Earlier today I participated in an interesting comment string on Facebook. This is happening more and more to me, and I am sure that I am not alone.  As information flows through our lives, via Facebook, Twitter and so on, the ability to share our thoughts and have them shaped by others becomes more efficient and quicker.  There is no doubt that these changes facilitate better communication about the trivia of our lives also.  But, recently, I have also been having some second thoughts about whether this is always a great thing.

I was struck by this when commenting with some online friends about the decline of the Newspaper industry.  A very talented friend had left the Post, leaving behind a potential vacuum in technology coverage by the paper.  The initial reaction in the thread was “well, that’s another example of the death of the Newspaper business model.”  Perhaps, it is – as talented people leave (or are pushed out of) the established media outlets.  As an investor I favor change and want to see new business models succeed.  Still, something about the demise of the Newspaper industry troubles me.  Although their business model (advertising subsidizing news gathering and reporting) has been effectively undermined by the twin towers of On line Ads and Craig’s List, I wonder if we are losing something that has value.

It seems to me that news organizations such as the TV Networks, the Major Newspapers and News Periodicals provided a common frame of reference for society – a shared reality, if you will.  Whether you necessarily agreed with their opinions and viewpoints, at least you had a sense of where society was on an issue, and what people were finding important.  A centralized media provided a common sense of identity and a shared frame of reference.   

Another benefit of these large organizations was their accountability. They had a “brand” to protect, and accordingly, had an interest in achieving editorial consistency and fact checking.   The quality of their information was important to them.  Sure, there were lapses, but the overarching driver of these organizations was to provide information that they could stand behind implicitly, as having been researched and having some consistency with the editorial bias and viewpoint of an established organization.

The ability to have an economic model that supported many reporters, allowed for direct coverage and investigations into areas of our society and elsewhere, where reporters could take the time to work a story and get it right.  There was much more “local” news.  This further accentuated a sense of community, and also facilitated a closer watch on politicians and those that serve the public good.

There are certainly outliers to all that I say above – examples where things didn’t work out in the idealized world I described above.  Still, having said that, the exceptions don’t really cause the benefits to be dismissed so easily.

What we are heading towards is a world where everyone can find “news” that fits his or her world view.  More and more people form their thoughts in an echo chamber of similar thinking people. There are right wing news sources and left wing news sources.  But, there appear to be fewer and fewer shared news sources.  In a world without the need to ensure organizational credibility, people can engage in “citizen journalism” free of the encumbrances of a long term requirement to maintain mainstream credibility.  We are heading to a world where opinion is substituting for information.

As my Facebook experience shows, we are relying more and more on our circle of friends to help us parse and validate information.  In a group, one or more people can be seen as an “authority” on a subject.  Extending this outward, more and more people are applying the same model to the information they value from the Web.  We are moving into an age where the reputation of a person is substituting for the reputation of large organizations.

Sometimes this results in a  Techcrunch or Huffington Post, where the blogging brand of an individual becoms the basis of a news gathering organization and news source – effectively taking on many of the roles and responsibilities of an established news organization.  So, it can be said that sometimes the ease of establishing a news outlet will reward us with new voices that take their responsibilities seriously and can be trusted to do their best to provide accurate information.  But, how many of these sources can we count on?  Who will take on the more mundane topics, like local government or community activities?  And, how will we differentiate the quality of their information in a world where there are no established sources and sources self select?

What I am seeing more and more is what I call “reputational prospecting”.  People take extreme positions on issues, or make extreme predictions, in order to rise above the chatter and background noise.  In a world where experts and information leaders self-select, this is unfortunately a logical path to take.  It is spilling into the remaining “old model” news media more and more often, as their own shrinking budgets prevent them from covering or scooping a story, and they strive to catch up or keep up with the velocity of information on the Web.  If you are looking for the effect of reputational prospecting, take some time to look at financial news these days (“oil is going to $500.”/”Oil is going to $20”) or how the healthcare reform is being described. 

While I do not necessarily have an answer to these issues to offer today, I do know that before we bury the old style media business with glee we should consider how to replace what it did well.  The failure to do this will not make our ever-growing flow of information more useful. In fact, it may accomplish the other, and make information less valuable.  In a world without real accountability for information creation, it becomes easier to spin and easier to fragment society.  This is a real problem.  We shouldn’t ignore it.