2,104 posted on Wednesday, January 04, 2012 1:36:53 PM by Slings and Arrows: “Agreed on all counts. What even greater is that not only can we get the news in real time, but sometimes we can even do something about it; e.g. RatherGate.”
Thanks to both of you...
I really do need to get back to work; I'm letting my business suffer based on something that I care passionately about, namely, getting a solid Republican nominated and elected.
For whatever it's worth, I am totally in agreement with Slings and Arrows about Rathergate. That's part of how I found out about Free Republic.
Read this link to a profile of my work in Editor & Publisher magazine if you want to learn more about my views on the role of media in the internet age:
I downplayed my conservative politics in the interview to avoid needless offense, but if you add that piece of background information to my comments about the importance of returning to an 1800s model of aggressively competing news media, you'll see what I hope will happen to the news media in the future.
Reporters used to be told to make the New York Times, their statewide newspaper, and any local competing media operations the start of every day, and keep up with the Associated Press feed throughout the day. I can't avoid the New York Times — it's critical that I understand the mentality of those who run Washington — but for my work, Military.com has long since replaced the role of the statewide newspaper (the St. Louis Post-Dispatch and Kansas City Star are virtually irrelevant to rural Missouri) and Free Republic is much better than the Associated Press in keeping me informed about important breaking news.
There is no possible way I could ever have anticipated something like this happening in the early 1980s when CompuServe first started putting a half-dozen newspapers online for national readers, or even a decade ago. Technology doesn't solve every problem, but it sure seems to be solving the problem of monopoly leftist liberal media disconnected from the desires of their readers.