This is true for now, but we are witness to the birth of the New Media of the Internet and talk radio..Even now with Media OB (order of battle) against us, the Old Media cannot set the agenda. I’m an old timer, and can easily remember the 1970s when the only voice crying out in the wilderness was Buckley’s National Review and Firing Line.
Take Glenn Beck’s rally, for example. This would have been impossible to get off the ground without one cable television channel (Fox), the Internet and talk radio. The success of this rally is an important victory for the New Media.
So without all the new communications technology freedom would be dead in this country and the world. As it stands now, it’s Old Media that’s dying. I mean who reads the NYT, USA Today and the LA Times? They give away free copies at the colleges and the students won’t even pick them up unless they need something to wrap fish in.
Take Glenn Beck’s rally, for example. This would have been impossible to get off the ground without one cable television channel (Fox), the Internet and talk radio. The success of this rally is an important victory for the New Media.
Yes, I think you are right. Things are changing, and we can be very thankful of it. It spells disaster for the old liberal guard. But, that one cable news channel was very important in this rally as you say. And not only because of the size of the audience, but because of the subconscious legitimacy associated with major TV news networks. If something is big and important enough to be discussed on that outlet then it is, to many people watching, worth considering. More and more people are, as you say, looking to other places for their actual information and news, but they still get so much of their bias from TV. What they see there influences their foundational perceptions. That is why, IMHO, the birth certificate controversy never gained real traction with middle America. It never got reported enough on major outlets and so it was not seen as a real issue. It gave the impression of extremism and fringe activity.
Right now while we are seeing this paradigm shift in media delivery we are still tied to the Old Media, as you call it, in some ways. It influences people on a subconscious level. TV can give things a sense of legitimacy. I am hopeful that outlets like FoxNews, and conservatives on those outlets, will stop allowing the other guys from controlling and dictating the debate as they do now. People out there really do think that "moderate" is not conservative, and that is because of the insidious influence of these people on TV and elsewhere. We have to rejoin the debate and bring some truth back to it. To be moderate in America is to be right of center, not loony liberal.