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Bloggers Run the World - Thanks for the Confirmation
By Static Chaos, only after disaster can we be resurrected
"...I am concerned that if the direction of the news is all blogosphere, all opinions, with no serious fact-checking, no serious attempts to put stories in context, that what you will end up getting is people shouting at each other across the void but not a lot of mutual understanding..."
In addition, the President also made the following comment:
“What I hope is that people start understanding if you're getting your newspaper over the Internet, that's not free and there's got to be a way to find a business model that supports that.”
Since President Obama confirmed that bloggers do run the world, I’d like to dedicate this blog to respond to his comments.
Liberal markets, or capitalism, has been dominant in the Western world since the end of feudalism. In a liberal market, there is no central planning authority but prices are determined by the demand-supply scale. The media space is very much like any market segment where supply and demand is determined by the competitiveness of each market participant.
News organizations have failed miserably in the competiveness department. Across the country, newspapers are struggling to maintain readership and advertising revenue that has been lost to the Internet. Thousands of journalists have been laid off, and over the last year several newspapers have closed.
In addition to outdated business models, another reason people turn to blogs for news is that bloggers tend to be independent thinkers; and most do not charge a fee with the exception of proprietary materials. On the other hand, the news media tends to be biased towards liberal and socialistic ideals, which is one constituent group of Obama, and the Democratic Party. In addition, many news organizations are starting to charge a fee for internet content. It shouldn’t be a surprise which one the public flocks to in this economy.
Obama’s blanket statement implying “blogs are written without serious fact-checking, and attempts to put stories in context” is highly misleading and inflammatory. To be fair, one has to admit that there may be some bloggers posting irresponsible opinions; however, the mainstream media also has their share of bad apples if not more...remember Dan Rather & CBS?
The right to freedom of speech is recognized under Article 19 of the Universal Declaration of Human Rights and in international human rights law in the International Covenant on Civil and Political Rights (ICCPR). It essentially means:
“Liberty to express opinions and ideas without hindrance, and especially without fear of punishment.”
Even though the United States legal systems have not treated freedom of speech as absolute, the liberal tradition has generally defended freedom of speech because a free interchange of ideas is considered as an essential ingredient of democracy, innovation and progress.
As much as the West, with the U.S. being the most vocal, has been condemning China for its media censorship, one could not help but sense a whiff of media control and censorship in the President’s remark.
As a nation, we do not need another bailout of incompetent businesses. Bailouts and restructuring into non-profits, as suggested by Obama, only guarantees the continuation of a proven failed business model. This strategy would only undermine the already tenuous nature of objective journalistic integrity and move the U.S. one step closer towards the much despised controlled market approach.
By Static Chaos, only after disaster can we be resurrected
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the eastern establishment press and liberalism
go hand in hand and have been staples of the
cia controlled media for decades....the eastern
establishment press was never a cliche - ny times,
washington post, network television all were
part and parcel of that jauggernaut which still holds
power...
there isn't a conservative major news source
anywhere and that includes fox and cnbc...
you're promoting cliches of your progressive
socialist paranoia....go back to your cia hole.
Newspapers are finished.
No way anybody's pulling out a NYT or Telegraph in the train on their way to work in 2025 - NO WAY.
It's all about the 'net and who gets the right mix e.g. micropayments for ZH and its ilk; and the right delivery tablet, kindle etc.
Oh and just to add - didn't hear Oblahblah complaining about the blogs during election '08 ... must have missed that "town hall". I was a big supporter of the guy, what the hell is he [i]doing[/i]?!
Agree....bama was all for free internet (blogs) when it suited him but now that people are waking up and realize what he and his Fascist band are up to he's all of a sudden worried about the blogosphere........absolutley laughable.........
exactly what we thought.
now the whole drama about the blackberry becomes much more clear, doesn't it?
Unfortunately, in the US it is called governing. And this process sucks.
Most *journalism* is poorly composed spoon fed drivel. Real reporting, you know...talking to people, is completely dead in the vast majority of major media outlets.
The biggest difference between these blogs n what is broadly defined as the media is that we here are having a conversation. If something is wrong, misrepresented, or just ambiguous n contentious we have the capacity to correct and present new ideas. And having this conversation facilitates learning...its not so easy to learn from endless lectures.
"spoon fed drivel"
This sentence, where is the emphasis? Spoon FEDDRIVEL or SPOONFED drivel? :-)
Is this a sis-Steak? :-)
I am a sponge here. And it seems some have the room to let folks ask questions and try on logics in the rough and tumble of fight club.
Lectures are one way and hegemonic, fascist. Conversations are constructive and emergent. Perhaps because Obama is a lawyer he is not versed in paralogy. Law is about right or wrong, win or lose, no grey area. Mean while if you think you are right, you do not have room for a conversation. And if you have the power in the exchange, you do not have to make room at all.
"Law is about right or wrong...no grey area".
I wish. Then I could ignore all these frakking cases I have on my desk.
Law is 1 part facts and logical analysis and 3 parts creating illusions with which to garner sympathy for one party or the other. Nothing is objective about humanity. Ever.
Apologies.
Ground glass to affect the perception of focal point MsCreant.
Steak, excellent
I like using the term "Gerbervores" for those that spoon it and those that lap it up.
All they have to do is start charging their readers on the internet, and presto, mucho profitability. People will just whip out their BofA, Citi, and JPMC credit cards and start funneling money their way. Just ask Rupert. Because you can't get good information anywhere else other than the NYT, WA Post, etc.
NYT is good information??? are you serious...
President Obama, you lied to the people who put you in office. You promised, no lobby, transparancy, etc, etc, ect, and look at your cabinet of Tax cheats and lobby!
Obviously he is not serious.
At least one a day no doubt
Clearly he hasn't read ZeroHedge.........fact checking is them.
As a lifelong Dem, who voted for this prez (and is losing hope for change !), I think he will be a one term guy if he doesn't make some sharp turns soon........btw, I was trying for understatement here.
Are any workers at newspapers unionized?
Just asking.
Yes
But print is extinct. Nothing the unions can do about it.
exactly
Bashing unions? You must be young people. You don't know shit. Do you think "I owe my soul to the company store" is just a line from a cute little ditty written to sell records? While I am not happy at all with what many unions have become, U.S. workers will rue the day they disappear. Think we've got oligarchs now?
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=cWGNQIecbcc
Edit: I apologize for my harshness; history is just not taught or understood anymore, and it is a sore point for me. Organized labor was a rational self-preservation response to working conditions in early industrial America. Once the working conditions issues were largely resolved, many unions went on to increasingly unrealistic demands in an effort to justify their existence. However, any study of working conditions in the mines, factories and slaughterhouses of turn-of-the-century America shows why collective strength was needed by labor. This cycle will repeat, and it will hurt, and I'm not happy about it.
No need to apologize. I lived in the Penna. coal region and know all too well.
Your reply was a impression you needed to convey. Unions over time must be held in realitys light. I have been Union over 30 years and there are serious issues to consider that your knowledge can be a benefit to many. The code of federal regulations helped many if they understand it or not. Good or bad the CFR and PSM has saved lives if many understand it or not. Education on many fronts are needed since many lives where lost to many reasons. As stated, if more understood and discerned the CFR in context to the souls we lost it would not be in vain. Many good men and women are not happy with national, union and character misnomers of who have died and where injured. It is a very complicated topic and if the Union is to survive it is us who have seen and worked to convey truth need to tell the younger workers to strive for truth since many forget some are trying to leave the next men a women a blue print of character which this nation needs to prosper in a true relationship which takes work with issues they must understand over the decades on Corporate and Labor issues. I am a Union Black Sheep since both have made mistakes. Before the Wall fell we had many issues and we will have more in the future, but the Union must survive so you have a voice. We have spent to much time with company and union avarice to be silenced now.
You ought to really be concerned that the vast majority of workers belonging to unions are in the Government and education. While many industrial unions ruined it for themselves, no such thing is happening to the members of AFSCME and Teachers.
There is likely not one civil servant earning what he is actually worth on the open market and those who have lost their PRODUCTIVE union jobs are paying the taxes to keep these ninnies employed and enjoying no downturn at all with no social security taken from their checks, and guaranteed everything.
These kinds of distortions exist in other venues but it's unions we're talking here.
Federal employees have been paying SSA for a decade or so now.
Check to 85751
I am sitting at a conference (specifically for the National Information Exchange Model) where there are literally hundreds of these so-called "ninnies" that you are talking about. Most of them put in 10-12 hour days, doing complex and necessary work - establishing communication infrastructure standards for emergency response situations, law enforcement, weather management, and more, and typically are underpaid, working with infinitesimal budgets in order to get accomplished the things that will make YOUR life easier. Many of the people here at one point or another were CTOs, CEOs or directors for companies that are doing their part to solve some real problems, many of them have advanced degrees and years of experience, and I suspect in most cases are just plain smarter than you, if not harder working and more concerned about the world in which they (and more importantly YOU) live.
So before you start bashing these people, do a little homework.
Labor was a very important movement that was needed at one time.
Now it is one of the largest, most political, corrupted beasts sucking money from union members and selling out others' jobs to foreign countries.
The major American unions currently support: health care "reform," amnesty (which will bankrupt both social security and health care, education, etc), forced unionism, increased government employees (which means fewer overall jobs) just to name a few.
The UAW was instrumental in the decision to off shore suppliers, oops, it now looks like those expensive American suppliers were also customers. No problem they just use taxpayer funds to build a plant in China.
The days of unions caring about their workers passed a long time ago. Continuing to blindly follow the union banner is equivalent to blinding following a political party line.
Look around, they have all done this to us.
I concurr. Unions were necessary 100+ years ago, now, they're far more of a burden than benefit, no matter how you slice it.
I concurr. Unions were necessary 100+ years ago, now, they're far more of a burden than benefit, no matter how you slice it.
+1
Exactly, and 0 knows nothing about business, never
having produced anything with free market value...
Indeed. and those unions are dying faster than you can say air traffic controller.
Unions: the people who brought you the weekend.
Enjoy it while you still have it.