The mainstream media have indignantly reported on Governor Sarah Palin’s barnstorming "One Nation" bus tour across the Eastern United States with sputtering speculation, crafty criticism, risible ridicule, and, as usual, insufficient insight. The reason for the media apoplexy is simple. Palin is the first potential national candidate to successfully demonstrate that today’s news organizations are yesterday’s news.
Mainstream media outlets ambushed, belittled, and lied about Palin during the last presidential campaign, and competed with each other to see who could do the best hatchet job on John McCain’s charismatic running mate. Not content to see their candidate win, media personalities have continued to ridicule Palin and pronounce her "unelectable" whenever an opportunity arises. Palin herself has said she owes nothing to the mainstream media, and is happy to conduct her life and her exploratory campaign without them.
Her Memorial Day entry into Washington with the bikers of the annual Rolling Thunder rally to honor veterans had the look, sound and feel of the liberation of an occupied city. Palin didn’t act like a conquering hero, but the triumphal imagery was unmistakable. Additionally, Palin showed again that she was comfortable with regular folks, looking more comfortable on the back of a Harley in a black t-shirt and leather than Obama ever will on one of his safety-helmeted bike rides through Rock Creek Park.
News outlets showed the images, but there were no interviews (other than with Fox News), no press conferences, no published itineraries. If you wanted to know what Palin had to say, you had to be there, go to her web site, or watch the Greta van Susteren one-on-one. Palin was a top story on most news outlets all weekend, even without granting audiences to their journalists. She used them expertly.
Once, it made sense that managing editors at a few news organizations would digest the events of the day or week, decide which were most important, and report on them in print or in half-hour dinnertime newscasts. But those days are over for two reasons.
First, we can choose from a myriad of news sources now, available online anytime. We can seek out digested news, annotated news, interviews, commentary, opinion, or debate. We can even get raw news, photos, video, or watch events unfold in real time. It is no longer necessary to allow some one else to decide what is news–we make that decision ourselves.
The middlemen of news have seen their importance shrink, just as have brick and mortar retail establishments. We can still go to the mall to shop for shoes, but we also know that the internet provides an endless array of styles, colors, and sizes that could never be offered in any store. The same is true of news. Information no longer needs to be filtered through the news brokers of the networks or print outlets or even online services. A witness to an important event can upload cell phone video onto a personal web site, social networking site, or some youtubular equivalent, and the whole world can see it immediately.
Sarah Palin will not permit herself to be filtered, and certainly has no interest in offering herself up for ambush interviews. She’ll take her case directly to the American people
The second reason that news outlets are becoming obsolete is their own doing. They have demonstrated that they are not honest brokers of information. Once, they posed as impartial reporters of fact. But increasingly, media outlets openly demonstrate bias, follow partisan agendas, and even when a story is exposed as fiction, they will insist on its inherent truth. The media no longer enjoy the public’s trust.
Though many Americans understand this, political candidates still operate under the old system–that they must get their messages out through the media, or no one will listen. But Sarah Palin understands the new reality. She need not be interpreted, will not permit herself to be filtered, and certainly has no interest in offering herself up for ambush interviews. She’ll take her case directly to the American people. They may or may not like her message, but it’ll be unvarnished, real and direct from the candidate herself. Americans are ready for that.
