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Saturday, November 27, 2004
Read on 
| | The Head Lemur: Thanks for the Internet. The Internet has put me in touch with my half brother whom I had never met until an email showed up in my mailbox titled 'Strange E-mail'. Because of my childhood, I had considered myself an only child, until this showed up. |
What it isn't
| | In Dan Rather: Park Avenue Ordinary, Jay Rosen portrays (accurately, it seems to me) Dan Rather as a walking contradiction: a "Bigfoot" news anchor who still sees a humble reporter in the mirror; a speaker to the nation who himself has a spkesperson. Whatever the reasons for Dan's downfall, however, the dude was clearly delusional. |
| | Anyway, I'm not here to write about Jay or Dan. I'm here to point toward one standout among the many thoughtful folks who comment on Jay's piece: Seth Finkelstein. |
| | JennyD: No, ordinary people cannot talk back. Large right-wing rant-machines can talk back. There is a difference, and don't confuse the two. |
| | Jay, when the report does come out, can I pre-emptively plead for an attempt to get beyond the, err, master narrative here? That is, I expect a torrent then of: "Blah blah blah *THE Internet*! Blah blah *B*L*O*G*S*!! It's a new era!!!". etc. etc. You in particular are very well-situated to write an insightful article on the deep pressthinking processes within CBS. |
| | Could you give me examples of "large right-wing rant machines?" |
| | The obvious answer is "Fox News", but the specific answer in this case would be "Cybercast News Service". Another good answer, general and specific, would be "Drudge Report". |
| | Let us not forget, by the way, how well-connected to the right-wing attack-machine was one of the first promotors of the story, "Buckhead" (Harry MacDougald). Some people have drawn unjustified inferences from that. But it is a fact that he is a professional right-wing attack-lawyer, not "ordinary people" by any stretch of the imagination. |
| | Seth, I beg to differ. Regular people can and do talk back. For years, they wrote letters to the editor, congressmen, and were basically ignored. But now it's much easier to "publish" ideas, gather support and evidence, and have an impact. This is in its infancy in many ways, but it looks like a time in our history when pamphleteers were as powerful as the local newspaper. |
| | Also, I can think of a few left-wing rant machines that talk-back. How about Move On? The problem is that people didn't agree with them. Actually biggest left-wing rant machine is probably Michael Moore. |
| | Then Seth comes back with a knockout response: |
| | Jenny, it's a mathematical fact that we all can't have a million readers. The distribution of readership is *highly* exponential. IN TERMS OF POLITICS, there are a very, very few, people who have a meaningful audience, and everyone else is just chatting to friends. If one of the editors does not select your letter for publication, I mean, one of the A-listers doesn't select your post for linking, then the ordinary person might just as well be blowing-off to bar buddies for all the effect it has. Again, this is just mathematics. The power law curve can't be wished away. |
| | With regard to Dan Rather and CBS, there is a pack of right-wing attack-dogs which has hated them for *decades*. When they (Dan Rather and CBS) goofed-up - and they did, no way around that - the pack pounced with all their fury. It's not citizens vs. Mainstream Media. It's Right-Wing Partisan Media vs. Mainstream Media. |
| | It goes on (I like JennyD's response here). Read The Whole Things. Great polylogue amonst the commenters. |
| | Meanwhile, I think we're only beginning to understand how blogging, even for Z-listers (who can quickly become A-listers, and at the very least meaningful, which is one big point about The Long Tail) is more than blowing off to bar buddies and less than anchoring an evening newscast — while being extremely other than both. |
| | We understand everything in terms of something else (George Lakoff reminds us), and we still don't have the right frame for understanding blogs, seems to me. That's one reason we've been miscrediting and miscalculating it for the duration — overstating and understating its effects and its importance. We count on it delivering what it can't (e.g. a Howard Dean or a John Kerry victory) and get blindsided when it delivers what it easily can (e.g. Rathergate and Lottgate). |
| | In the meantime at the very least it helps to have sharp folks like Seth remind us how far off we can be. |
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