>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 in. 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)
mike stone <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> 'net geek..
been there, done that, have network, will travel.
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