Here is a copyright-ready cartoon for any use that's noncommercial... emails, signs, flyers, whatever
Posted on 09/15/2004 2:28:40 AM PDT by Cincinatus' Wife
A revolution is sweeping the American media that will eventually spread to this part of the world.
What is happening is that for the first time in decades, if not ever, the power of the mainstream media (MSM) in the United States is being seriously challenged by a mostly ragtag army of outsiders armed with little more than the internet. The age of the blogger is upon us.
A blogger is someone who keeps a web-log, updated on an almost daily basis. They offer blow-by-blow commentary on current events. They can do so at almost no cost and their sites can be accessed by anyone with an internet connection anywhere in the world. Basically the internet has eliminated the cost of entry into the world of media and commentary at a stroke.
Last week we had a clear demonstration of blogger power.
CBS broke a story based on a document purporting to blow further holes in George Bush's National Guards record. This was to be the big counteroffensive against Bush following the Swift Boat Veterans for Truth campaign against Kerry.
The trouble is, it fizzled out in no time. Why? Certainly it was not because of the MSM, which showed no desire to subject the story to critical scrutiny, seeing as it was helping their man, John Kerry.
Instead it was left up to the bloggers to do that. As soon as the story broke they pounced on it and quickly showed that the document upon which CBS based its story was in all likelihood a forgery.
CBS and its unbelievably pompous anchorman, Dan Rather, have tried their best to defend the story but it is now all but dead and with it possibly Kerry's chance of election.
This sort of thing has never happened before because no one was around to call the MSM to account before.
The MSM in the US is liberal with few exceptions and will gladly run stories that embarrass the Republicans and suppress stories that will embarrass the Democrats. But now with the bloggers on the scene, the bias of the MSM is being revealed daily and the MSM can't stand it.
Let's broaden out the perspective here. As others have pointed out, what is happening to the MSM is roughly analogous to what happened to the Catholic Church when the printing press was invented. Up to that point the Catholic church controlled most of the available bibles and therefore the theological interpretations of the Bible.
This gave it great power in a Europe that was still very religious-minded.
Then the printing press arrived and put the Bible in the hands of vast numbers of people who could read it for themselves and interpret it in their own way. Before it knew it, the Catholic Church was faced with the Reformation, and not long after that the continuing proliferation of Protestant churches began in earnest. The Catholic Church had lost its monopoly because it lost control of the Bible.
Similarly the MSM is now losing its monopoly over the news. Before the arrival of the bloggers the vast majority of people had to rely on CBS, NBC, ABC, and the mostly liberal print media, dominated by papers such as the New York Times, for their daily news. Almost as importantly, they also relied on these outlets for their interpretation of the news.
Now the proliferating number of bloggers is directly challenging not only the MSM's interpretation of the news, but also what it decides should be news and what shouldn't be news. Some bloggers actually break news, e.g. the Drudge Report, which broke the Monica Lewinski story.
This is devastating for both the MSM and the Democrats, who have long been given a more or less free pass by the MSM. Never again will it dominate the news as it once did. Those days are gone and in the years to come its power will diminish and, with it, its influence.
I came across an ad at the weekend that showed a man skewered by a woman's high heel. A striking image to be sure. Men are an easy-going lot about these things. We treat them as a joke. However, it's easy to imagine the reaction of feminist groups if an ad showed a woman being crushed under a man's heel.
Not much humour in those quarters.
Here is a copyright-ready cartoon for any use that's noncommercial... emails, signs, flyers, whatever
Hey! What about us gals!?
I tell ya, it keeps reminding me of the Revolutionary War soldiers...farmers with muskets against the Red Coats. You gotta love it! Heh. The press misunderestimated the people...let's hope the liberal judges and educators and film makers are making the same mistake.
CHARGE!
Check this out:
Update 6:05 p.m.: Late Thursday afternoon, NBC News and CBS News requested that that the Democratic National Committee pull the campaign video in question. The DNC, through a spokesman, says that the matter is under consideration.
NBC released a statement Tuesday afternoon. "The Democratic National Committee (DNC) has included an edited excerpt from a Meet the Press interview with President Bush that was broadcast on February 8, 2004 as part of their promotional campaign to be used as a web video and shown in battleground states. NBC News does not authorize its copyrighted footage to be used for partisan political purposes. NBC News did not, and does not, license use of our material for these purposes and we have asked the DNC to cease and desist immediately from using the excerpt."
CBS spokeswoman Sandy Genelius told THE WEEKLY STANDARD late Tuesday afternoon that CBS, like NBC, will demand that the Democratic National Committee stop using CBS News footage in the new ad. "We do not want them to use the video and we are taking it up with them," said Genelius.
Jano Cabrera, a spokesman for the DNC, says the matter is under consideration. "We are aware of the request[s] and we are looking at it. Our current understanding is that we have the right to use the limited excerpts in the video. But we are looking at it." See the full original story below.
The printing press the musket and the Internet. Essentials of Liberty.
I know, I know. I'm a girl, too. The cartoon is a takeoff from "Men in Black" and the now infamous pajama quote only referenced men.
Bump!!
O.K.
But I think another clever non-gender cartoon is needed.
Great stuff!
Bump!
Without their cover, the RATS will be as dead as the dinosaur within 5 years.
1 - You still can't differentiate fact from fiction on the web (e.g. FR vs DFU ???). And certainly within a website there's a great deal of variance and sometimes fakers, liars, etc.
[Anyone remember Quidam and the tsunami ???]
2 - There's no overall organized effort or strategy to get to the bottom of something. It's ad hoc and helter skelter and as a result you could have someone actually get to the bottom of something but without some overall information manager (an editor-type for lack of a better phrase), that info is just noise.
[Let's use the John Kennedy assassination in Dallas as an example. The could come out tomorrow and no one couldn't tell the difference. In fact, maybe it already has but can anyone distinguish that from all of the theories that cottage industry has produced?]
I hope so!!!! Make it 4 years.
Good article, but you need to let 'em know you're here already! ;o)
Perhaps a knockoff of "Men in Bunnyslippers?"
Around my household, Mrs. B wears the PJ tops, and I wear the bottoms- being male, I'm the one expected to run outside if disaster strikes, while she mans the phone, turns the dog loose. etc.
Seriously, I'm loving the controversy this whole "issue" is generating... another Freeper coined the phrase "distributed intelligence" to describe the analytic power the internet has brought to bear.
I think of it as a gestalt- the sum of the whole, together, is greater than the parts added separately.
Another is the audit trail we leave as we go about the business of discovering what's true. The MSM give practically no disclosure as to how they make their sausage. How often is an "unimpeachable" but unidentified source accepted here?
Carolyn
You advocating metro-sexuality? :)
I don't think it's the end of network news but it is the end of their ability to smear and libel people without fear. In the past, the only way to get justice was with an expensive and long law suit. Now, the evidence they use to smear gets on the web and is dissected for credibility within minutes. As soon as they put some "expert" on the air thousands of average citizens will be googling the name and finding out who this person is and what alterior motives he might have for his claims. The networks are going to finally be held accountable for the first time since they were created. It is a watershed moment in America, and guys like Buckhead were on the frontlines.
Hey! What about us gals!?Really, the cartoon has to be amended. Showing a pj'd couple on a love-seat, or something.
Just call it: PJ People.
EXCELLENT THOUGHT.
A little guerrilla warfare against the liberals is just what the doctor ordered. Using traditional Marxist tactics, i.e., guerrilla warfare, against the very ones TOUTING such a lifestyle is FITTING AND AWESOME!
LET'S ROLL!
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