Weekender:Youth

The golden age of the printing press is long gone, but the printed word will have an effect for a long time to come

Date published: 5/16/2006

By STEPHEN DAUSE

YOUTH CORRESPONDENT

This is the last of five rants by blogger and Synthesis columnist Stephen Dause on what it means to be an editorialist.

Political bloggers, or those who write online journals of opinion, give nicknames such as "Mainstream Media" (MSM) and "Old Media" to other news outlets like television, radio and newspapers--basically everyone besides themselves.

They like to think that blogging is the revolution in opinion and, more recently, straight news, that has only begun to fight the stale one-sidedness that has been the MSM.

Writes blogger Glenn Reynolds in his book, "Army of Davids":

"I started blogging partly because it looked like fun. I had consumed news and opinion journalism for most of my life, but it seemed that much of it had become a bit thin and flavorless."

Later in the book, Reynolds specifically mentions newspapers and cites limited space and layers of editors as some of the downsides that blogging has helped point out and remedy.

Traditional media sources are generally negative towards bloggers, saying they have no credibility.

Hmm as with most scholarly analyses, I stroke my nonexistent beard and conclude that the actuality lies somewhere in between what the rebels and the media biggies say.

For now, though, it looks like the rebel bloggers have the upper hand. Newspaper readership is declining while blogs' relevance and readership is increasing.

Yet regardless of whether one sides with the mainstream media or bloggers (who may or may not have any credibility), I doubt that any Internet source will ever replace traditional newspapers.

To be fair, Reynolds recognized this in his book, writing that the Old Media are here to stay and still have vast influence, while not explicitly stating what he thinks of newspapers' ultimate fates.

As opposed to blogging, writing an editorial requires a necessary acceptance of fact and scholarliness, a suggestion that I hope has come out as the main theme of my five rants on "editorialism."

One example of what editorialists can do is to recognize the impact of the Internet and use it to their advantage.

So far, they have not done so. Perhaps they will do so only forcibly, as Reynolds predicts.

For right now, newspapers still have the most real influence of all media forms, since TV and radio are not as lasting, while the Internet's reliability is questionable.

Again, they should realize this and continue to strive for the things such as humility and truth that they have sometimes achieved and have sometimes mocked.

As for myself, I tried political blogging a couple of years ago, and I didn't get very far with it. It's hard to get recognized on the Internet, whereas newspapers have more credibility and a larger readership.

I wrote these five rants as a way to comment on my editorial colleagues' contributions to political opinion. In conclusion, I will simply say to them: nuance, people, nuance.

STEPHEN DAUSE is a senior at Colonial Forge High School.

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Date published: 5/16/2006