Subject: Re: WC:>: The media's using all my bandwidth  :P
Tue Aug 18 18:26:16 1998



>I'm interested, though, to see if this has an bearing on privacy issues
>overall, and with respect to the net in particular.  Sensitivity levels
>are way up, and there must be a few thousand Drudge wanna-be's out there
>looking at other politicians (and hopefully some of these
>holier-than-though reporters, too).  Wonder if we've really reached our
>limits, or if the door is just being wedged open . . .


IMHO, the door isn't open until the mainstream media breaks ranks with
itself.   i'm sure there are any number of scandals about who's done
what for which bit of info, and what facts have been swept under the
table in the name of expediency.   reporters are people, just like
everyone else, and i have a hard time believing that the same media
companies who take the word 'lame' places it's never been before every
sitcom season have the absolute judgement it would take to be truly
objective and honest.   failing that, a gentlemen's agreement not to
poke the skeletons in each others' closets is the only thing that could
keep them from each others' throats.


that agreement was formed back in the days when the public trusted the
media.   of course, during those days, the media had the same kind of
agreement with the politicians, too.   JFK's mistresses weren't any
great secret, but none of the media would have dared a feeding frenzy
like we've seen recently on their own.   the alliance between the
politicians and the media died during Watergate, when the press decided
they could take on the White House if they all stood together.   and
they've been storming the gates ever since.


one contributing factor to that broken alliance was the advance of
television.   it was a new communications tool that gave the media a
whole new level of influence with the public.   the balance of power
that was maintained by the gentlemen's agreement was changed, and the
media felt safer throwing off that commitment.   that's not to say that
television was the only factor in Watergate, but there's little doubt
that it played a part.

now we have another new communications technology, and it's eating away
at the power of the broadcast media.   the balance of power is changing
again, and there's certainly no love lost between the new, online
reporting and the current power base in television.


there's already a fair amount of sniping going on between the
print/broadcast world and the online news market in terms of accuracy
and verification.   traditional media supporters have stapled the Drudge
report repeatedly as an example of how online reporting is poorly
researched, poorly verified, and just plain unreliable.   then CNN and
Time posted the story about nerve gas attacks in Laos, and the thorns
started crackling under the other pot.   one of these days, a sufficient
portion of the online media will find an issue that leaves traditional
media twisting in the wind, and all hell is going to break loose.   

campaign finance would certainly be a tempting issue.. the spectacle of
politicians being too busy grubbing for money to represent their
constituents is a well-established meme, but there's not much public
discussion of whose pockets those millions of paid political advertising
dollars end up lining.   the broadcast media don't dare touch that one, but
the online camp still has reasonably clean hands in that area.


with all the power, money, and personalities in the media biz, i can't
help thinking that something will click.   it would be too easy for the
politicians to team up with the online world, even temporarily, and get
twenty in years' worth of paybacks, especially if it helps them put
distance bewteen themselves and a high-profile scandal.   it's an
information bomb, just waiting for an excuse to blow.




(this oracular rambling brought to you be the internet society of sysads 
 who've burned away one synapse too many writing reports about how networks
 work for senior managers who still can't remember what HTML stands for.   
 the ISOSWBAOSTMWRAHNWFSMWSCRWHSF reminds you that guns, knives, clubs,
 anvils, little-known asiatic poisons, and strange smelling gases that
 come through the ventilator don't kill people.. grumpy sysads do)