Free Republic

The justices of the U.S. Supreme Court will tomorrow discuss whether or not it should take up the case of Leo C. Donofrio, Applicant, v. Nina Mitchell Wells, New Jersey Secretary of State, a case that challenges the citizenship of President-elect Obama. After the Justices meet -- and assuredly decline to hear the matter -- the anti-Obama activists supporting the case will hold a vigil near the steps of the highest Court in the land. The theory -- which is without evidence -- is that Mr. Obama's birth certificate is faked, and that he was not born in Hawaii but...

Yada, yada, yada. ~~snip~~ The growing power of rumor is part of a much larger transformation in the way that voters receive information about politics. The old model was a vertical one, where professional journalists delivered their reports to a largely passive audience through television or newspapers. The new model is horizontal, where folks get information from each other and actively pass it on, through e-mail, text messages and viral videos. Everyone is a potential broadcaster. This "democratization of information" has many benefits - more sources, more perspectives, more choices. In a forum Steve moderated for The International Journal of...