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Tuesday, February 15, 2005
The Counterattack
Few things are more certain than this: that an aristocracy steeped in the sense of privilege, which sees the protections of its privileges begin to fail, will defend itself against the rise of the lower classes by any means expedient.
The "Killian memos" affair and the more recent demise of Eason Jordan have alerted the Old Media to the rising power of the Internet Commentariat, most notably the politically engaged Blogosphere. To this point, nearly all the blood on the floor was shed by Old Media magnates who considered themselves immune to criticism. The sole exception, "Jeff Gannon" / Jim Guckert of the Talon News Service, is dismissibly trivial: "Gannon" stands accused of nothing except using a desk name -- hasn't anyone except your Curmudgeon seen Foreign Correspondent? -- and pitching favorably-worded questions to Bush Administration figures at open press conferences. The nabobs of the Old Media, so preponderantly liberal-statist in their orientations that virtually no exceptions exist, are squirming under the mass scrutiny of the million-minded Net. They cannot help but wonder which of their heads will be the next to roll.
When the catalogue of one's sins is as long and lurid as that of the Old Media, such a fear can only be quelled by routing one's accusers before they can mass and mobilize against him. But when the accusers, actual and potential, are so numerous, some will get past any defense -- and a single landed blow can be fatal.
Still, one must ask: what is the nature of the Internet's power? Is it the ability to shout past the "gatekeepers" of print and broadcast journalism? Has the Commentariat tapped into sources of information that had previously been kept under lock and key? Or is "distributed intelligence" proving itself superior to the more concentrated forms that prevail in the offices of executive directors and editors-in-chief?
There's some substance to all of those. However, insufficient attention is being given to a practice that should be familiar to any reporter: note-taking.
The Internet's communications capacity is prodigious, but its memory -- its ability to retain facts and statements, and to retrieve them at need -- is near to miraculous. When millions of avid note-takers are on the case, all of them proficient with Google and many also armed with LexisNexis, it becomes all but impossible to slip cleanly away from one's past words and deeds. Someone will remember -- and given the powers of the search engines and the retentiveness of the Internet, he'll find the citations he needs to call his target to account.
For the moment, this mechanism is operating to the advantage of the political Right and to the detriment of the fiercely opposed Old Media. However, there's nothing about it that would cement its affections into that shape. Politicians, commentators, and journalists of every orientation will learn to fear this rising force. Nor can it be discredited en masse without discrediting the Net itself. Just as the million-minded Commentariat is dogged and relentless about unearthing the facts relevant to an issue, it's also proficient at fact-checking the statements of others. Accusations launched against critical Internet pundits and news gateways will be reviewed as they appear, and dismissed whenever they're found to be slanderous.
The only plausible counterattack the Old Media could mount that might restore its primacy would be a legal assault, by which it could contrive to impose some coercive force favorable to itself upon the whole Internet: a Federal Internet Regulatory Board, possibly buttressed by new "copyright" laws that make it illegal to retain published material, or links to it, online without the consent of all its originators. Some steps in this direction are already being taken. It's the sole threat to our blossoming era of truly free and open exchange.
Remain vigilant.
Comments
It won’t be just within the US that this pressure will be applied, the UN is still looking for a way to ‘regulate’ the Internet. Their aim is to sap US sovereignty and weaken the system the shows thier flaws and thuggery.
The powers inside the US want to maintain their power base.
I wouldn’t be shocked to see these groups acting together on this.
Another factor will be the assault on the technologies that power the Internet, mostly coming from Microsoft. Their empire is trembling and eroding, and they will do just about anything to shore it up again. Look for ‘improvements’ to http, tcp/ip, smtp, etc coming from them that will lock users into MS approved platforms.
And I have heard rumblings that MS is considering ramping up lobbying efforts to get legislation passed in Congress to basically outlaw Linux and it’s ilk. It’s won’t be called as such, but they want pieces in place to declare Linux illegal, citing ‘hoeland security’ issues and so forth. Anything to disrupt Linux’s spread and use.
Of course, all this could come to naught, there are always people scheming for power and not succeeding, but best stay alert.
Posted by Rusticus on 02/15/2005 at 01:39 PMMeanwhile, here in Oklahoma, the state’s second-largest daily has threatened bloggers with legal action for quoting their material and linking to their Web site, if you can believe that.
(I covered it here.)
Old Media simply will not stand by and watch itself be replaced.
Posted by CGHill on 02/15/2005 at 01:52 PMOTOH, when someone starts fiddling with those notes, we get into a “he who controls the past controls the future” situation:
http://jacklewis.net/weblog/archives/2005/02/whats_google_up.php
Posted by .(JavaScript must be enabled to view this email address) on 02/16/2005 at 12:16 AM
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