The Press Is Not A Force Of Nature

In a patronizing column, NY Slimes writer Allesandra Stanley writes:

Republican delegates holding up “Palin Power” signs greeted Wednesday’s speech as a Norma Rae moment, but for viewers it came closer to Garbo Speaks.

Gov. Sarah Palin of Alaska spoke and did it forcefully, confidently and with humor, and that was plenty, because the most damaging part of the last 48 hours was her silence.

No, Allesandra, the most damaging part of the last 48 hours was the vicious attack on a good and honorable woman by a Liberal establishment that fears the loss of its power and will stop at literally nothing to destroy her personally.

The bottom feeding scum suckers (apologies to the fish) in the press act as if the treatment given to Sarah Palin is a force of nature. “You have to expect this” is what you can say about a hurricane. The press is composed of people, and to pretend that what is reported and said about someone is not the result of decisions made by people, but is instead some natural phenomenon, is to lie about who you are and what you do.

The press knows when to avert its eyes and pass by without looking. It’s done so many a time – when it suited the ideological purposes of the people in the press.

The good thing about the electronic revolution of the past decade is that the gatekeepers have been overthrown. They still stand at the gates and tell us what to think, but the gates are open to diversity. The role of the gatekeepers is gradually being supplanted by what we in the investment community call “open architecture.” The financial effect of this is apparent in the stock price of the NY Slimes.

In the news business, open architecture gives people access to all kind of information and opinions, some of it truly kooky, but lots of it thoughtful. And it allows for cracks in the armor of the “establishment” that is anxious to retain its positions of power and prestige. But the establishment can only hold on to power if the flow of information and opinion is limited to those that the establishment allows. Orthodoxy must be maintained at all costs. And that is why a serious attempt was made to hound Sarah Palin off the political stage primarily by attacks on her family and her role as a mother. It failed, but the failure, like the examination of the effects of a hurricane, is instructive.

After a hurricane, the cracks in the levees are examined and repaired. The houses are rebuilt, stronger to withstand the next storm. This particular media storm may have done more damage to the drive-bys than it did to Sarah Palin. It did not daunt her, but it exposed, to those who are not yet in the know, just how biased, bigoted and - in many cases - plain evil these people are. It brings to mind a quote from Emerson: "...if you strike at a king, you must kill him."

It failed, now the drive-bys have a problem of their own creation.

Open architecture in communication was partly responsible for the collapse of the Soviet Union. It will be the end of the Liberal establishment in America.