Thursday, 11 June 2009

Death from a thousand cuts...

...is sapping the morale and profit of the newspaper industry. As readers turn the pages of their dailies, and flick through their TV channels, the technological rise of the internet is slowly stifling the influence and business viability of the organs of the main stream media. In the health sector, the "gatekeepers" who allow access to health care services are our GP's. In the information industry, the gatekeepers who graciously allow us access to filtered information, have been the all powerful main stream media. The advent of the internet, and its offshoot the blogosphere, have changed the equation, and the information gatekeepers are bleeding and frightened...from Samizdata, this wonderful piece...

...I think that genuine fear is being expressed by our former gatekeepers of correct thought. The rise of Adolph Hitler has been obsessively taught in British schools for the last generation or so, as the very definition of that which Must Not Happen, yet now, something not wholly unlike it appears to be happening, here in Britain! Calamity!
I say "former" gatekeepers of correct thought because that is surely the other thing now happening that scares these people. The internet, as we enthusiasts for it have been saying ever since it got started as a mass phenomenon a decade ago or more, entitles people to say whatever they like. They no longer need the permission of anybody more important to reach a quite large audience with an opinion that quite large numbers of people agree with but which the Gatekeepers disapprove of and want suppressed
...more here...

...hence of course, the frightened green left, whose vision for the future doesn't embrace Adlai Stevenson's ideal... The first principle of a free society is an untrammelled flow of words in an open forum...

2 comments:

MathewK said...

The way many in the MSM shamelessly barrack for the left, their demise is richly deserved.

Ayrdale said...

Yes, and we have only scratched the surface with regard to blogpower. I encourage everyone to begin their own blog, interlink and share the vast ammount of information available. It's the sure fire way to defeat the left-out and left behind PC brigade.