Is that Howlin in the middle?
Posted on 09/15/2004 2:39:55 PM PDT by alydar
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.
That's for sure. The "Ruling Classes" will never be the same.
Is that Howlin in the middle?
"Mr. Rather’s report hadn’t been over 10 minutes when a post appeared on the right-wing Web site FreeRepublic.com from "TankerKC," saying the documents were "not in the style that we used when I came into the USAF … can we get a copy of those memos?"
Three hours and a little later, fat met fire with another FreeRepublic posting, this one from a blogger named "Buckhead.".
"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.Hahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahaha!
"This sort of thing has never happened before because no one was around to call the MSM to account before."Hahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahaha!
"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."Hahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahaha!
Note tagline (vide infra).
Pajamas are fine for writing posts, but Freepers must not sleep in them. Freepers must be encouraged to reproduce.
My website is just a hobby but I am listed on all the search major engines and have been ranked by Google among the 20 best news sites in the U.S. Another ezine site had me ranked in the top 10 last year with a ranking of Four Stars ****. Oh well . . .
Breaking out the CC. ;-)
Two and half years ago I went to this rally in Seattle. Despite the place being packed with thousands of people I saw no mention on the teevee news that night, no note of it in the local dailies the next morning. It was as if it had, a la 1984, never been.
But there's a record of it on the Internet nonetheless, with pictures. It happened.
...and the pope is Catholic, and it's darker outside at night than during the day, and there's no air in outer space, and fish live in the sea, and to climb a mountain you have to go up, and bears sh*t in the woods, and a clock's hands turn clockwise, AND DAN RATHER IS A FREAKIN' FRAUD!!!
I just got a mental picture of Matt Drudge nailing a letter to the doors of CBiaS news.
I believe -- right or wrong -- American's, in general, are not as liberal as the media and entertainment industry would have us believe and it's the vulnerable, and easily impressionable, who believe the left-wing garbage they spew out on a regular basis (Howard Stern is another!!!!!!). These are the people who show up to cause hate and discontent like we saw in New York last month.
Now, if I'm right and we can right the left-wing bent in our University system there may be a chance for our society and future generations yet..
I Have wondered about the bias of the MSM but four days of the Kelly bimbo with Katie and Matt who wrote this scathing book about our commander in chief. What a load of crap...
LOL!
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