I’m asserting that you should read this

The Project for Excellence in Journalism, an institute affiliated with Columbia University Graduate School of Journalism, has released its State of the News Media 2005 online. Here's a link to the executive summary, in which five trends are delineated. Here are two of them: There are now several models of journalism, and the trajectory increasingly is toward these which are faster, looser, and cheaper. The traditional press model?the Journalism of Verification?is one in which journalists are concerned first with trying to substantiate facts. It has ceded ground for years on talk shows and cable to a new Journalism of Assertion, where information is offered with little time or attempt to independently verify its veracity. Consider the allegations by the ?Swift Boat Veterans for Truth,? and the time lag of weeks required in reporting to find the claims were unsubstantiated. The blogosphere, while adding the richness of citizen voices, expands this culture of assertion exponentially, and brings to it an affirmative philosophy: publish anything, especially point of view, and the reporting and verification will occur afterward in the response of fellow bloggers. The result is sometimes true and sometimes false. Blogs helped unmask errors at CBS, but also spread the unfounded conspiracy theory that the GOP stole the presidential election in Ohio. All this makes it easier for those who would manipulate public opinion?government, interest groups and corporations?to deliver unchecked messages through independent outlets or their own faux-news web sites, video and text news releases and paid commentators.... The rise in partisanship of news consumption and the notion that people have retreated to their ideological corners for news has been widely exaggerated. A year ago we mentioned a third, older form of news regaining momentum?the Journalism of Affirmation. Here the news is gathered with a point of view, whether acknowledged or not, and audiences come to have their preconceptions reinforced. In 2004, this notion gained new force when Pew Research Center survey data revealed that Republicans and conservatives had become more distrustful of the news media over the past four years, while the perceptions of Democrats, moderates and liberals had remained about the same. This led to the popular impression that independent journalism was giving way to a European style partisan press, in which some Americans consume Red Media and others Blue. The evidence suggests this perception is grandly overstated. The overwhelming majority of Americans say they prefer an independent, non-partisan news media. So, apparently, do advertisers and investors. In addition, distrusting the media does not correlate to how or Not only do Republicans and Democrats consume most news media outlets in similar levels, but those in both parties who distrust the news media are often heavier consumers of these outlets than those who are more trusting. The only exceptions to this are talk radio and cable news, where Republicans have tended to congregate in one place, Fox. For most other media, the political orientation of the audience mirrors the population. The political make up of the network news audience, for instance, matches that of the Weather Channel. I'll leave the assertive responses to this report to the commentators.