Is we is? Or is we are?

March 11th, 2008 at 08:51am Pat Cunningham

 

I’ve vented about this pet peeve in other places over the years, but never here. Until now.

Hardly a day goes by when I don’t have to wince dozens of times at the sight or sound of the word “media” used as a singular.

Even otherwise respectable newspapers, magazines, Web sites, blogs and broadcast outlets regularly employ such phrases as “the media is…the media was….the media has…”

The problem, of course, is that those verbs should be “are…were…have,” because “media” is a plural.

My objections to such misuse are based on more than just persnicketiness about Latin. When the media are referred to as a singular, it feeds the notion that they are a monolith.  But that just isn’t so.

We’re living in a communications revolution, an age of media demassification that was predicted more than 30 years ago by futurist Alvin Toffler, among others.

We’re surrounded at every turn by media — in our homes and offices, in our cars, in our pockets, almost even in our heads. From Blackberrys to iPods, from laptops to cell phones to fax machines, we’re always using media to upload, download or disseminate images, sounds and information (or disinformation).

Digital technologies have created an explosion of new media (one type of which you’re reading right now).  There are more media covering more subjects and offering a greater diversity of opinions and perspectives than we’ve ever had before.

Politicians these days have to face not only inquisitive reporters from the traditional media but also the potentially withering scrutiny of ordinary citizens armed with phones than can record video and audio, and with computers that can speed information around the world in an instant.

The Internet allows anybody to access almost any facts or images, place them in whatever context is desired, and instantly communicate them to almost anybody else on Earth.  This amazing power is having a transformative effect on the traditional media in ways that are just now beginning to unfold.

The blogosphere has become an invaluable and relentless critic of the mainstream media, exposing errors of both omission and commission. Talk radio, which has been a widely influential medium for only the past generation or so,  is another fierce watchdog on the MSM.

To say, as some folks are wont, that the media are some singled-minded beast controlled by an evil cabal is nonsense.

Yes, there are problems with concentrated corporate ownership of media,  and problems with “herd journalism,” as it’s called, and with reckless sensationalism, sloppiness and other instances of irresponsibility among the media. But most of the bemoaning of these failures is read and heard in the media themselves. None of it’s a secret. It’s discussed in newsrooms and boardrooms all over the place.

There are media and there are media, and they’re not all the same.  So let’s stop referring to them as a singular.

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