Bite the hand that feeds (when that hand only feeds you scraps)

In the understatement of the new year... it would appear things are a wee bit discouraging in journalistic circles of late.

Hardly shocking, 'tis, when all around us, various job fields are crumbling the likes of which people of my generation (and that of the Boomers) have never seen. Yes, the mass media is a hurting unit right now. The thing is, even as a journalist myself, I don't exactly feel any pity for them.

For too long, the media has been operating just as any other coporate monolith does. Gradually, huge conglomera-zillas gobbled up every newspaper, television station, and radio broadcaster they could, to the point that we now have a situation in North America where a half-dozen companies control 95 per cent of the news we recieve.

I could draw the obvious parallels to Orwell, and Marshall McLuhan here, but I think we all get the gist of the problem. Being spoon-fed our news by a narrow group of institutions with a set agenda is not exactly good for our wittle bwains.

But I digress. I guess what is really grinding my gears is that the inevitable is now happening in media. Our current economic climate is causing mass media to pull out their axe, and slash jobs just like any other mindless, heartless corporate behemoth would do. As a result, people like myself, who got into journalism with the naive goal of doing something silly like, oh, I don't know... making a difference, are facing a future where we will be nothing more than underpaid stiffs asked to do everything from write, to shoot photos, to shooting video, to... making the boss a sandwich. (Oh, how silly of me to forget: while the toast for your editor's sandwich is down, you will also have to design and paginate a page, edit some hack's work, and post on the publication's website.)

So, what is the solution? Well in the interim, the corporate blobs will attempt to make a go of it with increased Internet propoganda, but that will only go so far. The fact is, the media must change in the Western World. The domination of the enormous corporations will end.

Every industry must see the turning point we are at in world history, and the media will have to fall into step. The changes are going to be difficult, but in the long run, a less centralized media is good for all of us.