Opinion: Facebook, mass hysteria and Rupert Murdoch

Posted on 24 Mar 2010 at 13:06

 

Gallery

Like an increasing number of people, the vast quantities of ad-supported news available online at no upfront cost to me means I no longer read newspapers regularly. I'm occasionally tempted to buy a broadsheet or tabloid out of sheer curiosity but I usually put it back down fairly quickly due to the hysterical rantings that often passes for news these days.

The surprisingly large number of suspect articles about Facebook are a prime example. According to the Daily Mail, the social networking website could increase your risk of cancer. If that's not alarming enough, Facebook is also apparently facilitating a rise in promiscuity and therefore a corresponding increase in sexually transmitted diseases, says The Sun.

Worst of all, a child could be approached by a paedophile intent on grooming them within five minutes of logging onto Facebook if the Mail is to be believed. From reading those articles, it would be overly generous to say that their alarming claims are backed up by evidence that's dubious, spurious, exaggerated or unscientific at best.

Unfortunately, the increasing number of people not paying for newspapers and opting for free online news instead, and the corresponding drop in revenue, probably has something to do with this mass hysteria that's now masquerading as news both in print and online. As Charlie Brooker of The Guardian puts it, "facts are expensive, so to save costs and drive up sales, unscrupulous dealers often 'cut' the basic contents with cheaper material, such as wild opinion, bullshit, empty hysteria, reheated press releases, advertorial padding and photographs of Lady Gaga with her bum hanging out".

This isn't a sustainable state of affairs. As much I hate to agree with Rupert Murdoch, the owner of The Times and (ironically) The Sun may have a point when he states that "Quality journalism is not cheap, and an industry that gives away its content is simply cannibalising its ability to produce good reporting".

If paying for news is the only way to get quality content then I'm willing to do it. Unfortunately, I may well be in the minority and if that's true then the quality of our public discourse will only decline further.

Author: Alan Lu