I’m going to make a prediction.
No, not regarding the outcome of the election (which has yet to occur as of this writing), but regarding how Americans will soon get their news and information.
John Balentine, a former managing editor for the Lakes Region Weekly, lives in Windham.
The next trend in media will be direct sourcing of information. No filtering by editors and reporters. No middleman, in other words. Just direct coverage straight from the newsmaker to news consumer.
This will happen because the public has grown weary of the mainstream media toying with our emotions and outright lying to us by either hyping, tweaking, twisting or ignoring important parts of the overall story, all to fit their narrative.
(Climate change, income inequality, rioting, police shootings, coronavirus and Joe Biden and Hunter Biden’s foreign business dealings are just a few recent examples of how media bias affects news delivery.)
Pretty soon – perhaps within five years – we’ll see new media outlets pop up and old media outlets overhaul how they do things to reflect viewers’ changing desires. This will happen online, on TV and on the radio. Outlets will simply deliver news through direct event feeds, speeches and other methods of primary sourcing.
It will be the C-SPANification of the news industry.
Whereas now we have an indirect democracy of sorts regarding how we receive information, where reporters and editors serve as our elected representatives and go-betweens, soon we’ll have a pure democracy where information will be relayed directly to viewers.
C-SPAN is modeled on the direct delivery of news and information. It’s not as attention-grabbing as the glam and glitter of mainstream news channels, but that’s its appeal.
From campaign events to U.S. Senate speeches to author symposiums, C-SPAN viewers can watch government and cultural events live, uninterrupted and, most importantly, free from commentary by biased talking heads.
The direct delivery of news and information, which has already started online via YouTube, Facebook Live and other sites, will soon take over the entire news industry, which only has itself to blame for its demise.
For a half century now, we’ve watched as TV news especially, but also newspapers and radio, have grown less deadpan in their delivery (think Walter Cronkite) and more dramatic (think David Muir and Norah O’Donnell), all in an attempt to attract and retain viewers.
But the increasing hype and disinformation has left viewers (all but the most addicted of news junkies, of course) weary of the way information is being filtered by out-of-touch professionals who reside in their own bubble and seem intent only on furthering their pet narratives and causes.
Not only will directly sourced news be a welcome relief for viewers, news companies will like it because it’ll be cheaper to produce. Just plop a camera in front of a live event and you’re good to go. Forget paying millions to attractive actors posing as reporters and anchors.
If nothing else, we should thank Trump for exposing the mainstream media’s biases. Educated viewers, even left-leaning ones, have seen how the media treats those they don’t like, and they’re disgusted and frightened by it.
Especially in the immediate aftermath of another political campaign, people are fed up with emotion-based news coverage from legacy news outlets. They’re tired of the liberal news bias. Both liberals and conservatives want media to be overhauled, for the good of the country.
But, sadly, since the mainstream media has proven itself incapable of providing unbiased coverage, a new, direct-to-consumer model is needed. And C-SPAN is the best blueprint for making media great again.
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