THERE WAS A TIME when I was very concerned that the internet (and social media) was going to destroy newspapers and other bonafide news outlets however, after seeing the progress of it all over the last 20 years I've changed my mind.
Sure, getting news on the internet has become a 'thing' as people scramble to get the latest updates. The sad part is that now anyone can be reporter thanks to the advent of social media and to compound matters, so called 'legitimate' news sources seemed to have sold out to a political party or their biggest supporters- which has spoiled the idea of getting any balanced news, you know, the Walter Cronkite "that's the way it is" without bias.
Most folks haven't noticed how bad internet/social media based news has become. It seems that everyone has gotten used to just seeing a picture of a high school athletic team accompanied with "Great job team!" For us old timers, we quickly notice the absence of player's names and a well written photo caption with pertinent and interesting details.
But it gets worse. The so called independent reporters typically can't spell (although spell checker is built into just about everything) and have issues with grammar that goes mostly unnoticed by readers as bad reporting has become the standard. Worst of all? Young readers perceive it to be normal and it likely will never improve with time.
I'll stop here and admit that we are not perfect here at Mid America Live and the news-Review. More often than not, despite multiple proofreads, I'll crack open an old edition of our paper and find errors.
However, it only fuels our desire to improve our product- in other words, strive to not let it happen again. In contrast, internet/social media 'news' continues to put out the same poorly written mumbo jumbo in an effort to be the first to report it regardless of how poorly it is presented.
We get an "atta boy" every now and then regarding the news-Review which admittedly inflates our egos a tad, but mostly it tells us that readers appreciate our attention to detail. The same type of detail you'll find only with news sources that not only try very hard to present it well, but also spent countless hours behind the scenes to attend council meetings, special events and much more unlike the internet keyboard warriors that simply want to make a 'viral' splash.
I'll end by saying that we love what we do here and hopefully it shows. Just know that anytime we are told that our efforts are appreciated, we have to say we appreciate you, our loyal readers, just as much. We will always strive to tell both sides of the story as well as provide important details with a splash of humor now and then.
I don't mean to openly bash the internet, but come on man, there are alternatives! -Doug Mager
