Technology, media, and politics have long lived a complex courtship, manipulated by those seeking power to bend public perception. Shape the prevailing attitudes of voters, few of whom have the time, energy, or capability to dig deep enough to discover the truth, and the vast resources of government are yours to command.
America was born in a newspaper age by founders hoping to empower the people without being overwhelmed by the mob. They bequeathed us a constitutionally limited republic of strictly enumerated powers replete with checks and balances designed to frustrate the plans of aspiring autocrats. While much of their work has been undone they enshrined freedom of speech so deeply that it survives even though the media through which it is transmitted have undergone profound change.
The age of radio tilted the balance toward the man with the microphone, delivering government into the hands of a patrician demagogue promising to save a frightened people from economic calamity. Breaching the constitution's limits he sowed the seeds of leviathan democracy, giving birth to a welfare-warfare state since grown unchecked.
Those seeds, nourished by the false intimacy of television, begat an unending flow of government largesse as clamoring interest groups demanded more, more, and more. As government repositioned itself from the protector of inalienable rights to the solver of all problems this once servant of the people became its master. The media-political complex cheered. Enjoying monopoly control of the airwaves for decades a small group of like-minded messengers crafted the lens through which the electorate viewed the world.
The internet and blogosphere shattered that monopoly, unleashing a million voices while slashing the amount of time and money required for any citizen to dig deeper into any story. Laying bare the bias of mass media and its persistent promotion of redistributive power, turmoil ensued and the electorate lurched wildly. Yet the internet lacked the intimacy of television and while the blogosphere told its tale it could not show people the truth through their own eyes.
Until now.
A new citizen-powered medium is emerging that is transforming politics, wresting control of public perception away from our media lords. Any person at any time from anywhere armed with a compact and inexpensive gadget few leave home without can now turn his eyes and ears into your eyes and ears. With YouTube providing fast and free mass distribution the intimacy of television is no longer the exclusive purview of elites. FOX may give the White House fits but it relies on the same last-generation technology as CBS. This right-leaning network added a fresh voice to a left-leaning mix but did nothing to fundamentally change the game.
Keep your eye instead on Breitbart TV and the many imitators sure to follow. Conservative Republicans pioneered talk radio and liberal Democrats grabbed the Internet's high ground but the Tea Party stole a march on citizen video. Watch everyday people with cell phones demolish the symbiotic relationship between professional TV journalists and career politicians whose grants of exclusive access conferred the power to shape the news.
Yes, clips on Breitbart are selectively edited and shamelessly chosen to display their targets in the worst possible light. Just like 60 Minutes, but at one thousandth the cost with a hundred thousand unpaid feet on the street. Undoubtedly some of the selective editing has and will backfire, impugning Breitbart's credibility. But one would be hard pressed to imagine incidents as egregious as the 60 Minutes phony exploding gas tank or the clumsily forged National Guard documents that ended Dan Rather's career.
If you haven't spent a few minutes watching and listening to these clips you should. Despite the ideological editing, seeing with your own eyes and hearing with your own ears has a visceral immediacy that text on broadsheet or words mouthed by talking heads do not. Watch career politicians run away from inquiring citizens, like mafia dons on a perp walk. Gawk as old media event managers physically assault citizens who dare try to capture and share words meant only for the interest group being pandered to at the moment. Catch the unguarded gaffe when a politician speaks his mind without aid of teleprompter or talking points, revealing his contempt for the public he is supposed to serve.
A grass roots revolution is upon us, and it's none too soon.
Read Full Article »