Iceland is a country in crisis. It is trying to figure out how to pay back billions to the UK and Netherlands as its own banking system collapsed. Yet, it is also trying to figure out a way to create a haven for journalists. This provides a shield law so that they can hopefully live to be true journalists. If they are able to pull this off is another matter.
What is clear is that Journalism is changing. I have struggled with trying to undestand it as I have talked about our World and tried to fashion some centrist realistic response to it. The 4th Estate has to truly live up to be the conscious of the World. It has failed miserably. How it redeems itself is going to be challenging to say the least. Iceland is at least trying to do the right thing for the sake of us all.
As a new media practitoner, I believe in free media and the free discourse of information. I also think that it is absolutely vital for us who have decided to take up this mantle to act responsibly. This is ever more so as we go through this spectre of change that continues to be as unprecendented as ever.
Cable News Networks have grown into a publiclity machine for lobbyists and Public Relations Consultants. What they regard as being "the truth" is not necessarily the case. All the majors are run by multinational conglomartes who have only thing in mind: profits. The Media Barons get very nervous when someone rises to challenge them. Fox and its' parent, News Corp, gets away with quite a bit becasue it has a loyal following who seem to think that whatever Fox and its' stars say is gospel. There is a war going on--the war for the real truth that no ones seems to want to accept.
The bigger challenge is how the media is actually dealing with the profound questions of the day. Aaron Brown, the Ex-CNN Anchor who was fired by CNN in 2006, noted that it is a lot cheaper to put up so-called "experts" to fill the time rather than send someone to Afghanistan to actually pound the pavement to figure it all out.
I eagerly await the rollout of a new BBC master plan by the BBC's Director General. The rumours are that it will see cutbacks in web presence and close downs of certain of its entitites. The World Service is exempt becasue I understand that it is funded by the British Government through the Foreign Office.
This apparent retrenchment is of profound concern to me. If this is in response to what James Murdoch said, it will quite tragic. James Murdoch is worried about independent media. If his definition of independent media is the trash he and his father push through Fox News in the U.S, my response is no thank you. This is also ever so with Murdoch Media Properties in the UK. Murdoch already has too much power and influence. This outright power grab should not be allowed because Mr. Murdoch needs to understand that he has to be held to account.
Mike Pouraryan
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