Webster.
Well a few comments. Firstly, many of the writers in the book speak about experiences that happened when the Web was not available as a ubiquitous medium.
In fact, Gary Web's Dark Alliance - published online in the San Jose Mercury News (I think it was around 1993) - was one of the first really big "deep political" media stories to use the Web to disseminate the information used to back up his editorial writings in the mainstream product.
Secondly, if a journalist works for a mainstream media organizations, there are definitely topics that are "off limits" to publication in a mainstream media publication. A perfect example of this is, well, US government complicity in 9-11. Of course, if you have a private blog and no affiliation with a mainstream media organization - say like Mike Whitney - you can published whatever the heck you want. But if you work for a mainstream media organization - commercial entities that, as Noam Chomsky says, "manufacture consent" in our modern society - there are topics that are absolutely verboten.
Now this area of "verboten" topics is flexible, and particular after a critical time period has passed and a topic becomes less "radioactive", it is certainly possible to publish some very controversial issues in a mainstream media context. But, IMO, there are definitely "filters" around what "can" and "cannot" be published through a mainstream media organization at any particular point in time.
And certainly, the Internet has made a huge difference. It is much harder to effect unquestioned propaganda with the advent of the Internet. However, the mainstream media is still very careful to stick to "official versions" of events.
Hope this clarifies my perspective on the matter.
glenn |
