AMEN! Related article: http://www.freerepublic.com/focus/f-news/1347236/posts
Posted on 02/20/2005 12:22:06 PM PST by CHARLITE
Bloggin' and Joggin' Along
We, the previously un-heard, are changing the whole of the media industry today. Concurrently we are affecting the news and the news makers (be they politicians, entertainers, statesmen, businesses or sports persons) who are becoming increasingly aware that we are no longer hostage to the concoctions of clever copywriters, PR spinners, media pundits, and the secret backroom decisions made by them to sway the public’s opinions.
We were called the “Silent Majority” over so many past years. We had no voice. Our perceptions were unknown. Our allegiances were uncertain. Our intelligence was questioned. The MSM disregarded us. They spoke to and for the noisemakers, special interest groups and deep-pocket supporters. They chattered at us in sixth grade level reporting jargon. They told us what we should think. They interpreted what we saw and heard (because they thought we were too dumb to really believe our own eyes and ears). They spun stories as the brothers Grimm re-created fairy tales. And they did so with disdain for us because they thought they were clever, and we were gullible.
The newspapers and magazines ignored us unless we reinforced and echoed their values; opposing opinions were rarely printed. Our comments were considered trivial and our questions were not published or addressed. The editors felt we were not skilled, thus our viewpoints were imperceptive. They presupposed that we read just their paper and even then, only the front page, cartoons, garage sale announcements, and busily went on to clip coupons.
It was assumed that we did not have high-caliber pursuits and that we spent our time driving children to soccer games, worrying about seeding our lawns, and jogging mindlessly around our neighborhoods, with nary a concern about “the world at large.” They were wrong.
Lately, some commentators/journalists/columnists are starting to “get it” (See “The Blogs Must Be Crazy,” Peggy Noonan’s analysis in The Wall Street Journal, (http://www.opinionjournal.com/columnists/pnoonan/) but the majority only views us as a fringe movement, or a passing phenomenon. They incorrectly believe that if they attack our credibility it will be easy to destroy our impact, and we will fade away into cyber obscurity. After all, who are we – they are the “professionals.”
They forget (or purposely ignore) the fact that a majority of their audience is neither uneducated about nor disinterested in the world beyond their own backyards. We have shared our dorm rooms with people of wide cultural backgrounds and beliefs, we work with individuals across many international borders…. let alone different states and communities. We don’t live “inside the totem pole any more.” The years of government and industry advocating the need for college educations, graduate studies, and professional careers has produced an audience whose level of intelligence often far exceeds the B.S. degrees in journalism that most media personnel hold. And we remember the communication/journalism majors in college. They had the “easy” classes. Many Americans today have pursued far more difficult and intense studies. We are a tenacious, bunch who has been trained to question, reflect, compare, analyze and reach conclusions based on the myriad of information instantaneously available to us and, when necessary, we delve further to source out archived material.
Why should we accept the hastily scribbled words of some harried reporter as definitive when we realize that much of today’s on air and printed news is created just to beat a deadline or scoop the competition? And, because we have learned to be discerning through our education, experience, and appetite for truth we have the acumen to perceive when a story has been slanted to suit the agenda of an editor, a network CEO, or an influential political action committee.
Hark! Technology has freed us!
We have cell phones, talk show hosts, and call in programs.
We have computers, modems, the Internet and blog sites.
We can post our thoughts, comments, and questions.
We can see and reach the world from our desktop.
We have a resourceful, quizzical, and skeptical audience.
We can incite attention and action within moments.
Hooray – we are not so “ silent” anymore.
We have a voice, and it is quite loud.
We can challenge their “findings” and reveal the distortions and myths.
We can unveil their biases, and expose their allegiances.
We can bring down their giants like David slew Goliath.
We have venues; we have power,
And - we have pajamas!
Wake up MSM moguls, and those with a penchant to deceive! We are watching and evaluating – and we have a keen ability to determine when your ego and prejudice obstructs the truth. Throughout urban and rural America we log on daily to substantiate what you try to force-feed us because our unifying factor is a weariness of being scammed. In an instant we can verify facts, source references, extract whole and factual quotes, debunk sound-bites, present contradictions, examine documents (Memogate), authenticate photographs (ala kidnapped Cody action figure), denounce photo-ops, and counter your comments with erudite, sharp-witted (albeit sometimes punctuated and colorful language), sometimes sarcastic, and notably discerning retorts that we willingly share and that spread across the country faster than a plague of locusts propelled on jet fuel.
We are here to stay, and we will propagate in this ever-evolving free forum. If you don’t treat us right, with respect and dignity, we will be your worst nightmare.
And - one day we just might come for you armed with our laptops and in uniform wearing our Dr. Denton’s!
About the Writer: Maureen Scott formerly ran a writing service for professionals and was a fundraiser for the National Republican Senatorial Committee. She and her retired-serviceman husband live in Virginia. She also volunteers for the American Red Cross. Maureen receives e-mail at
scottytoo@hotmail.com.
Good article.
Resistance is futile: We are the Blog
" . . . in uniform wearing our Dr. Denton’s!"
Actually, I prefer Cherokee brand red plaid flannel myself.
AMEN! Related article: http://www.freerepublic.com/focus/f-news/1347236/posts
Welcome to the "New Edge"..
Here, we ARE the media..
LoL..
They forget (or purposely ignore) the fact that a majority of their audience is neither uneducated about nor disinterested in the world
It was the MSM that was too uneducated and disintered to comprehend the nature of the silent majority. The amazing thing is that they still don't get it, which reinforces the perception of their wilful ignorance.
Prepare to be informated!
Nothing proves the validity of this article to me more than my own experience beginning in the 1950s -- and recently the innumerable times I heard callers tell talk show hosts, "I did not know others knew this! I thought I was the only one! It's so good to hear others express the opinions that I have! I didn't know."
Yes, for years at the beginning of modern talk radio -- when the "fairness doctrine" was put to death in 1987 -- those statements began the majority of all calls to the shows.
NEVER AGAIN :FAIRNESS DOCTRINE! It's about our free speech. It's worth spilling blood. Our free speech, their blood.
Beyond the electronic medium two-newspaper cities disappeared and ultra-liberalism became "centrist." Employees became advocates, not reporters.
RIP, MSM. It's time for journalism to wash you stains off its shorts.
FMCDH(BITS)
What many people don't know is that we have now come completely full circle: in early America, "broadsides" as newspapers were called were usually read aloud in an inn or pub as families and diners sat. The audience, who often knew the details of the local or regional scene, would add detail to stories or challenge what was printed. ("Farmer Jones' Barn Destroyed in Fire. Says He Won't Rebuild"---and someone would say, "nonsense. I was talking to him yesterday, and he already has a blueprint.")
Had to be an ancestor of a present day Freeper.....:-)
Hee hee!! You just gotta wonder what Jonathan Klein goes through every time he sees the reference to bloggers in pajamas... ;o)
Personally, I'm waiting for the manifestation of Howlin' Howie Dean's declaration that he's going to show the American people how the Democrats are "the party of the future," and the "party of new ideas!"
Hunh?
Check The Nation "Now He Has The Power"......to see how deluded some liberal pundits are about Dean's "ascendancy to power."
http://www.thenation.com/docprint.mhtml?i=20050307&s=nichols
To be fair, of course we depend upon MSM articles. But the difference is we are no longer limited to one or two MSM print sources. We can get the rest of the story. We can even go directly to the source, the closest MSM to the actual event.
We can even overcome the MSM's worst form of bias, the spike.
Perhaps it is fair to say that the majority of MSM employees are indeed reporters, perhaps not.
Who needs a wire service anymore? BTW.
The MSM electronic medium is totally hopeless -- that includes Fox if their TV reporting is anything like Fox radio news, IMO. The best radio news on the hour is the version of CNN news being carried by 650AM in Sacramento. That news reminds me of the straight reporting of 1940s and 1950s. No cutesy comments. No show biz crap. Just read the news and go away. Fox radio is exactly like ABC radio "news."
Exactly. It's amazing how much we are now like the original papers---and of course, for a while, when the national news exceeded the ability of local people to check facts or comment on it, we had to rely on the MSM. No more!
You are correct in that. "The Spike" is the worse bias. At least when a subject is covered by the MSM people have the chance to believe or not. "The Spike" is the death of a story.....it will no longer be, thanks to the new medium known as the "internet".
The MSM is quaking in their boots. Keep your eyes and ears open...and your powder dry...for the gubbmint attacks to come on the "internet". They're wettin' their jammies over this.
FMCDH(BITS)
But this is Johnny-come-lately. We had the same point here on FreeRepublic six months ago. See "The Manifesto of 'Pukin Dog'" which was published here and on the Net, six months ago. The point is now obvious to anyone who is paying attention. Members of the MSM who don't "get it" as of now, have to be aggressively ignorant.
Congressman Billybob
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