Page 475 - Sociology and You

Chapter 13 Political and Economic Institutions 445
Reporting the news has been part of the United States since its founding. Indeed, freedom of the press is one of the basic guar- antees of the Bill of Rights. During the twentieth century, television dis-
placed newspapers as the primary source of news for most Americans. Now, the Internet is promising to make much greater changes in the way news is gathered and delivered.
Central to the changes is the fact that today anyone with access to the Internet is free to “report” the news. Internet journalist Matt Drudge says that now, “any citizen can be a reporter” (Trigaboff, 1998:55). Drudge portrays the Internet as a democratizing institution eliminating differences between reporters and readers.
and Democracy
Cybernews
Many journalists, however, worry about the negative effects of in- stant reporting via the Internet. Sources for stories often go unchecked as reporters sacrifice accuracy for speed. Reporters on the Internet generally do not have editors reviewing their stories, in-house attor- neys worrying about lawsuits, or publishers making judgment calls about the appropriateness of news stories. Joseph C. Goulden, former director of media analysis for Accuracy in Media, a nonprofit, grass- roots citizens watchdog of the news media, describes the reporting style on the Internet as “Ready, fire, aim” (Rust and Danitz, 1998:23).
In the United States, one of the justifications for the free- dom of the press is its role in delivering accurate informa- tion to voters. If Internet reporting represents a trend toward greater inaccuracy, this traditional contribution of a free press to American democracy could be weakened. What if voters grew to distrust even more the information they re- ceived and thus became increasingly cynical about the polit-
ical process?
At this time no one can be sure what the future holds for
Internet journalism. One thing, though, is certain: Internet journalism will have a profound impact on the way news is re-
ported (Kinsley, 1998).
Analyzing the Trends
There is no question that the Internet will affect how democ- racy is practiced in the U.S. Discuss some ways in which the
federal government currently uses the Internet to affect group behavior.
Matt Drudge became the symbol of Internet news reporting in the late 1990s. Is Internet journalism good or bad for democracy?