As details of the Mark Sanford scandal unfolded, it was reported that some members of the news media in South Carolina knew about Gov.Sanford’s emails to and from his mistress many months ago. Lacking independent verification, however, the media did not report on the emails.
There, in a nutshell, you have the difference between “Old Media” and “New Media.”
Old, or Mainstream, Media (newspapers, magazines, national and local television news), whatever its faults, relies on a series of checks and balances between what a reporter might hear on the street and what ends up being reported. Those checks and balances are embodied in the role of Editor—men and women whose job it is to vet what a reporter has compiled and decide if it meets certain journalistic standards of verification and veracity.
This is an essential quality control element missing from New Media, such as blogs and social networks. A blogger is limited only by his or her own personal standards of journalistic quality and commitment to truth. Frequently those standards are so low as to be effectively non-existent. This is a powerful reason to take every “fact” you read on a blog with snowy highway’s worth of salt.
This is not to say that editors are perfect, or that they never have their own axes to grind. Nor is it meant to suggest that every online "journalist" is a pajama-clad loser tapping away in his parents' basement. The most credible online news sources are employing editors to provide quality control (for one example, check out www.voiceofsandiego.org).
The point is that plenty of businesses and organizations I have worked with over the years have expressed dissatisfaction with how they are covered in the media, convinced that reporters are out to get them. The demise of mainstream media and the rise of blogging may give these businesses a bit of nostalgia for the good old days when the presence of an editors would at least provide some degree of confidence that a news story underwent a review forverification and relevance.
This is probably small comfort for Governor Sanford and his family, but if a politician is going to fall from grace, better it be from verifiable evidence of his stupidity and hubris.
