Per Contra: Charting the Beginning of the Information Revolution

The Blogfather: Hugh Hewitt

Since Hugh Hewitt first inspired my foray into the blogosphere (a foray which ended with multiple failed attempts due to various factors prior to success here), I've watched the advent of blogs as the new force in information and public discussion. Far from being a hobby for tech-heads, blogging has become the average person's access to the public debate. Don't think so? Ask John McCain what a dedicated group of individuals using a viral string of links and downloads can do to an immigration bill. The fact is that blogs are reshaping the world in which we live.

I've taken on the subject in a special blogging section of Per Contra Fall 2007:

"The world of coats and ties and microfilm is gone. The shady character in some parking garage, passing out information to city beat journalists is as obsolete as a television antenna. Single source news, whether the local newspaper or trusty old Walter Cronkite, makes for quaint memories or historical studies, but it, too, is gone. And so, too, at least for this skeptic, is the somewhat disingenuous clamor for objectivity. Few possess a true to form judicial temperament and fewer still would argue that any media outlet, save a few bastions of the well-intentioned, hold to a rigid objective standard. Some would argue that the standard still exists, but the Old Media's circulations or ratings, much like their fantastic notions of journalistic integrity, are drowning in a tsunami of digital data transfer.

Now, bathrobes and Boolean searches dominate news. There are no shady characters in parking garages because any malcontent – or decent person wanting to right a grievous wrong – armed with an email account, has access to a universe of outlets for whatever information he’s willing to share. The evening news and daily fish-wrapper are out in favor of blogrolls, and forthright subjectivity with an acknowledgement of fact." Read the complete essay.

Per Contra Non-Fiction Fall 2007