Speed Kills

So, the big news of the last 24 hours was the Supreme Court's ruling concerning the constitutionality of President Obama's health care law. Now, I would love to write a summary of the ruling and the subsequent ramifications for most of us, but considering I don't actually know what those are I'll avoid making myself look silly on my own blog. (Besides, I live in Massachusetts. Basically the law was already in place here and wasn't going anywhere no matter what the ruling was, so why should I spend any time worrying about it?) Instead, I want to talk about how stupid most of the news outlets made themselves look yesterday. In the rush to report the ruling first many reporters didn't read beyond the first page, which made it appear as if the law was unconstitutional. Well, it turns out that this was kind of a complicated ruling and couldn't be summed up very quickly. It was only after those same reporters flipped to page 2 that they found out the Supreme Court had actually upheld the law, just clarified how it should be classified. That premature declaration of unconstitutionality left a lot of people with egg on their faces. As with most things these days, I blame the internet.

Even after blogs started to break actual news, the cable news networks continued to look down their nose at them, as if you couldn't be a real journalist unless you were on TV. But, eventually they broke enough large news stories it got to be where blogs had to be taken more seriously. While that development pleased me, because I happen to think good journalism is good journalism no matter who you are working for when you report it, the problem was the cable news networks were still behind the times. They just weren't going to give any websites credit until they absolutely had to. Then, as often happens when someone is late to the trend, they then tried to over-compensate to make up for lost time. Now I fear it has gone too far the other extreme as every blog that rights about politics is automatically given the same sweeping credibility, no matter how much actual reporting they do. Rather than taking a few minutes to see if it is just a guy making stuff up because he doesn't like the person involved, these networks can't wait to shove random people on TV with the "Expert" title under their names. Obviously, the balance is somewhere in between and hopefully they will find it soon.

Still, there is no denying that the internet has changed the news media forever. When people can read things online for themselves there is almost no need to wait for the nightly news to sum up the day's events for you. This realization has put even more emphasis on speed when it comes to breaking news. However, that doesn't mean those news outlets have to be in such a rush to be first that they forget about being right. (I have this vision of the people in these newsrooms being the same kind of people who leave the comment "FIRST" on internet news items. Nothing informative to add to the conversation, just have to let people know they were there.) Being wrong, even if you are first, doesn't exactly inspire people to trust you going forward. It was especially stupid to be in such a hurry about this kind of breaking news, which wasn't really "breaking" at all. To me "breaking" news is when you are trying to cover an event as it is happening that no one knew was coming. Everyone knew the ruling was being announced at 10:15 on Thursday and could set their watches. News is rarely that specific. Even when people say they will be holding a press conference it never starts on time. Covering this as though it was a breaking news story would be like standing outside a restaurant and then treating them opening the doors like a major shock.

When everyone will be getting the news at exactly the same time the main way to set yourself apart (as it always has been) is by getting it right, which a lot of people failed to do. In the end, it makes me kind of sad that journalism has become such a joke. I'm not saying all those people screaming about the ramifications of this Supreme Court ruling without actually knowing what the ruling was need to be fired. (Well, maybe a few of them...) My point is that it would be nice if there was at least one outlet that was more interested in having a calm, rational discussion instead of what we've got now - multiple channels full of people who attempt to compensate for lack of brains by force of volume. Not to mention, when you look at the ratings for the channels which cater to the two extreme side of the issues it is not like they are pulling in amazing ratings. Honestly, on any given day they are coming in well behind re-runs of shows like "The Big Bang Theory". If these news anchors were on network TV they would have been cancelled long ago, so why not try something new to distinguish yourself from the pack? They may not be the first to give their analysts, but considering most of those are wrong anyway a little time to think their opinions over might not be the worst thing in the world. Sometimes giving your opinion first means you're just the first person who looks like an idiot.