[p2p-research] The Coming Media Bailout by Justin Raimondo -- Antiwar.com

[Paul D. Fernhout]

From:
   http://original.antiwar.com/justin/2009/08/25/the-coming-media-bailout/
"""
As the FTC Web site puts it:
"The workshops will consider a wide range of issues, including: the 
economics of journalism and how those economics are playing out on the 
Internet and in print … online news aggregators, and bloggers; and the 
variety of governmental policies – including antitrust, copyright, and tax 
policy – that have been raised as possible means of finding new ways for 
journalism to thrive."
   So what this means is that the Old Journalism is going to deploy an 
agency of the federal government to regulate the industry in order to save 
these tired old dinosaurs who don’t deserve to survive in the first place. 
They’ll use every weapon in the government’s arsenal to do it: antitrust 
laws (watch out, Craigslist!), copyright laws (forget about linking to an 
Associated Press story: that’s copyright infringement!), and "tax policy" – 
if we can’t get them by hook or by crook, we’ll just tax the New Media to 
death. That‘ll teach them to respect their elders!
   Note, also, that the professor is very specific in his concerns: it’s 
"the crisis in mainstream journalism" he’s oh-so-worried about and that the 
government is going to find a solution to – as opposed to, you know, the 
other kind of journalism, which is all icky, not to mention downright 
disreputable.
  So what is it about "mainstream journalism," anyway, that led to this 
supposed "crisis," which government facilitators – such as a man married to 
a Washington Post columnist – are going to lead us out of?
   Well, I’m just guessing, but maybe "consumers" – i.e., readers – weren’t 
at all happy with the level and nature of the coverage provided by the Old 
Journalism. Maybe they began to distrust and finally abandon completely all 
those "news" organizations that reported with a straight face the Bush 
administration’s claims that Iraq had weapons of mass destruction. Maybe the 
social and political collusion that goes on in Washington between government 
officials and "journalists" led them to distrust the latter as much as they 
disdain the former. It hardly matters that these consumers don’t need or 
want "protection" from bloggers and non-"mainstream" news sources – but you 
can bet your bottom dollar they’re going to get it anyway. After all, the 
Nanny State knows best: we’re from the government, and we’re here to help…
"""

Note again: I think we need a balance of meshworks and hierarchies 
(following Manuel de Landa) so I take some issue with the last line, but 
clearly the current system is unbalanced in many way, and the regulatory 
processes have been captured by those they are supposed to regulate. 
Ultimately, you want the government to defend some basic rights, and 
government, in response to the will of the people, can in theory be powerful 
enough to resist large commercial interests.

Another related item about defining rights and who has them:
http://www.ceasespin.org/ceasespin_blog/ceasespin_blogger_files/fox_news_gets_okay_to_misinform_public.html
"""
The attorneys for Fox, owned by media baron Rupert Murdoch, successfully 
argued the First Amendment gives broadcasters the right to lie or 
deliberately distort news reports on the public airwaves. We are pushing for 
a consumer protection solution that labels news content according to its 
adherence to ethical journalism standards that have been codified by the 
Society of Professional Journalists (Ethics: spj.org).
A News Quality Rating System and Content Labeling approach, follows a 
tradition of consumer protection product labeling, that is very familiar to 
Americans. The ratings are anti-censorship and can benefit consumers. ... On 
February 14, a Florida Appeals court ruled there is absolutely nothing 
illegal about lying, concealing or distorting information by a major press 
organization. The court reversed the $425,000 jury verdict in favor of 
journalist Jane Akre who charged she was pressured by Fox Television 
management and lawyers to air what she knew and documented to be false 
information. The ruling basically declares it is technically not against any 
law, rule, or regulation to deliberately lie or distort the news on a 
television broadcast.  On August 18, 2000, a six-person jury was unanimous 
in its conclusion that Akre was indeed fired for threatening to report the 
station's pressure to broadcast what jurors decided was "a false, distorted, 
or slanted" story about the widespread use of growth hormone in dairy cows.
"""

So, anyway, apparently after a major news organization won a court case 
based on defending lying for profit, even on the public airwaves which were 
supposed to be used in trust for the public benefit, now academia is being 
called in to use its "assignable curiosity"
   http://www.google.com/search?hl=en&q=assignable+curiosity
to provide the justifications for disabling the peer media system, or at the 
very least, making the playing field even more uneven then it has been 
already, to prop up the old centralized media systems, even as they fail. 
Still, no doubt, if that approach fails, ways will be thought about to 
subvert peer media in other ways:
   http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Four_Horsemen_of_the_Infocalypse

Free speech, use it or lose it:
   http://www.indymedia.org
   http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Blog
   http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Usenet_newsgroup

Or, we can create even better peer media tools than the above... As many 
people are busy doing...

--Paul Fernhout
http://www.pdfernhout.net/