"Quantity has its own Quality" has evolved in the modern age as "Famous has its own authority". I don't think this is particularly different from any other time in history, but with all the voices you can certainly hear a wider range of opinions from people who would not have had a pulpit for other areas in the past. For example, in the 1970s a sports reporter would be reporting on that subject and I would know nothing about their personal politics. Today, famous in one area gets your opinion heard in multiple areas (e.g. politics).
The best thing about this from a publisher point of view is that candy sells. It doesn't require a fact checker or any real investigation to just "report" on what personalities said. Cheaper content that can be thrown up quick and SEO'd to death to insure some profit. Many people on this board have this very problem with certain tech blogs.
Combine this with the "them over there" syndrome where too many people think that groups they don't belong to are simpletons and it is a group to blame instead of individual actions. So we get 140 character or less slurs against broad groups of people, or we get two pundits from different groups to yell nothingness on a channel and call it debate. Its cheaper, louder and gets eyeballs. Nothing new really, just faster these days.
The example that really bothered me the most was the whole health care debate. All the 24 hour news networks, yes all, put pundits on and let them scream. No need to even leave the studios. Even when the bill's text was available no network really went through it on air to explain what it meant. It was important, but not enough to read. Heck, some investigative journalism about how government run health care that exists actually works in the USA (e.g. the VA and IHS). Heck, I don't think I saw one newspaper that reprinted large parts of the bill with annotations to explain what it meant. Once again, nothing new just more voices.
I'm not sure there is a tech solution. It would require some way to find authority in an area and do basic fact checking. You can't just say NPR is good (they missed at verifying things this weekend) or Fox News is good (knowing when poles were actually closing in Florida in 2000 would have been a good fact to verify). I'm not even sure you could make money printing a report of only facts around a subject. I get the feeling a self tagging scheme might work (trust this guy for sports but ignore him for everything else). Twitter and Facebook really don't have tools for people to follow based on subject and ignore on others. A very hard and old problem.
The best thing about this from a publisher point of view is that candy sells. It doesn't require a fact checker or any real investigation to just "report" on what personalities said. Cheaper content that can be thrown up quick and SEO'd to death to insure some profit. Many people on this board have this very problem with certain tech blogs.
Combine this with the "them over there" syndrome where too many people think that groups they don't belong to are simpletons and it is a group to blame instead of individual actions. So we get 140 character or less slurs against broad groups of people, or we get two pundits from different groups to yell nothingness on a channel and call it debate. Its cheaper, louder and gets eyeballs. Nothing new really, just faster these days.
The example that really bothered me the most was the whole health care debate. All the 24 hour news networks, yes all, put pundits on and let them scream. No need to even leave the studios. Even when the bill's text was available no network really went through it on air to explain what it meant. It was important, but not enough to read. Heck, some investigative journalism about how government run health care that exists actually works in the USA (e.g. the VA and IHS). Heck, I don't think I saw one newspaper that reprinted large parts of the bill with annotations to explain what it meant. Once again, nothing new just more voices.
I'm not sure there is a tech solution. It would require some way to find authority in an area and do basic fact checking. You can't just say NPR is good (they missed at verifying things this weekend) or Fox News is good (knowing when poles were actually closing in Florida in 2000 would have been a good fact to verify). I'm not even sure you could make money printing a report of only facts around a subject. I get the feeling a self tagging scheme might work (trust this guy for sports but ignore him for everything else). Twitter and Facebook really don't have tools for people to follow based on subject and ignore on others. A very hard and old problem.