When I first started writing for Plugged In, the publishing world had just begun transitioning away from lead-based movable type in hand-cranked printing presses.
OK. A colleague just reminded me that it was actually a few years after that, when computers were starting to move away from using those paper data cards.
Maybe those walk-uphill-both-ways-in-the-snow stories aren’t exactly the truth. But back in the day (I joined the Plugged In team in early 1996) we were still taking day-trips to the library to do research by hunting through its (paper) collection of newspapers and university research publications.
The only computer with Internet access at our office was the department manager’s. And she wouldn’t share nearly as often as the rest of us needed her to. (Wanted her to.)
We published a single newsletter each month back then, containing two TV reviews, two movie reviews and six music reviews. Now we’re cranking our way through bigger numbers than that every week. And you don’t have to wait a month to read our review of, say, The Great Gatsby.
It’s a blessing to be sure, this rapid flow of information. But it can be a curse, too. And certainly not just for Plugged In. Consider the world that is the modern 24/7 news cycle.
In her cnet.com article “Social Media as Breaking News Feed: Worse Information, Faster,” Molly Wood writes:
If speed is the currency of the modern information era, misinformation is the increasingly high cost. Some, like Matthew Ingram at Paid Content, argue that journalism is made better by multiple sources. … It’s not. We have more information, but it’s a morass of truths, half-truths, and what we used to call libel. It’s fast, but it’s bad. And bad information is a cancer that just keeps growing. I’d argue the opposite of Ingram: that the hyperintense pressure of real-time reporting from Twitter, crowdsourcing from Reddit, and constant mockery from an online community that is empirically skewed toward negativity and criticism is actually hurting journalism. It’s making all the news worse. When CNN makes a mistake, it matters more, but CNN can’t afford to be slower than Twitter. Talk about a lose-lose.
I’m determined to keep working diligently to ensure that Plugged In continues to cross t’s and dot i’s with enough editorial acumen to skirt that morass of truths and half-truths Molly Wood mentions. Certainly well enough to avoid libel! But this is a reality we all face. The flood of information we live in can wash us away sometimes. The wave of need-it-now work can make us skip steps and stop sweating the small stuff that’s not really small stuff. It can make us speak first and think later. If ever.
Recent Comments