I compared Alternet.org to nytimes.com as a comparison of alternative media verse main stream media. I decided to look at articles on environmental issues specifically. For starters I’d like to throw out there that I have some favoritism towards alternative media. I went into the comparison thinking they were “the good guys”, and I wasn’t really let down . Every article on alternet had a pro activism sort of feeling about it, it’s not just informing you about the problems, it wants you to help. The New York Times article on Global Warming seemed more like a school report rather than an article. It was simply informative and extremely vague. It also didn’t seem like it was even coming from a person, like it was an encyclopedia entry or something. It said something along the lines of businesses are getting together to figure out what they can do about this problem. Ok well, what businesses? What have they come up with so far? When are they going to implement the “solutions” they’ve come up with? Maybe there is an article about that somewhere on their site, but you’d have to do some searching. The alternet article told you about the political gridlock we are currently in to actually start changing things that will reduce our carbon emissions. You could clearly see the personality of all the writers and it seemed like they were right in the middle of what they were writing about.
Obviously the alternet’s articles are very opinionated, but they don’t hide that their biased. If you go to that site, you know what you’re in for. It’s not like some of the public news stations who lean certain ways but don’t really own up to it so they can get more viewers or even some converts. I feel like journalism shouldn’t tend to be objective. I consider it a good piece if the reader is moved into wanting to do something about the problem by the time they’ve finished it.
Altnernet also had tons of outlets on the site that allowed you to go other related blogs and sources. The site itself had pieces from it’s own writers, as well as other alternative media. I read articles from Mother Jones, St. martins Press, and Truthdig. It just shows that alternet doesn’t want you to only see what they have to say.
I don’t want to give the impression that I dislike The New York Times because I think they’re a great media source, and I’m really rooting for newspapers to stay alive. They have a lot of good coverage on important topics and they’re, at least I’d say, one of the most respected media sources. I think the real polar opposite of alternative media is television media. The reporters seem uninformed, they don’t even bother trying to appeal to a diverse group, and sometimes they choose to cover what’s more entertaining, rather than what’s important.
