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Virtual Journalism

By drorzel on February 11, 2007.

I don't have a lot to add to this link, I just wanted to quote Ethan Zuckerman on virtual journalism, from a post about being interviewed for Pitchfork magazine:

The most interesting aspect of the discussion to me was the idea that Chris brought to the table - that we might pay more attention to imagined worlds than to the real one. First, this helped me understand precisely why I find the Second Life hype so disconcerting - I find it deeply odd that journalism is expanding into these illusory spaces (link to Reuters) while it's shrinking in the real world. I think the answer may be that these new spaces - whether SecondLife, World of Warcraft, the culture of fanfiction or machinima - are far more coverable than many events in the real world. Chris uses an example I offered about the difficulty of finding out what's what in Somalia - there are literally hundreds of situations in the globe where, despite political importance and the impact on human beings, we've got very little idea what's actually going on. By contrast, virtual and pop-culture worlds are knowable in a deep, comprehensive, net-friendly and encyclopedic manner. That, plus fewer vaccinations, could make anyone want to be a virtual worlds correspondent rather than a real-world journalist.

Perhaps this is an answer to the eternal question of "Why oh why can't we have a better press corps?" (tm- Brad DeLong).

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It also explains why "What people in Washington think people in America think" is more likely to be covered in major news than "What people in America think." Hence the news perception that the Clinton blowjob was a national scandal, because the Washington set was scandalised by it. Finding out the other thing would have required driving out of Washington and feeling somewhere else's pulse.