The whole premise of the article regarding the exposure by certain online sources of Rather's and CBS's attempted use of forged documents to influence a Presidential election is a lie. It was not an "internet scandal" at all - it was a "broadcast network news scandal". THEY are the ones who lied, and got caught. They OWN the scandal.
The article is not about scandals OF the Internet.
It is about "the Net's ability to expose scoundrels, scalawags, liars, cheats, and fools--and then broadcast the scandal to a billion glowing screens".
It is about the power of the Internet to break the so-called "Mainstream Media's" previous information distribution monopoly. It is about the Internet's power to not only expose information that the MSM would previously have kept hidden but to expose even the scoundrels, scalawags, liars, cheats, and fools of the MSM itself.
In the case of Rather-gate:
"But shortly after 60 Minutes host Dan Rather revealed the documents' existence in September 2004, the gun blew up in his face. Conservative blogs Free Republic, Little Green Footballs, and Power Line questioned the authenticity of the documents--specifically, whether a 1970s-era typewriter could produce the superscript th and curly apostrophes found in the four memos .............. A few months later, he quietly left CBS--with the inevitable "gate" permanently appended to his name."
Thus, the Number One scandal was:
"1. Monica-gate and Whitewater ........ On January 17, 1998, Matt Drudge broke the news that White House intern Monica Lewinsky was having an affair with President Bill Clinton. The story appeared on his Web site, the Drudge Report, and quickly turned into one of the biggest scandals in our nation's history--and established the Internet as a news source to be reckoned with."
Before the Internet, there was so-called "Freedom of the Press" but that actually meant "Freedom of the Press Editors Only".
If the Press did not want the American People to know about something, they kept it hidden and ten thousand citizens writing one hundred thousand letters to the editor did not have the power of the arrogant editors who decided what the American People would be allowed to know and thereby exerted political power though the uninformed and misinformed electoral mass.
The Internet plus a Forum such as Free Republic allows somebody at home in his pajamas to put out information to America and the World that can bring down the credibility of CBS.
The article is about the dawn of the era of "Freedom of the People's Say" and the end of the era of "Freedom of the Press Editor Only".