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ATTENTION BLOGOSPHERE!
George
Washington's Blog
Friday January 25, 2008
As of November 2006, only
26 million Americans watched any nightly
news program on television (down from 52 million in 1980). And the
percentage of people who believed "all or most of what news organizations
say" fell
dramatically between 1996 and 2006.
On the other hand, social sites like Digg, Reddit, Del.icio.us, Technorati,
StumbleUpon, Propeller, Newsvine etc., and alternative news websites on
both the left and the right have attracted huge numbers of eyeballs. Indeed,
there are currently at least 112.8
million blogs and over 250 million pieces of tagged social media.
We are actually on the verge of becoming bigger
than the audience for tv news. And we are certainly much more involved
and active than the couch potatoes passively consuming the drivel coming
from the MSN.
In fact, mainstream news is a
misnomer. Why? Because the corporate, controlled news does not reflect
the views of mainstream Americans. Instead, it reflects the views of the
government and the large corporations which own or advertise on the news
networks.
The blogosphere, on the other hand, runs insightful and uncensored stories.
The blogsphere gives voice to, and reflects the views of, mainstream America.
In other words, I would argue that the blogsphere
is now the "mainstream" news source.
Attention Blogosphere . . . We are now the mainstream news.
Making News of Our Own
There are now enough of us reading and writing political and news blogs
that we can affect history.
Instead of rolling our eyes at the newest inept and cowardly act of the
politicians, or getting hot under the collar at the latest attempt of
the White House to turn America into a monarchy, or yelling at our monitors
over the latest corrupt and illegal act of our "leaders", or twitching
over the latest spin by the "mainstream" media, we can -- together --
actually make some news of our
own.
Like what?
Well, that's for us to decide. I'm not the spokesman or the leader, but
just one member of the very large blogosphere.
But if we pretend we are just passive spectators, the inept, cowardly,
fascistic and/or corrupt politicians and media are going to run our country
into the ground. You know it,
I know it, the entire blogosphere knows it.
The one-way model of television news -- where the talking heads talk at
us and tell us what to believe -- is dead. The power of the blogosphere
is that it is two-way:
- With social networking sites, by definition the most important news
stories (as determined by the users) get voted up
- With alternative news sites, those sites which carry the important
stories which the MSM censors get the most readers; that's why
such sites have grown exponentially while the mainstream news
is losing viewership
All of us in the blogosphere collectively have the power to change the course
of events, to keep our country from plunging off of the cliff, and to restore
sanity in a nutty time. If we just embrace and accept our role as active
participants, rather than passive consumers of bad news, we can make things
right.
Attention Blogosphere . . . The future rests in our hands.
But the [people], if only they could somehow
become conscious of their own strength, would have no need to conspire .
. . They need only to rise up and shake themselves like a horse shaking
off flies . . .
- George
Orwell, 1984
You
let one ant stand up to us - then they all might stand up. Those
puny little ants outnumber us a 100 to one. And if they ever
figure that out, there goes our way of life.
-
Hopper (a grasshopper speaking to fellow grasshoppers in the Disney/Pixar
movie A Bug's Life)
There
is no act too small, no act too bold. The history of social change is the
history of millions of actions, small and large, coming together at points
in history and creating a power that governments cannot suppress.
- Howard Zinn, historian
To hell with circumstances; I create
opportunities.
- Bruce Lee
The people who get on in this world
are the people who get up and look for the circumstances they want, and,
if they can't find them, make them.
-
George Bernard Shaw
If
you don't like the news, go out and make some news of your own.
- Scoop Nisker, radio personality
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