Mainstream Media Buffeted In 2004 By Right And Left

We have asked a number of media experts and critics to make sense of events and to reflect on what they believe has been the year's biggest media story - the one that will have the most lasting effect on the business.None of the answers we got were precisely the same, though most point to a continuing crisis within the traditional media and concern about where it all will lead. Here's what they had to say:

Jeffrey Dvorkin, ombudsman, National Public Radio
"The most important change, in my opinion, was the increasingly defensive posture that most journalistic organizations have assumed in order to avoid any charge of media bias. As a result of the stridency of talk radio, cable TV shows, media watchdogs and bloggers, mainstream media has sought to avoid controversy, even when it goes against their own journalistic values."

...Geneva Overholser, the Curtis B. Hurley Chair in public affairs reporting, Missouri School of Journalism, Washington bureau
"This was the year when it finally became unmistakably clear that objectivity has outlived its usefulness as an ethical touchstone for journalism. The way it is currently construed, "objectivity" makes the media easily manipulable by an executive branch intent on and adept at controlling the message. It produces a rigid orthodoxy, excluding voices beyond the narrowly conventional."
And it leads to a false balance of `on the one hand, on the other hand' stories that make the two `hands' appear equal even when factual weight lies 98 percent on one side. Objectivity's most effective use today is as a cudgel in the hands of those who wish to beat up on the media."

Steve Lovelady, managing editor of Campaigndesk.org, and former newspaper and magazine editor
"I think the most important media story of the year was the way in which the press was so easily manipulated by spin machines all the way through the election campaign, partly thanks to the fact that it was hopelessly hobbled by some of its own outdated conventions and frameworks. And that, in turn, is related to its embarrassing performance in 2003 on weapons of mass destruction and on the question of an Iraqi tie to 9/11."
[It is also related to] its inability to be as nimble or fast on its feet as some blogs, and to continuing media consolidation, which invariably leaves editors with less staff and less space to make sense of the world for their readers. In some fairly scary ways, it all dovetails together."