Here’s the media conundrum for Republicans. The rise of Fox News brought forth a powerful voice for conservatives. (One far more ideological than the mainstream media, but that’s for another post.) Simultaneously came the rise of talk radio, another vast plain of conservative opinion. So successful are both that they are now mainstream. Their “otherness” has vanished, replaced by the Internets. Now the thing about the Internets is that they are not controlled. That kind of environment attracts iconoclasts, people who don’t play by the rules, independent thinkers, you know, liberals. Conservatives spend all their time trying to forbid things, which doesn’t play well in a free environment.
And so, having been so completely fascinated with your own success of the past decade, conservatives and conservative media have let the Internets be defined by the left. We have an implicit understanding of its nature and power. We are far more creative in developing content. We are entrenched in billions of communities. You’re like IBM when they said, “Hey, you know this personal computer thing may catch on after all.” You spent all your time and money developing a media model that became obsolescent in ten years. Frankly, I think you’re too little too late with the whole Google thing. Proof? How about the impending demise of Pajamas Media? Unfortunate? Perhaps. Inevitable? Without question.
