Michael Crichton Dies: Predicted Demise of MSM in 1993

NewsBusters ^ | November 5, 2008 | P.J. Gladnick

[PJ-Comix]

Michael Crichton passed away yesterday. Many of you might remember Crichton as the author of superb science fiction novels such as "Andromeda Strain" and "Jurassic Park." Fewer people will know Crichton as a prominent global warming skeptic. And very few of you out there might know that Crichton was also a prophet who predicted the demise of the mainstream media way back in 1993. This seems like a good time to honor the memory of Michael Crichton by taking a retrospective look at his 1993 Wired magazine article titled "Mediasaurus" about the impending demise of the mainstream media (emphasis mine):

[PeaceBeWithYou]

Sad Ping.

[Myrddin]

One of my favorite authors. I suppose his battle with cancer explains why "ER" is winding down the final season.

[BallyBill]

The “Andromeda Strain (1971)” is a regular on some of the cable channels I get. A poorly made movie that is great just because of Crichton's writing.

[LakeLady]

Condolences to his family and friends. The earth has lost a friend and good steward who never bought into the career making global warming nonsense.

This is a very sad day for two reasons now.

[Myrddin]

They literally created Barack Obama from nothing and made him the most powerful man in the world.

Their sock puppet moves into the White House on Jan 20th. Our new President is owned by big foreign money and radical socialists. To this day his only "accomplishments" amount to successful job hopping with nothing of substance at each step.

BTW, where is his birth certificate?

[EDINVA]

Mr. Crichton really accomplished quite a lot in this lifetime, may he rest in peace.

My beach reading last summer (’07) was Crichton’s global warming tome, “State of Fear” ... not your typical beach book, but loaded with footnotes documenting his arguments. I was delighted to give my book to another to read.

[Zakeet]

Michael Crichton: Always ahead of his time.

From the article:

I am the author of a novel about dinosaurs, a novel about US-Japanese trade relations, and a forthcoming novel about sexual harassment - what some people have called my dinosaur trilogy. But I want to focus on another dinosaur, one that may be on the road to extinction. I am referring to the American media. And I use the term extinction literally. To my mind, it is likely that what we now understand as the mass media will be gone within ten years. Vanished, without a trace.

There has been evidence of impending extinction for a long time. We all know statistics about the decline in newspaper readers and network television viewers. The polls show increasingly negative public attitudes toward the press - and with good reason. A generation ago, Paddy Chayevsky's Network looked like an outrageous farce. Today, when Geraldo Rivera bares his buttocks, when the New York Times misquotes Barbie (the doll), and NBC fakes news footage of exploding trucks, Network looks like a documentary.

[Snip]

The media are an industry, and their product is information. And along with many other American industries, the American media produce a product of very poor quality. Its information is not reliable, it has too much chrome and glitz, its doors rattle, it breaks down almost immediately, and it's sold without warranty. It's flashy but it's basically junk. So people have begun to stop buying it.

This was simply too good not to put in this thread.

[Tolerance Sucks Rocks]

A sad farewell to a skeptic.

[Tolerance Sucks Rocks]

From 2000 to 2006 they conducted a focused and unrelenting campaign on destroying President Bush and the GOP majority.

President Bush and the GOP majority, with their lack of prinicple on domestic issues and big-government, pork-barrel decadence, did that to themselves. Barack Obama is the Bush/GOP legacy.

[xcamel]

FYI:
7th post

[abb]

I know this is very presumptive of me to argue with someone of Michael Crichton’s intellect, but I don’t think the media ever has produced a product called “news.” What they are is an information distribution system. News is merely distributed information.

The internet is a technologically superior distribution system against which paper and electronic broadcast cannot compete. And it has the additional advantage of instant feedback.

All just my opinion, of course.

[wideawake]

President Bush and the GOP majority, with their lack of prinicple on domestic issues and big-government, pork-barrel decadence, did that to themselves

If that statement were true, then 63 million voters would not have voted for an avowed big-government radical.

But they did.

[Tolerance Sucks Rocks]

I think it’s safe to say that to most people, there are only two parties, R and D. If you’re sick of R, you either stay home, or vote for D.

I will qualify my previous statement, I’m sure the media aided Obamao’s victory, but they alone couldn’t cause the total and complete downfall of the GOP. Plenty of damage was done from within.

[Zakeet]

I know this is very presumptive of me to argue with someone of Michael Crichton’s intellect, but I don’t think the media ever has produced a product called “news.” What they are is an information distribution system. News is merely distributed information.

I explained the concept of news to my daughter (a journalism major and excellent conservative reporter) this way:

News: The sh*t you place in a paper so people will pick it up and look at the ads.

Unfortunately, the MSM has forgotten the latter part of this definition -- and they are now paying a terrible price.

[SunkenCiv]

Thanks PBWY.

Michael Crichton Dies
http://www.etonline.com/news/2008/11/67369/
Posted on 11/05/2008 9:53:39 AM PST by MeanGreen2008
http://www.freerepublic.com/focus/f-news/2126117/posts

[Paul Heinzman]

A few years ago, I read State of Fear. It was the only Crichton book I've read. Of course I'm familiar with the movie Jurassic Park and the TV show "ER," but State of Fear was very well written.

I especially liked the way that he combined the paranoia and cynicism stirred by the radical environmentalists with the gullibility of the Hollywood-Lear-Jet-Liberals. The insistence by the one character, the actor, that there are no cannibals and never have been, only to be eaten alive, is one of the finest and best executed pieces of dark humor I've seen since Slim Pickens rode the nuculear bomb bareback.

[bootless]

God bless you, Mr. Crichton. You were a fresh and honest voice.

My late airline pilot father had the privilege of having him on a flight right after Andromeda Strain was published - my dad was reading it at the time, and went back to meet him. He was a nice, nice man.

[bootless]

My apologies - it should be DR. Crichton.