OMG I Agree with Nick Denton

And with that title, I may actually end up struck by lightning.

I have a love-hate relationship with the Gawker properties. I find most of the blogs in the network witty and a welcome respite from the constant regurgitation of the same old news items that I end up reading most of the day, but at the same time, as with the CES incident, I do think that they often cross the line.

When it comes down to a slapfest between Nick Denton and Guardian Unlimited, I figured it would be a no-brainer. Denton was probably rabble-rousing for page views and Roy Greenslade was setting him straight, right?

Wrong.

I've said before that while I started out as a Comm/J major, I knew very quickly that the life of a reporter wasn't for me. I'm too opinionated and didn't want to spend my days trying to stifle my opinions as I wrote articles. In blogging, I've found the perfect fit, because I'm EXPECTED to offer my commentary when I'm covering news.

The problem with traditional media is, and has always been, that you can't free reporting completely from bias. You can't even free "history" books from bias. Look at the differences between the U.S. and British accounts of what Americans know as the Revolutionary War and you'll see what I mean. The skew is always there, no matter how objective you attempt to be.

In an age where a newspaper or the nightly newscast might be the only conduit for someone to know what was happening in the world, it made sense to attempt to present one viewpoint in as neutral a way as possible. Time have changed, however, and there is a constant barrage of information from print media as well as network television, cable television, traditional radio, satellite radio, and, of course, the Internet. This is an era where two of the most popular shows on basic cable are news show parodies, and those shows are watched by an educated audience.

I think that Denton is right. Is there anyone left out there who still thinks that Fox News has objective reporting? Why not let reporters, even traditional reporters, state the facts as they know them and then add a bit of commentary? It might engage people by making them feel that they actually had a voice in the news, and weren't having information force-fed them like a goose being fattened for foie gras. And we all know that an engaged audience is often a more loyal one. Media is changing, and the way that people use it is, as well. It makes sense that the way in which news content is created should change along with it.