And: "The right wing has seized upon the internet as a means of communicating its ideas to people. Moreover, evidence exists that Republican staffers surf the internet...."
Here's the whole PDF for your amusement/disgust/horror. Here's the Politico article with the background about this document: It was long understood to exist and to have been the underlying analysis to Hillary Clinton's old "vast right-wing conspiracy" remark, and it was dumped yesterday — Good (day to dump documents) Friday — along with thousands of other things from the Clinton Presidential Library.
I love that direct admission that they were afraid of the internet. They could see that they couldn't control the media anymore.
The memo pushes the theory that there is an illicit "food chain" that brings material into the mainstream press, as if the mainstream press ought to be disciplined to reject news stories that are noticed and promoted this way.
Subscribe to:
Post Comments (Atom)
Posts
29 comments:
Republicans on the Internet? Where's my fainting couch?
Why not dispense with the second Ammendment and freedom from prior restraint altogether. Wouldn't we all better off with a Ministry of Truth? The Clinton's certainly thought so. Is there any indication Hillary has changed?
You can't have an "amount of data" any more than you can have an amount of stars in the firmament.
So, do you see the path to legal action against political enemies?
"They could see that they couldn't control the media anymore."
Professor, I do not agree that has come to pass. The internet is more influential in places where there was not much of an independent media to start with. In the US, people were used to getting their news from TV, radio and newspapers. That is still the case. A pretty low percentage get their information from other than these mass, conventional sources. It's an improvement from having no alternative sources, but the impact has been surprisingly small.
As Exhibit A, I present you Bengazhi. You were quite eloquent on the subject, and identified fundamental issues that have not been addressed adequately to this day. Why have they not been addressed? Because the main stream media still controls the best platform by far. They were incurious about the subject, and eventually started to act as an echo chamber for dismissive government propaganda. The result is that if you raise the subject now, most of the media will treat it as an outrageous joke.
Two of the greatest internet fortunes have been made by Amazon and Facebook. One is a consumer paradise, and the other is a network for social (not political) communication which advertises stuff to make money. Only Google shows real potential to change the equation for mass communication of ideas, and how that is going to work out is still unclear. The Google-Washington romance going on now may be just a fake on both sides, but so is (say) the Clinton marriage. The Clinton marriage is actually a hugely successful business-political partnership. Where will Google's loyalties lie when the crisis comes?
That memo was produced by government employees of course. This is why the White House staff has gotten so large. Many are engaged in political stuff like this, not the direct work of governing. Given the quality of those memos, perhaps that is just as well.
If only that pesky Al Gore hadn't invented the internet... but he wanted an information superhighway, not a place where the people could talk back.
See, this is just funny.
Because hipster Leftists love the Internet. And they love the Democrat party.
As the expression goes, if it's a true story why did/does it have to take such a circuitous route to get covered by the media?
They did not anticipate the rise of talk radio and the internet threatened control. China and Russia know this. Clinton knew it. Google has insulated Obama fro the influence of the internet at the price of massive influence on policy.
Krupp only thought he could control Hitler. Page, Schmidt and Brin have succeeded in controlling OBama.
It's kind of interesting to see the definite statement that in the Nineties think tanks which were as important to Republicans as big city machines were to the Democrats had only one round about channel for getting their stories into the news. I mean Republicans were about half the voters but their important thinkers were excluded from the regular channels. Yet those channels call themselves mainstream while excluding the views of half the country. And what is the result? Situations like Detroit where a complete lack of honest journalism results a persisting corruption to the point where a city crashes to the ground and decent people lose their pensions. Better journalism would have led to earlier reform and then Detroit would have had a softer confrontation with reality. There's nothing good about governing in a bubble because the media isn't doing its job.
Is that a wombat down there?
The HORROR! The horror...
The liberal media still control the news, the narrative. The low information voters get their news from mainstream media which is liberal.
Progressives hate free speech.
I love the direct admission of a Democrat Party bias in the legacy press, and an open internet is a threat to that. That explains a few things
In 2008, there were Democrats who supported Obama over Hillary because they thought she was scarier. We now know how scary Obama is, but Hillary seems to be scarier still.
Whats ironic is that AM talk radio (and later the rightwing blogosphere) were created as parallel venues for conservatives to exercise speech.
ie. if the Left hadn't pushed the Right out of the MSM, there wouldn't be a need for "THE INTERNET"
I like Insty's appeal to duty: if you want the media to start doing its job, elect a Republican.
Its going to fun to watch how, allofasudden, the MSM feels a duty to speak truth to power. Ha. What a bunch of hacks.
Confirmation bias.
Until the mainstream media fade into a non-relevance, the internet is the only way to get information which coincides with your beliefs. Right wingers go to right wing web sites; left wingers to left wing web sites.
The mainstream media - how I hate this overused phrase, thank you Rush Limbaugh - tend to use left wing web sites as a source of information, however.
But it is interesting that the left wing pundits ( in this case) 'fear' the internet, and the right wingers access to information, and would wish to regulate it.
What regulation is required? It's working, and is inherently unbiased in every way conceivable - apart from ICANN which is being controlled by the oppressive euro-gov; this is a start of a slippery slope when they demand the website owner be a 'real person'(?) lest your website be taken down. Please email me at fuckicann@mydomain.com...
I love the constant references to the "British tabloid media." This is what's generally meant by tabloid journalism (Wikipedia):
Collectively called the "tabloid press", tabloid newspapers in Britain tend to be simply and sensationally written, and to give more prominence than broadsheets to celebrities, sports, crime stories and even hoaxes; they also less subtly take a political position (either left-wing or right-wing) on news stories, ridiculing politicians, demanding resignations and predicting election results. The term "red tops"[2] refers to tabloids with red nameplates, such as The Sun, the Daily Star, the Daily Mirror, the Daily Record and the Daily Sport,[3] and distinguishes them from the Daily Express and Daily Mail. Red top newspapers are usually simpler in writing style, dominated by pictures, and directed at the more sensational end of the market.
The references in the Clinton document, OTOH, are mostly to such papers as The Times of London and the Sunday Telegraph. These are "tabloids" solely in being right-of-center -- and not all that far right, at that. Not tabloid format, not tabloid style, not tabloid content.
If The Times is now a tabloid, are we to the stage where only The Independent and The Guardian are legit?
well this helps explain (a little bit) why Schumer, Feinstein et al are pushing for passage of their journalist shield law which would in part determine who is a professional journalist and thus eligible for protection under the 1st amendment
and here I thought that Nixon was the most paranoid politician
David wrote "the other is a network for social (not political) communication "
well their is a lot of political communication that takes on Facebook from both the left and the right
Until the mainstream media fade into a non-relevance, the internet is the only way to get information which coincides with your beliefs. Right wingers go to right wing web sites; left wingers to left wing web sites.
Not exactly. I get my news from the MSM. I only supplement with right-wing websites to find out what the MSM is not telling me.
I know its in vogue for people to bash "faux" news for being biased, but they really are the only television news that presents BOTH sides of the issue fairly.
Aristocrats historically resented and feared the education and arming of subordinate people.
MDT,
"...The Grauniad"
FIFY.
Orin Hatch does not appear to have a Twitter Account - as far as I can tell - and this says it all.
This guy need to go away as soon as possible.
BTW Ann - no Twitter for you? Hmmm.
I wonder how ObamaCare would have played if it only had a sympathetic media like the NYT, USA Today, and the LA Times. I suspect it would have a lot more favorable ratings. Clinton was wise to fear the Internet and wise to know he could do nothing about it.
Only Democrats goodspeak!
Badthink dangerous!
Post a Comment