Always count on the media to report on the media

Ever sat around and had an argument with your friends about who was more popular and had more power between Jon Meacham and Anna Wintour?

Probably not, because, well, most of us don’t know who Meacham and Wintour are – editors of major magazines – and that’s fine.

But a new Web site that cares about such things, Mediaite, popped up during the summer while you were working at that unpaid internship or becoming a member of the birther movement, proving that if there is one thing the media can cover well, it is themselves.

Mediaite is one of the most seemingly pointless Web sites, yet if you are remotely interested in anything media, you will not be able to click away.

Aside from collecting and opining on all media-related stories, Mediaite also features power rankings for all major forms of media. That’s right, we are now ranking journalists in the same way we rank professional sports teams.

The rankings are supposedly compounded with all sorts of different metrics – including old-school measurements such as circulation or rating figures and new fangled ones like Twitter followers or Google Buzz – which almost makes it more over-the-top.
Not only does Mediaite offer power rankings, but it actually has a complicated, time-consuming system of measuring them. Please.

And though Mediaite is certainly an addictive Web site, mostly for the ridiculous power rankings alone, its presence seems to conflict with ideas of what journalism and the media should be doing.

I hate to get on my journalistic and even moral high horse here, but why in the world does it matter what print editor is more powerful?

The important thing for anyone working in the media should be to deliver the news in the most honest and informative way, in hopes of helping the audience.
In most parts of the media, individuals should not be as worried about their image or Google Buzz as they should be with doing their job. The audience should be more interested in a story’s content, not who wrote or produced it.

Now, I understand 100-percent true information and facts are not always disseminated to us in this ever-growing talking-head-let-me-yell-an-insane-opinion-as-loud-as-I-can-until-I-get-noticed culture. People in the media are worried about their image because that’s just how our society functions.

And I also understand that Mediaite and its rankings were started without the interest or knowledge of probably all the people who make it onto the list. But when we have been given reports of journalism’s demise for 2 to 3 years now and thousands of people have lost their jobs, it seems crass to celebrate the people at the top.

Though major journalists might not check their rankings regularly, you can bet someone does and e-mails it to them anyway. It’s never good to give the people craving attention more attention.

Of course, that’s what I just did. You win, Mediaite.