Left behind: The democratization of the media

Townhall.com ^ | October 16, 2002 | Ben Shapiro

[UltraConservative]

The Internet and talk radio have brought with their rise a new kind of media democracy, where privilege and education do not make kings. For the past decade, a growing number of citizens have tuned in to Rush Limbaugh or logged on to the Drudge Report for their news. And the left doesn't like it one bit.

It is becoming increasingly obvious that the information superhighway can help shape global values. That is why China now bars minors from Internet cafes and forces cafes to close by midnight, as well as prohibiting their location within 124 feet of schools. China's leaders are afraid that young people will find new ideas on the Internet about democracy and human rights and begin agitating for change.

The American left can't restrict Internet usage or ban talk radio, so it de-legitimizes these news sources. Ripping alternative news sources as illegitimate is the left's only remaining option -- it cannot compete with the right wing in the new media.

Not that the left hasn't tried. Mario Cuomo attempted to parlay his political fame into a talk-radio gig; he was so badly received that his show was pulled off the air. Jerry Brown met with the same fate, as did Alan Dershowitz. Jim Hightower, a self-described progressive populist, passed through the talk-radio world without notice.

On the 'Net, liberal failure has been just as complete. While Matt Drudge's Web site receives nearly 5 million hits per day, liberal news sites are virtually non-existent. Salon.com is going the way of the dinosaurs, and Slate.com is a mere facade. The only liberal Web sites that get any hits are established television channels like BBC, CNN and ABC News. There are no major leftist commentary sites to compete with conservative monsters like Freerepublic.com and lucianne.com, where normal news followers can post their opinions on the story du jour. The left has been left behind on the Web.

It's the inability to compete that has the liberals so angry. They don't understand why people won't listen to elite intelligentsia dither about politics but gladly tune in to hosts like Sean Hannity, a former construction worker with no college degree. They rant and rave over the newest phenomenon -- weblogs, or bloggers, where ordinary folks comment on the news in real time, allowing true Rousseau-ian democracy to flourish. Why, they ask, do more people visit libertarian/conservative bloggers Andrew Sullivan and Glenn Reynolds than the soon-to-be-extinct American Prospect blogger, TAPPED?

Here's the answer: The left cannot survive criticism. It is easy for liberals to air their views when the audience cannot challenge them. Network news is a perfect example -- when Peter Jennings sympathizes with Palestinian suicide bombers, viewers can kick their televisions and scream at Jennings, but Jennings cannot hear them. If Jennings had a talk show, though, he'd have to deal with the views of his audience. Print media is similar. Maureen Dowd can write nasty things about President Bush but would be hard pressed to respond to a reader's challenge.

Since it can't compete, the left turns to degrading the opposition. NBC's Lisa Meyers attributes the success of conservative talk-radio hosts to their portrayal of the world as "black and white -- and revolving around them." The left demonizes Rush Limbaugh, calling him an extremist and hoping that his popularity will diminish. His audience numbers continue to climb. They call Matt Drudge a muckraker and a yellow journalist. His hit count continues to rise.

At universities, professors and faculty are scared to death of the Internet, since it provides a challenge to their monopoly over student minds. Take, for example, the intellectuals' opposition to Daniel Pipes' campus-watch.org, a site where anti-Israel professorial bias is revealed and examined. University of Chicago historian Rashid Khalidi derides the Web site as "slimy" and "McCarthyite." "(T)hey're simply trying to intimidate people by creating a witch-hunt atmosphere," accuses Professor Joel Beinin of Stanford. "These are guys on the lunatic fringe." Apparently, it's all right for professors to brainwash students in the privacy of their classrooms, but when their bias is revealed, it's a witch hunt.

The left will continue in its attempt to tear down the alternative media that the right has championed. If it can't control or compete, it wishes to destroy. But the tide has turned toward true democratization of the media. The growth of the Internet and talk radio has the left scared and on the run. And short of China-like restrictions, the trend will continue unabated.

[gcruse]

Boom boom and bttt.

[Utah Girl]

Wow, great article. BTTT

[HP8753]

Liberal Talk Radio doesn't work because there are no PICTURES, Which are needed to create EMOTIONAL responses in the feeble minded supporters of Liberals.

[ffrancone]

Interesting article; but it misses the main reason conservatives dominate radio and the Internet. Both are highly competitive media. If you don't produce ratings (or hits), you are gone (in the case of radio) or you are a backwater (in the case of the Internet).

Consumers vote with their tuner or their mouse, instantly. They vote to listen to conservatives and to ignore liberals. The easier it is to vote, the better the conservatives do.

That's why the major media should be so scared. Fox News broke the monopoly of the left on televised news. Folks are voting with their remotes and, for the left, it ain't pretty.

It will be slower in TV than in radio or the Internet. The startup costs for a network are enormous compared to the cost of starting a blog or a new syndicated show. But the horse is out of the barn (even in TV) and it will never go back.

</strained metaphors> :)

[Jeff Chandler]

So true, so true.

[ffrancone]

"conservative monsters like FreeRepublic.Com"

"conservative monsters like FreeRepublic.Com"

"conservative monsters like FreeRepublic.Com"

"conservative monsters like FreeRepublic.Com"

There. I liked the way that looked so much that I thought I would repeat it a few times.

[Jeff Chandler]

The reason for your reason, that is, the reason WHY conservatives tune in to alternative news sources, is because of the virtual monopoly the left holds on the lamestream media.

[RepublicanChick]

Great post, thanks.

[I still care]

The great weapon of the left is the liberal court system, where one man is appointed and can change established law against the will of the people. They have used this tactic very effectively to damage the power of the legislature and make law from the bench.

They haven't found a way yet,but I am sure busy little liberal minds are trying to find a way to destroy conservative media from the courts. It is one of the few ways they have found to circumvent rule by the people.

[Nick Danger]

We had been hearing noises like this for a long time, but the practical effects never seemed to materialize. No matter how many web sites or talk radio hosts there were, the liberal New York media still seemed to control the agenda.

That flipped some time in the last year or two, probably right around the time of The Great Chad Wars. The media was Hell-bent on electing Gore president, and I thought they were well on their way to doing it. All the horns were blowing the same notes; as soon as we count all the votes, Gore will win. It was the same kind of media mow-down of the truth that we've seen on so many issues. Usually it worked.

It didn't work that time, though. And it hasn't worked since. Remember the Time magazine cover with a picture of the White House and the word "Enron" plastered across the page? That whole "Let's get him with this" effort by the New York media fell flat on its face. So did the "Bush knew!" fiasco a few months later. And now Iraq.

This web site has documented the extraordinary lengths that most of the U.S. media have gone to in order to discredit Bush, to paint him as some kind of warmongering tool of the oil companies, and so on. Last week the New York Times had to fake their own poll results in order to keep up the facade. The public is just not buying their braying anymore.

The New York media is still a powerful force, but it no longer has the ability to deliver "the people" to the Democratic Party as needed to win the wars in Washington. People are on to that game, and they have sought out -- and found -- sufficient other news sources that they can no longer be fooled by spiking stories, fabricating polls, slanting the language... and all the other tricks the media have so successfully employed over the years to push this country leftward and to protect Democratic lawbreakers. Their successful defense of the scumbucket William Jefferson Clinton may be the high point of their influence. It has been going down since.

This election may be close. The next one won't be. The one after that... the Democrats will wonder what hit them. The media they choose to read will still be blowing their horn. But they'll be the only ones left reading it.

[Nick Danger]

There are no major leftist commentary sites to compete with conservative monsters like Freerepublic.com

Hey Jim, you've created a monster :)

[Zon]

The left will continue in its attempt to tear down the alternative media that the right has championed. If it can't control or compete, it wishes to destroy. But the tide has turned toward true democratization of the media.

Good article, save for one small error that makes a huge difference. What's accruing on the Internet is not "democratization". To those that look through the narrow scope of politics it appears that way. Especially since the left is the first to take a major hit. Step to the outside and look back in and the picture is that of free-market competition.

The general public isn't moved by politics of left and right nearly as much as they're moved by good and bad, right and wrong, justice and injustice, dishonesty and honesty. The general public on the Internet makes that increasingly more pronounced from one day to the next. The market for information responds to the demand.

The more fully integrated honesty the general public acquires about themselves and the world that touches them the more they scorn politics that suck objectivity out and insert irrationality in. Out with the lesser of evils. In with the better of two or three or five goods. The free-market competition of cyberspace rules with fully integrated honesty the final victor.

[Always Right]

Here's the answer: The left cannot survive criticism.

That's very true. If you ever tried to post at a wannabe site like DU they ban you in a New York minute. FR bans may ban disruptors, but not for posting real arguements but for posting disruptive usually anti-American opinion pieces from non-legit sources and never defending the crap they do post. FR overall has a base of posters who are based in reality with a sprinkling of nuts. Left-wing sites are completely overrun by the extreme wingnuts and only the most dillusional opinions stick around. They sit around and bitch about how the corporate-run newspapers like The New York Times is nothing but a mouth piece for, get this, the GOP.

[GOPJ]

bump for later...

[GOPJ]

Powerfull stuff... thanks

This election may be close. The next one won't be. The one after that... the Democrats will wonder what hit them. The media they choose to read will still be blowing their horn. But they'll be the only ones left reading it.

[JennysCool]

Great analysis as always, Regnad Kcin!

[Bryan]

I am convinced that if it hadn't been for alternative media -- the Internet, talk radio, and the one that seem to be forgotten, direct mail -- we'd now be complaining about President Gore's lame and inadequate response to 9/11.

That election was sooooooooo close. If any one of a half-dozen things hadn't gone our way, we would have lost. The Freepers and the Dittoheads helped make a difference.

Thanks Jim.

The future looks bright. We've developed the professionals, the techniques and the audiences in alternative media, while the Left was clinging to the traditional media that served them so well for so long. It will be their undoing.

[Carolinamom]

Go to TownHall.com and read this author's (Ben Shapiro) biography (at the end of the article). Very interesting IMO.

[fporretto]

Related to this, please see also:

The Verdict Of Reality

Freedom, Wealth, and Peace,
Francis W. Porretto
Visit The Palace Of Reason: http://palaceofreason.com