News flow and critique of sources

I just red a piece by Peter Bart, the editor in chief of Variety. He wrote in his column this past Friday about 'Fear and loathing in the blogosphere', it's a piece about how the news flow works in Hollywood today. He describes how the executives marvel at the fact that they can fire somebody at 10:15 and read about it on the web at 10:14. Something that might seem a bit disturbing and something that might seem as grounds for firing in itself in an other business as, at least to me, it would seem that somebody has definitely leaked inside information.

Bart goes on to make more examples of how people has received news that affects them through internet and blogs before they have received it through the official channels and he also explains that this is how it works today and that it would seem unproductive for the executives to try to work against it even though they still do to some extent today, if they do not just simply ignore the fact that this is how it now works.

Something that struck me though when I red Bart's piece is that it seems that people has completely stopped using criticual thinking or at least simply ask themselves where the information behind the news comes from or who might benefit from the news. Which pretty much means that the rumour mill can run haywire in Hollywood because nobody seems to stop to think why the news is out there or where it comes from.

So my point is simply this. The new newsflow that Bart is talking about in his piece should not really be such a problem for the executives and established traditional newsagencies as both of these carry with them a large piece of credibility while most blogs or other online sources does not. Sure some of them have been established for so long or have links to traditional press that has been around for long enough to create credibility but the vast majority of the sites out there has not. So the executives should be able to carry on with their press conferences for a while longer if you ask me.

But there is also something very disturbing that surfaces here and that is the general movement towards not using criticism of the sources in general and that is something I have notices over a long period of time through my online activities. While I was taught about this in school when I was around 12 it would seem that people in general are not even talking much about this anymore. It of course differs a lot depending on where you are from, as an example I met a Russian in the mid 90s that said that you really had to read between the lines when you read a news paper in Russia and during the late 80s and early 90s he was most likely right but the thing is that today it might be even more important but in a totally different part of the world. Today it is not politics that try to control the news flow but rather large corporate interests and this should not really come as news as this has been the case for many decades at least.

Unfortunately it would seem as though people has become complacant and just take things at face value. Which of course makes me life a lot easier as a blogger but at the same time it makes me wonder about the world of tomorrow.