Atlas Mugged: How a Gang of Scrappy, Individual Bloggers Broke the Stranglehold of the MSM

The Atlas Society ^ | Edward B. Driscoll, Jr.

[shove_it]

The twentieth century was the high point of mass culture—or “the overculture” as some call it. Any culture that could produce Citizen Kane, Casablanca, and The Honeymooners can’t be all bad.

But eventually, the connection between media elites and their audiences began to fracture. Though apocryphal, the line frequently attributed to Pauline Kael of the New Yorker in 1972 sums up the growing chasm between the overculture—particularly the media—and its audience: “I don’t know how Nixon won. No one I know voted for him.”

Just as the Big Three car manufacturers, with a once-monolithic hold on American consumers, seemed unaware that the public wanted a wider choice of cars (until Japan listened and responded), Pauline Kael’s in-crowd of coastal elites has, if anything, become even more clueless and resistant to emerging changes in the culture and dissemination of information.

How clueless? In 2004, Jonathan Klein, the former executive vice president of CBS News, described blogging as “a guy sitting in his living room in his pajamas writing.” Last May, Time-Warner CEO Richard Parsons was quoted as saying, “The Googles of the world, they are the Custer of the modern world. We are the Sioux nation. They will lose this war if they go to war. The notion that the new kids on the block have taken over is a false notion.” ...

[spanalot]

“some technical proficiency for its time.”

Big deal, he used a model during that ridiculously celebrated shot from stage to theater ceiling.

(Yawn).

[SauronOfMordor]

I look back on the journalism students I knew in college and you would be hard-pressed to find another group of students less interested in acquiring knowledge.

The impression I get is that they're less concerned about understanding what they're reporting about, than in displaying skill in spinning the story to achieve political goals ("changing the world" messianic complex)

[knews_hound]

The funny thing is, after reading newspapers all my life, I'm surprised how little I miss them.

Every once in awhile, I pick one up out of nostalgia and shake my head that they are still in business with the content they provide.

Now if I can just get a laptop small enough to take into the "library" in the morning.....

Cheers,

knewshound

http://www.knewshound.blogspot.com/

[Ghengis]

The Googles of the world, they are the Custer of the modern world. We are the Sioux nation. They will lose this war if they go to war.

Stupid comparison. The Sioux may have won the battle, but they LOST THE WAR!

The perfect picture of the old media's combination of arrogance and ignorance. And this is from the CEO of the company who couldn't find a way to usher the largest internet company in the world into the broadband market.

[Donald Rumsfeld Fan]

[TrueKnightGalahad]

LOLOLOLOL! He seems to think that the Sioux won the war against the imperialistic white man. I'm not entirely surprised; every interview of Parsons I've read show him to be 90% moonbat, 10% CEO - and 100% socialist affirmative action baby. Is it any wonder that Time-Warner has had such stellar performance under his leadership?

[romanesq]

To be fair, there were at least several technical advances in cinema making.

[Lucius Cornelius Sulla]

Good call. I too was wondering why forums were not included in the article.

The article makes a reference to Rathergate, but doesn't mention that this was accomplished on a forum (this forum), rather than a blog.

[shove_it]

Good point. I’ll try to contact the author of this article or the editor of the Atlas Society. Do you have a link to the FR thread that exposed Rathergate? As I recall, the typewriter snafu was exposed on LGF which is mentioned in the article.

[Lucius Cornelius Sulla]

There were threads about this as recently as yesterday, I’ve been up for 20 hours, suggest you search on ‘Rather’.

[shove_it]

OK

[Joya]

Ping to this thread, it’s a good ‘un.

[Enchante]

Dear Mr. Parsons,

Why don’t you ask Time-Warner stockholders if they like the idea of sharing the fate of the “Sioux Nation”????

Custer’s defeat was just a temporary (though bloody) setback for the US Cavalry.

But I don’t think any analogies to cavalry and Sioux work too well when contemplating the rise of the blogosphere and the complacent old MSM......

[spanalot]

“To be fair, there were at least several technical advances in cinema making.”

Do you recall what the others were besides the long vertical shot?

[mad_as_he$$]

I quit years ago. What a self indulgent POS.

[shove_it]

ping Buckhead

Anything you’d care to contribute to this thread or say to the author of the article?

[Lancey Howard]

I checked out your blog, and that was a great letter you sent to the Sac (”the sac”)..

[PGalt]

The funny thing is, after reading newspapers all my life, I'm surprised how little I miss them.

Exactly. Thanks for the link to your blog.

[romanesq]

Honestly I couldn’t list them. I saw the movie once and that was enough.

[tcrlaf]

“We are the Sioux nation. They will lose this war if they go to war.”

OOPS!
Custer brought bigger weapons this time...