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:: MAX BLACK ::

"Of all tyrannies, a tyranny sincerely exercised for the good of its victims may be the most oppressive. It would be better to live under robber barons than under omnipotent moral busybodies. The robber baron's cruelty may sometimes sleep, his cupidity may at some point be satiated; but those who torment us for our own good will torment us without end for they do so with the approval of their own conscience." --C.S. Lewis

"The Swiss pocket knife of conservative thought on the web..." - Eli Kardrakian

"Bookmark Max and dump your subscription to the newspaper; if you don't have a birdcage you really don't need it anyway..." - Shirley St. James

:: Saturday, July 30, 2005 ::

From Corante's Rebuilding Media

"...whatever the future holds, we know now that old media are doomed to be replaced by new media. The declines in newspaper and magazine readerships, in radio listenerships, in television viewerships, and in cinema visitorships are obvious, well predate the rise of the Internet, and are accelerating. Two forces are shattering the old media.

"The first is technology. Although media technology is undergoing its greatest change since the day in 1440 when Johannes Gutenberg first inked type, the news & information media industry has mistaken these new technologies merely as electronic ways to distribute otherwise printed or broadcasted products for more than ten years now. This industry hasn't, and unfortunately still isn't, ably using the unique characteristics and capabilities of new media technologies.

"The second force is what we can perhaps call estrangement. The news & information industry has largely lost touch with consumers' needs, interests, and purses during the past 30 years. The rapid declines in newspaper readership, broadcast viewership, and cinema visitorship are among the evidence demonstrating this. The rapid increases in peer-to-peer file sharing systems, podcasting, and perhaps even citizen journalism, plus the very fact that more than 600 million people worldwide have gravitated onto the Internet despite their already having access to the old media, underline this."

-Vin Crosbie

It's shocking really, how slowly establishment media are responding to the rapid evolution of communication technology. But any honest assesment would probably show the near impossibility of such centralized "push" media giants like network television and print media to turn on a dime; it's tantamount to commanding a slow moving 800 lb. Gorilla to morph into a swarm of Bees. It ain't gonna happen like that.

To wit: "We gotta get into that blogging thing if we want to get snaps from younger readers...I'm serious Bob, we've just gotta get some blogging going if we want cred..." Oh. Dear.

Related: Well, there's this too [er, heh, indeed].

Also Related: With all of their big-gun resources and superstar pundits, MSM seems more adroit at sleeping through the really big stories - like this one. I guess their ratings tell 'em we're more interested in Michael Jackson's exploits that we are in the attempted assasination of the President of the United States.

:: Max 9:29 AM [+] ::
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