The media as a collective

While many forms of the media feel they are outside of the norms they still exhibit habits dictated by the norms of media. Garber identifies several reasons why this is true. All media - at least new media –lacking expansive resources uses traditional media as part of their story inevitably tying themselves into an already constructed system. It’s almost impossible to take one thing and rephrase it entirely to something new; even more so in a congressional hearing David Simon discredits Citizen Journalist. 


To really observe the collective we can look to the Raven Simone incident. While talking with Oprah, Ms. Simone comments about not being African-American.

Within hours just about every alternative news media played Raven’s comments against someone who overwhelmingly identified as African-American. Bustle Media.  Creating an invisible middle where journalists can hide in their reporting. Barnett comments on the fact that social media allows people to be closer to the news source, although such creates problems when it comes to investigating. Accepting whatever that source has said is inevitably no different from the way in which governmental stories are written. What the media reported Raven said and what Raven actually said was completely different.

 Had the media investigated what Raven said, they would have realized she was talking about African-American as an ethnicity not as a race. In several interviews conducted after the story broke, Raven confirmed that she was in fact not talking about her race.

Raven Speaks Out