The Way of the Dinosaurs
In the blogosphere, we are sometimes in tune with national moods. My gut tells me that the Nick Berg video has had much more psychic impact in this country than the Abu Ghraib horrors. I even notice some small evidence for this. Every political blog site has just seen an exponential jump in traffic – far more than anything that occurred during the Abu Ghraib unfolding. My traffic went through the roof yesterday, and, according to Alexa, so did everyone else’s. People who have tuned the war out suddenly tuned the war in. They get it. Will the mainstream media?
Much as they publically despise it, the mainstream media still lives and dies by the profit motive. So they’ll eventually have to get the war — or die ignoring it.
UPDATE: Steven Taylor comments.
I actually posted the video prominently on my site because I feel Americans not only have the right and need to see it, but access to it is difficult.
And, I firmly believe the internet has an advantage over broadcast – it is user-initiated. This prevents surprise expore such as during dinner time with the kids. It’s a user’s choice to click to view.
This is totally OT, Stephen, but does a girl have to do to get a drink, erm, link, around here?
Wait, do I want to know?
Instapundit has quite a bit on this, including a Jeff Jarvis quote:
‘The people have news judgment. And it beats the judgment of many an editor.’
Jarvis goes on to say:
‘The people have their own newspaper now. And you’re looking at it.’
Oops, you already linked to Instapundit. Never mind.
Indirectly Related
. . . to growing complaints about the news industry’s treatment of Nick Berg’s murder versus its treatment of Abu Ghraib, this quote comes to mind: In America, nobody gets to decide what is true and what is false, what…
“My son died for the sins of George Bush and Donald Rumsfeld. This administration did this,” Berg said in an interview with radio station KYW-AM.
Yes, mainstream media will turn to the Burg murder as soon as they can put an anti-Bush spin on it.
You know I never would have believed that George bush is al-Zakawi. but now that I think of it you never see the two of them together do you, hm?
Obviously the jump in traffic were people looking to see someone murdered. How odd.
Not at all. Something significant happened, and the major media are not conveying the information people want to make decisions, so people are looking for alternate sources.
The days when the major media got to decide what is a story and what isn’t a story are over, and it’s about damn time.
Still sitting here on this lousy barstool waiting to have the bartender ask me what kind of drink, erm, link I would like….
The reason it was such an uproar here is because we Americans care so much more about the life of an American than the life of anyone else.