The Escalating War Between Old and New Media
By Christopher G. Adamo
It happened again. Last week, during an interview in Beijing, Washington Post Managing Editor Philip Bennett voiced his contention that the United States should not be the “leader of the world.” Along with this abhorrent declaration, Bennett launched into various other statements, mostly displaying a distinctly anti-American sentiment.
Such words were particularly vile, in light of the fact that he was offering them to a regime which aspires to eventual supremacy on the world scene, and is relentlessly building towards that goal.
Though it is by no means certain that Bennett’s anti-American diatribe will cost him his position as chief of one of the nation’s leading newspapers, it certainly should. Yet Bennett is only one of a long line of major players from the “Old Media” who eventually show just how adverse they are to the good fortunes of their homeland, and how detached they have become from Middle America.
Recently, CNN news chief Eason Jordan was shown the door in the aftermath of widespread public outcry over his bogus accusation that American troops in Iraq were deliberately targeting journalists.
Concurrently Dan Rather was heralded out of the anchor’s chair at CBS Evening News as a direct result of the humiliation suffered by CBS over the fraudulent military memos reported by Rather on “60 Minutes” in an underhanded effort to aid the campaign of John Kerry.
But while the efforts of Rather and the CBS leviathan to sway the election were rendered futile, a grassroots organization called the “Swift Boat Veterans for Truth” successfully enlightened America regarding those less than sterling aspects of Kerry’s war record that neither he nor the mainstream media felt the nation needed to know.
In actuality, none of this would have occurred, were it not for the relatively recent advent of alternative forms of mass communication. The old order has crumbled. ABC, NBC, and CBS no longer hold the monopoly on news that they once enjoyed.
It may seem simplistic to say that darkness can withstand anything except the presence of light. However, such a fundamental concept yet remains beyond the grasp of the “mainstream” media, which struggles in vain to revert the news and information landscape back to its former, liberal dominated glory.
Needless to say, the left isn’t passively accepting such monumental changes. During the 1990’s liberals in Congress attempted to reinstate the so-called “Fairness Doctrine” in an effort to curtail the effects of talk-radio. In recent weeks, the liberal media has been apoplectic over the Jeff Gannon/James Guckert affair, in which an Internet news service employed Guckert as its White House correspondent.
Ostensibly, the bone of contention was that Guckert had acquired a press pass with a pseudonym, when in reality the liberal media only went after him in the wake of his congenial questioning of a Bush spokesman, accusing Guckert of being a plant from the administration.
Eventually, it was learned that Guckert posted lurid photos of himself on a website, advertising his sexual services. Abhorrent and perverse though they may be, such things never bothered the liberal media establishment in the past. Tawdry occurrences among their own ranks are quickly consigned to the irrelevance of one’s “private life.”
Nor is the media unilaterally opposed to the involvement of political operatives within its own ranks. George Stephanoupolos was a key player in the Clinton Administration until he was hired by ABC News. Yet network spokesmen contend, with straight faces, that he is an objective, non-partisan journalist and commentator.
Some in Washington are coming to the aid of the liberal information brokers. As if on cue, Senator John McCain (R.-AZ) has voiced his intention to bring internet bloggers under the dark umbrella of governmental campaign regulation. Clearly, McCain and his cohorts are working to strangle the efforts of those who would use the First Amendment as it was originally intended.
But despite efforts by McCain and the old media to re-establish its position of supremacy, a new age of accountability has dawned on the information industry in America. The former pattern of distortion and suppression of relevant information can no longer be maintained.
Although the “outing” of such individuals as James Guckert might result in brief setbacks for online journalism, this increased scrutiny and accountability will, in the long run, only hone and purify the voices of conservatism. In contrast, a restoration of its former media monopoly is the cornerstone on which liberalism is dependent for its very survival.
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