Journalism and the internet: Is it the best of times? No — but it’s not the worst of times either

gigaom reporting:

Writer David Sessions argues in a piece at Patrol magazine that journalism is worse because of the effects of the internet — but most of the things that he and others complain about have been a part of the media business for hundreds of years, including clickbait
Having just written what I consider a defense of the internet’s effect on journalism and the media industry, I didn’t expect to have to do it again so soon. But just after Andrew Leonard’s short-sighted piece in Salon about how the internet has crippled journalism, David Sessions wrote on the same topic in Patrol magazine, and arguably did an even worse job of describing the current state of journalism, calling it a morass of “cynical, unnecessary, mind-numbing, time-wasting content.”
It’s not just the over-riding pessimism of both of these pieces that bothers me. It’s the failure to appreciate that the complaints they have are the same ones that have been made about journalism for decades — combined with the unrestrained longing for some mythical golden age of journalism....
..Is this the best of times for journalism? No. But it’s hardly the worst of times either. The fact is that there was no “golden age of journalism.” Journalism has always been a messy and chaotic and venal undertaking in many ways — the internet didn’t invent that. All the web has done is provide us with more ways to produce and distribute both ephemeral nonsense and serious journalism in greater quantities. The good part is that it has also made it easier to find the things we care about. What we choose to do with that power, as always, is up to us.
http://gigaom.com/2014/08/28/journalism-and-the-internet-is-it-the-best-of-times-no-but-its-not-the-worst-of-times-either/