I just came across this article – it is an interesting example of the conflict between corporate practices in traditional media versus new media.
By DAVID BAUDER, AP Television Writer
NEW YORK – Breaking with standards widely followed by the mainstream news media, the celebrity Web site TMZ posted a story Wednesday about a 14-year-old who’s a movie star’s son and an alleged sex crime victim, and it ran the boy’s picture.
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Almost all news organizations refrain from identifying sex crime victims, let alone show their picture, because of the stigma often attached to it, said Kelly McBride, ethics group leader at the journalism think tank Poynter Institute. The Associated Press’ policy is not to identify people in such cases.The story was not reported on the Web site’s syndicated television show.
TMZ is owned by Time Warner Inc., the media conglomerate which also owns Time Warner Cable, Warner Bros., the magazine publisher Time Inc. and a group of cable channels that includes HBO, CNN, TBS and TNT. A Time Warner spokesman referred calls on the matter to the company’s Telepictures division, and a spokeswoman for Telepictures did not immediately return a call for comment.
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The Internet means that the gatekeepers who traditionally control the news are no longer in charge, said Jay Rosen, a New York University professor who runs the Web site Press Think.http://news.yahoo.com/s/ap/20080501/ap_en_ce/tmz_sex_crime;_ylt=Ah4hKrh4E0_8e_tsRV0xhxtxFb8C
Although in recent years there has been an undeniable consolidation of ownership in all media forms, including the Internet, Rosen’s quote to me implies that corporations have much more difficulty setting agendas online rather than through traditional means. Where television requires very little activity from its users, the Internet is a highly active medium that gives people ample opportunity to question what is being disseminated to them. While corporations are definitely getting more involved in the Internet sphere through ownership, it seems that this lack of control has led them to view the Internet solely as an ad revenue source, rather than as an outlet for cultivation of certain ideologies. I believe that the fact that the story was reported (and never retracted) online but never broadcast on the TMZ TV show supports this theory.
