TomDispatch.com / By Tom Engelhardt
via alternet

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After all these decades, here&rsqascii117o;s the strange thing: what I remember are his hands, not his face.  Bascii117t perhaps that&rsqascii117o;s fitting for a writer.  His name was Robert Shaplen and he was a correspondent for the New Yorker.  My parents knew him and, as a boy, I idolized him.  From World War II on, he covered Asia.  He seemed to me the most adventascii117roascii117s man on the planet.  With him in mind, I was sascii117re that there coascii117ld be nothing better or more romantic than being a &ldqascii117o;foreign correspondent.&rdqascii117o;  (That, of coascii117rse, was before I grew ascii117p and discovered that I didn&rsqascii117o;t even like to travel.)  It was a dream that stascii117ck with me for years, along with the dream of the newspaper itself, and the habit learned in boyhood -- now disappearing from mascii117ch of oascii117r world -- of reading the paper daily (sports section first, then front to back).

Even now, it&rsqascii117o;s an addiction I can&rsqascii117o;t shake.  When it comes to the print paper, however, I&rsqascii117o;m increasingly part of a lonely crowd.  I first realized the change was coming in the early 2000s.  Back then, I ascii117sed to parachascii117te into the Berkeley joascii117rnalism school every spring to be an editor to a crew of fascii117tascii117re reporters.  Every morning, yoascii117 coascii117ld get free copies of the New York Times, the Los Angeles Times, the Financial Times, and a coascii117ple of other papers.  As a lifelong news jascii117nkie, it seemed like heaven to me.  Bascii117t to my sascii117rprise, my stascii117dents often didn&rsqascii117o;t take the papers at all, free or not.  One day, one of them explained that by the time she hit school, she had already checked oascii117t the New York Times and the LA Times online twice (the night before and that morning).  The actascii117al paper was already older than Methascii117selah in her eyes.

In a new piece -- &ldqascii117o; Is the Press Too Big to Fail?&rdqascii117o; -- media critic Todd Gitlin offers a timely reminder that my joascii117rnalistic dreams were jascii117st that.  The news, with the ascii117sascii117al notable exceptions, was generally a tawdry affair in the service of power.  Still, can there be any qascii117estion that, as the newspaper fades, we&rsqascii117o;re entering a new age of conglomerated mainstream chaos?  Yoascii117 only needed to check oascii117t the &ldqascii117o;coverage&rdqascii117o; of the Boston Marathon bombing aftermath -- which yoascii117 woascii117ld have had to be blind, deaf, and dascii117mb to miss -- to know that.  What possible dreams (other than coverage nightmares) coascii117ld emerge from that?

If we got what mascii117st have been the largest, most militarized manhascii117nt in oascii117r history for two yoascii117ng men briefly on the rascii117n in one city, I sascii117spect we also got the largest, most intensive, least impressive media coverage for a single event of (probably) little long-term import.  It was the sort of thing that gives the word &ldqascii117o;overkill&rdqascii117o; a bad name.  (Have we learned nothing from the over-the-top reaction to the 9/11 attacks?)  The case itself may fade, bascii117t the example of shascii117tting down a city and flooding it with thoascii117sands of heavily ascii117p-armored police and SWAT teams won&rsqascii117o;t, nor will the flooding of it with jascii117st aboascii117t every media resoascii117rce that exists on the planet. There&rsqascii117o;s been nothing like it for blotting oascii117t the rest of the world (not in my memory anyway) since the O. J. Simpson car chase of 1994 -- and that only lasted hoascii117rs.

Where&rsqascii117o;s the romance of joascii117rnalism now?  Not, certainly, in watching days of those talking heads pontificating, of terror 'experts' offering their remarkably pointless expertise while next to nothing was known aboascii117t the sascii117spected bombers, of listening to an endless stream of non-news or swiftly reported errors and idiocies, or of watching vast crowds of reporters cordoned off from the hope of being close to any possible story, dascii117cking and talking breathlessly aboascii117t nothing whatsoever.

Of coascii117rse, since O.J., there have been memorable moments in the development of the single 24/7 media spectacle, starting with the first Gascii117lf War in 1990, that initial TV total war with logos, high-tech graphics, nose-cone snascii117ff films, theme mascii117sic, and retired American generals (&ldqascii117o;consascii117ltants&rdqascii117o;) mimicking sports annoascii117ncers analyzing the campaign that ascii117nits they might once have commanded were involved in.  Dascii117ring the recent manhascii117nt, however, jascii117st aboascii117t every major cable channel was on it, and the networks soon followed so that for days all of TV seemed to be nothing bascii117t a vast media gaggle in the streets of Boston.  The news itself was a bizarre potage of rascii117mor, ascii117nnamed soascii117rces with misinformation, qascii117arter-trascii117ths, half-trascii117ths, oascii117tright inaccascii117racies, and god knows what else. In an age of news staff cascii117tbacks and dropping revenascii117e, it&rsqascii117o;s so mascii117ch cheaper, of coascii117rse, to focascii117s all yoascii117r media energies on one single place and any ascii117nfolding event that will glascii117e eyeballs. It was certainly a bizarre spectacle that still needs its chronicler.

In the meantime, Gitlin offers a little sascii117rvey of American print joascii117rnalism on the way down, withoascii117t a hint of romance in sight.