that fall under their area of expertise. In addition, there are many other specialists around who are able to contribute to the investigation of a given issue just through the comments on a typical blog, or through writing diaries on a Scoop site such as DailyKos.

There will always be a need for news judgement in traditional news outlets, simply because they don't have unlimited space. Combined with the realities of news organization economics (and the fear of producing biased reporting that can paralyze news organizations at times, especially when deciding whether or not to cover controversial issues), we can never expect traditional media sources to give every worthy issue the coverage it deserves. But it does seem that blogs can help to direct mainstream news coverage when a major issue is overlooked, such as with the 60 Minutes national guard documents, the Jeff Gannon/James Guckert saga, and the Trent Lott affair.

While it's certainly foolish to expect blogs to ultimately "fix" this problem (the issues they successfully push into mainstream news tend to be the simpler and more explosive kind; the genocide in Darfur is certainly an issue worthy of major coverage and has been pushed heavily in many blogs, yet it still gets zero coverage from major news organizations), the seemingly endless availability of both space and resources (mostly in the form of time) certainly allows them to help. At least a few people will get some info on these issues...