Some things we will lose as the newspaper dies
None of this is terribly original, but contemplating the Seattle PI’s closing foreshadows our uncertain media / journalistic future. We’ll eventually find a good equilibrium where actual muck-racking can be unleashed as the old model of news gathering is dead, but it’ll be a difficult transition.
It was a decade ago when Matt Drudge crashed the gates and was invited to talk before the National Press Corps — an interesting little foray the trasncript for which I can find fairly easily. He always spoke of “letting a thousand Drudges blossom.” Hard to say if that happened — but seeing how unseriously his news compiling and gossip-hounding is, swerving to Washington as Hollywood for Ugly People, the Rise of Celebrity Gossip (absurdly running into the gamut of the lives of Celebrity’s Babies), he probably can be said to have prefaced such a thing. The trick will be to get what’s necessary into the forefront beyond this manner of stuff.
The Seattle PI’s transition to a “web based” only artifact might also underscore the death of one more thing, what I keep referring to as “the Blogging of the Twentieth Century”, the Letter to the Editor. (Don’t ask me what the “twittering” of the 20th century was.) The online edition has its own reader-feedback loop, but it does have essential differences in character to the sort of worked and paragraphical Letter of Opinion-Mongering. The Oregonian is currently floundering about awkwardly. But nonetheless it can enlighten us all with a letter such as — and I’m going to insult your intelligence by interjecting into it to draw attention to the alarming part of this:
Rosy view of Europe
Jacob Weisberg’s glowing picture of European-style democracy leaves out a few important details (“Really, is European-style democracy so bad?” March 15).
Not only do those countries have high tax rates, but their social problems far exceed what Weisberg would lead us to believe.
In France, strikes regularly paralyze both commercial and personal transportation. Also European-style medical practice, often thought of as a model for the U.S., has serious problems. Problems with the British medical system are becoming well-known, but even the Swedish system, usually presented as an example of how to do it right, is in trouble.
— I’m never going to cite any nation as a paradise or Utopia, and so far I’ll just suggest that things are Debatable. But next sentence: —
European-style democracy also denies its citizens the freedom of speech, religion, and the press which we take for granted here in the United States. Expressing viewpoints contrary to government-approved dogma can lead to legal trouble.
— What, prey tell, “Government-approved dogma” does he cite that the people aren’t allowed to object toward?
In many places, church leaders are not allowed to speak their beliefs about homosexuality,
— An item of bigotry, sure, though I can respect the objection to something on this order on Civil Libertarian grounds. He is at the very least in the land of Mainstream Viewpoints. What else does he cite as “government-approved dogma”?
and the expression of some beliefs about the holocaust is illegal.
— Uh huh.
While we may agree with the official view,
— How very nice of him to allow such a thing.
suppression of free expression is dangerous.
— Agreed. Better to have this objection to having to hold to a government – approved view of the Holocaust out in the open.
If Weisberg likes the European model, he is welcome to move to Europe. As for me, I like freedom, limited government, and self-responsibility.
HAROLD LILLYWHITE
Aloha
See, if this print outlet weren’t available, Mr. Harold Lillywhite would have to be trolling on an online forum at the largely defunct newspaper website and stringing out Holocaust Denial anonymously instead of offering up a candy-coating of it with his name attached.