News vs Gossip

   The price of freedom is eternal vigilance.

   Journalism tells you what you need to know, not just what you want to know. The first is news; the second is gossip.

   "Mark Zuckerburg dreams of a day when Facebook's computers would know you and your habits so well that it would deliver exactly the information you want to see -- what he calls 'the best personalized newspaper in the world.'" -- New York Times 4 Feb. 2014.

   The techies seem to think that's a great idea, and that Facebook is well on its way to realizing that dream, when computers "know you and your habits so well."
   But wait, there's more.

   That dream, of corporate and/or government computers knowing you and your habits so well, could quickly become a nightmare -- a Big Brother run amok.

   It is not a good thing that computers know individuals so thoroughly that they deliver only the information that person wants to see, hear or read. Nor is it a good thing that computers deliver only the information that government or corporations want people in general to see, hear or read. That's not rational information flow; that's propaganda and market manipulation.

   The mission of journalists is to tell the people what they need to know, not just what they want to know. Nor should journalists be willing or even unwitting accomplices in government or corporate attempts to manipulate the information flow to their advantage. This is not to say that government and corporations don't try to manipulate the news media. They do, and far too often succeed.

   Increasingly, there are reports of hackers and government "security" agencies (read: spies) hacking into computers with their super dooper scooper snoopers and snatching up all sorts of communications in their paranoid search for possible clues that may lead to potential suspects who might be planning a conspiracy to do harm to someone, sometime, somewhere, somehow.
   Note all the qualifiers. The so-called security agencies really don't have a clue. Yet they feed on their own paranoid fear that somewhere, someone, somehow may possibly be doing something.