News, Morning Report host Guyon Espiner says, is a bewildering and changing environment, for the consumer, but for journalists too.
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As traditional lines between radio, newspapers and tv converge and organisations jostle for position in the digital age, who has the power?
In Outspoken, Espiner examines the changing face of the media – the decline of the “mainstream media” and the rise of Twitter and Facebook. Veteran broadcaster Bill Ralston warns that we place far too much emphasis on social media. It’s not an end in itself, he says, but a conduit to traditional reporting.
Without the amplifier of mainstream media, social media is still pretty small.
Social media dominated last year’s election – following the revelations in Nicky Hager’s book Dirty Politics. TV producer and blogger Tim Watkin says the relationships between politicians and blogger Cameron Slater came to light in a most old-fashioned way: a book. “Social media is still pretty marginal. Most people don’t get up in the morning and have a heck of a lot to do with social media. It’s the media “clique” that drives social media, he says. “Without the amplifier of mainstream media, social media is still pretty small.”
The former editor-in-chief of the New Zealand Herald, Gavin Ellis says he believes the media went overboard with Dirty Politics – to the exclusion of other important issues. He says there’s a murky line between the mainstream media, and blogs like Slater’s. “[Journalists] are crediting people like Cameron Slater with too much legitimacy….Journalists need to step back from that and ask ‘who is benefitting from the disclosure of this information?”