Media Once Controlled The Stage Lighting

When left-wing operatives with a byline* turn one spotlight onto the public stage, you see exactly what they want you to see.  The rest of the stage is dark.  Bloggers, Rebel Media, Blogging Tories, Twitter and Facebook are throwing some low cost light onto the same stage.  So are groups on the left who want highlights on their pets.  This doesn't resolve who is true and right but it lights up enough of the public stage that the public can form better informed conclusions.



 The blind-sided and the hidden players are more visible, payoffs and paybacks make the light of day.   This is what I call competition in the market of politics.  More Low Information Voters become Medium Information Voters.  We may not have more truth but we will have fairer calculations of advantage and more participants.

The Media have been called the fourth estate. They muscled in on the "three estates of the realm, clergy, nobility and commons".  They  appropriated political power by owning technology that made it easy to disseminate information, but not too easy, since not everyone could have a printing press or a TV station. The fifth estate, which is much larger than the fourth, is lighting up its narratives and gaining power. That includes the bloggers and commenters on this page.  This change is in its infancy.  The way politics is done will change to suit. over the next five federal elections.

* For this line I owe Instapundit:  "Journalists are democratic operatives with bylines".

For a parting thought, a quote from Mark Twain:

“If you don't read the newspaper, you're uninformed. If you read the newspaper, you're mis-informed.”