The Might of Old Media
The World Cup is over, but there are many lessons that still remain to be learned. I’ll leave you to find the others, but the Times has an article about the one we can all learn about Big, Bad Mainstream Media.
At a time when many viewers are turning away from mainstream media, the World Cup demonstrates the continuing power of live sports events to pull in the mass audiences that advertisers crave.When I hear things like this, it always makes me smile a little. On the one hand, there's still the perception from the mainstream that large audiences are the valuable ones - we know that's not entirely true though it's simpler to convince certain types that millions of folks = something compelling and connected. At the same time, however, I'm chuckling as I think of all the folks that are bloggers flying the journalist flag that can't or don't want to recognize the business of journalism and media.
I guess, from both directions, there’s a lot to not like about the other end of the rainbow. Fortunately, one of my favorite maxims still rings true: “When seeking the truth, look in the middle”.
P.S. This was my favorite quote from the article: “Another Portuguese-speaking squad that was sponsored by Nike, Portugal, fell in the semifinals. That left the final to be contested between Puma and Adidas, er, Italy and France.”
[update: Brian Oberkirch has a very relevant pointer here.]
technorati tags:media, msm, worldcup, sports, entertainment, business, socialroots