Media Is Changing, But Some Things Endure

(CBS)  The following commentary is written by senior political correspondent Jeff Greenfield.

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When Sunday Morning marked its 25th anniversary, I was invited back to survey how the media landscape had changed. When this broadcast was born in 1979, I noted, there was no cable news, no abundance of cable channels, no C-SPAN. There were some reasonably big changes, of course.

But what has happened in the last five years can't even be captured by the word "change" - it is as if the most fundamental laws of the media universe have been overthrown.

Sure, some changes count as "more of the same." The big three networks, which divided 90 percent of the primetime audience 30 years ago, now divide about 30 percent, but they are still the dominant players in primetime.

And the major alternatives - basic cable channels like Lifetime, ESPN for sports, HBO for pay-cable alternatives - are thriving.

But where the last five years have brought a revolution is how information and entertainment is delivered, and where.

Five years ago, MySpace was the barest glimmer of an idea for a social networking site in Los Angeles; it's now a worldwide presence, with well over 120 million visitors a month.

Facebook didn't even exist five years ago. It now draws more than 200 million visitors.

Ask anyone about YouTube before 2005 and they'd have thought you were talking about an ointment. By last fall, it was drawing a hundred million viewers a month. Every minute, ten hours of videos are posted, ranging from news, sports, and entertainment clips to original creations. If you want to see what Mentos and Diet Coke can create in combination, YouTube provides the answer - dozens of them.

Well, okay, just more sources of media, right?

No. What these and countless other examples represent is a sea change that has upended all of our assumptions about how media are delivered. Today, everything we see and hear and read is "digitized" - a product of those countless "1's" and "0's'." And that, in turn, means that, as far as technology is concerned, it's all the same - print, audio, video, no difference. So what?

Here's what: Once upon a time - say, when Sunday Morning was born - every kind of information came in a different form. If you read mail, it came in an envelope. If you wanted to listen to news, you had to buy a radio. If you wanted to play music at home, you needed a phonograph and records. You wanted to read a newspaper? You needed the paper. A movie? That was a trip to the theatre, or a VCR. A phone call away from home? A pay phone. Write a report? Get a typewriter, and find a copier and a mailbox to send it around the world.

Now (to use the buzz word) "convergence" is here. Every conceivable kind of information - "information" in the broadest sense - comes to us on a raft of devices. Take the iPhone, which can be a newspaper, a TV screen, a camera, a theatre, a file cabinet, a radio, a Walkman, Yellow Pages, an edit room, and a travel agency.

And at root, this revolution has shifted massive amounts of power away from the providers to the users of information. You don't want to watch a program when it's on? Hey, it's always on somewhere. You like one song, but not an album? iTunes will oblige. You don't want to buy a newspaper? Read it for free (one reason why newspapers as we know them may not be around much longer).

Which raises this heretical thought: Whether on a TV screen or computer or cell phone or toaster, the fundamental things still apply (or should). A love of story-telling, a love of clear, vivid language, a respect for history - the world didn't start five years ago, even if YouTube did - these still matter most.

Which may be one big reason why 30 years on, this broadcast endures.

[KamaronLeach]

August 27th, 2010

Currently, true Journalism is in a critical condition and has been threatened for half a decade or more now. Beginning with the new millennium, not only have social networking sites such as Twitter, Facebook, and YouTube threatened Journalism, but also by new media consoles as well. But let's state the obvious, as time progresses so will components of life. Right? Yes, but the real issue is for better or for worse? New media has done its deal of good service for our technology generation but the problem is when the art and essence of knowledge is put at stake.
By the time I graduate from Howard University in the spring of 2014, new media will have changed at a faster increment than ever before. If so is true: Major corporations will attempt to have their own networks for a bigger promotion opportunity and of course for a profit, YouTube will be accessed by home televisions if it continues to grow at the same rates, and Twitter will be the network for companies to hire and monitor their employees. True journalism honors the truth, integrity, and service for the public rather than idolizing the ignorance of society. It is up to young journalists such as I to learn the art from the knowledgeable to keep hope alive. Journalism is not dead, it has been temporarily silenced but one thing about words is that it will always be seen.

Kamaron E. Leach
Atlanta, Georgia
Broadcast Journalism major
Political Science minor
Howard University c/o 2014

[slt133]

The video is on youtube. (remember the subject of the story people!) CBS has a channel and the video from them is here: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=JdJlyh76dEc Katie also has a channel and the story from her is here: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=cQCb039opO8

[slt133]

And even better, it's right on this site, located here:
http://www.cbsnews.com/video/watch/?id=4766978n&tag=contentMain;contentBody

I guess people need to learn how to search.

[derrick729]

I also saw the 30 year history show on Sunday morning, and thought you did a great job. The media is changing piece was very good. I would like to have a download of that, so I can use it to discuss the vision of the company I work for.

[mediajunkie68]

I am a college professor and this story is perfect for the Mass Media Literacy and Telecommunication courses that I teach. Please make the video available. Thanks

[Callenw]

Can this be found as a video?

[cameraphone]

cameraphone,
Your user name gets me into a whole different area of irresponsibility when the internet becomes a form of media. There are pictures and videos posted of somebody assaulting somebody else drivers acting in a dangerous manner and even sexual assault on children. The people who post these are sometimes the perpetrators or their friends.
Posted by ausus at 12:15 AM : Feb 03, 2009

A cameraphone is an inanimate object, and much like the rhetoric that comes out of the National Rifle Association about guns, it is how a person uses a cameraphone and not the object itself that can be troubling.

But in this case, I choose the name cameraphone because I already had a cat named cablecar.

[goosfraba2]

Apologies for the double-post.

[goosfraba2]

I morn the day when TRUE JOURNALISTS are completely gone. So much of what we watch or read today is hyped to increase ratings. News programs (the big three) and newspapers were the bastions of maintaining freedom from government and corporate malfeasance. Today they have almost been completely usurped by the corporate big-wigs to deliver "news" slanted to their political and/or business likings. Orwell''s "Nineteen Eighty-Four" is almost complete.

[goosfraba2]

I morn the day when TRUE JOURNALISTS are completely gone. So much of what we watch or read today is hyped to increase ratings. News programs (the big three) and newspapers were the bastions of maintaining freedom from government and corporate malfeasance. Today they have almost been completely usurped by the corporate big-wigs to deliver "news" slanted to their political and/or business likings. Orwell''s "Nineteen Eighty-Four" is almost complete.

[ausus-2009]

cameraphone,

Your user name gets me into a whole different area of irresponsibility when the internet becomes a form of media. There are pictures and videos posted of somebody assaulting somebody else drivers acting in a dangerous manner and even sexual assault on children. The people who post these are sometimes the perpetrators or their friends.