After watching Buzz Bissinger’s melt down and Bob Costas’ ignorance and hubris last night on HBO’s Costas Now, I was tempted to let the fingers fly and hammer out a scathing indictment on their Luddite and elitist worldview. I passed on the immediate opportunity, but Sporting News did it for me, albeit with a gentler treatment than I was likely to have offered up. However, 24 hours later with a full day at the office under my belt I’m up for the task.
The fact that a ‘credentialed’ and successful writer / journalist such as Bissinger failed to deliver a moving or even cogent argument for the news desk of yesteryear and instead ranted and raved about how unfair it was that uneducated, uncredentialed bloggers were able to broadcast on even footing with traditional print media is an indication of just how profound a socioeconomic shift is underway. Even more telling was Costas’ inability to differentiate between writers and commenters in blog posts — can you get any more out of touch?
Actually, it turns out you can because in Costas’ mind television isn’t in danger of being destroyed like traditional print media has been. Um, haven’t sports ratings been in dramatic decline for last couple of decades? Isn’t advertising beginning to pull out of television and move over to the web? Looks like Bob Costas is drinking a lethal cocktail of ignorance, hubris and outright denial.
Now Bob Costas isn’t alone. In fact I’d say his kind are still a majority of the population that I’d label the “old school” (age is an indicator, but not causal). The old school doesn’t really know what to make of the Internet. Some of them think its important, but they’re not entirely sure why. They keep thinking they can stick to the same tired old business models and worn out processes (sometimes guised under new names), formulas and viewpoints (Copernicus — the earth is the center of the universe) . When they look at it they see a lot of messy, unregulated noise and simply dismiss it, patronize, or even occasionally, like Bissinger, they lose their minds over it. Mostly though, they just can’t grok it.
They don’t see the enormous social shifts, how its reshaping our knowledge repositories, radicalizing our ability to educate ourselves, undermining traditional institutions, challenging the sovereignty of the nation-state and dramatically altering economics / business. The breadth and wealth of instantly accessible static knowledge alone is staggering, but when combined with the dynamic knowledge of social networks and the empowerment of the individual (everyone can access and contribute) you have a paradigm shift of monumental proportions. It’s pretty easy to foam at the mouth, pee yourself or stare blankly — fight, flight or deny — when confronted with this type of change.
I can’t help but think that the old school should be force fed some Lawrence Lessig, Clay Shirky or Don Tapscott. As Marshall Kirkpatrick of ReadWriteWeb notes:
Passive media and advertising does not have a bright future, and many people in those industries who are watching the direction the internet is going know it.
Indeed. Traditional media and traditional business are dying — it’s time to get it, get over it, and get on with changing the world.