Wednesday Morning Rant

On the recent podcast, CBD mentioned the fungible nature of entertainment. When one form isn't any good, it can be easily substituted for another. He mentioned that with the decline of cinema he had started reading more. I have, too. I was recently rereading Robert A. Heinlein's 1966 classic The Moon is a Harsh Mistress when one passage in particular stood out to me.

The moon's revolutionaries are on a diplomatic mission and discussing some of the vagaries of government:

"... Kerala had a planned famine last year. Did you see it in the news?"
"No."
"Because it wasn't in the news. A managed democracy is a wonderful thing, Manuel, for the managers... and its greatest strength is a 'free press' when 'free' is defined as 'responsible' and the managers define what is 'irresponsible.' ..."

The open and obvious decline of the press has been a common theme over the past several years and at least the past decade, if one was paying closer attention. It went from the press being openly but at least somewhat subtly biased to being obviously left-leaning to openly being party organs. They have gone from having at least a passing familiarity with - though no commitment to - the truth to open contempt for honesty. From the "straight news journalists" of the wire services to the "fact checkers" of the major papers and sites, all of it is 100% in the tank and wears it openly.

We do not have a "free press" anymore. We haven't for a long time. What we have is a managed press, a responsible press. That is, we have a press that publishes what the State and Party wish to be published. Heinlein underscored the way this works in the passage above - it is through defining that which is "irresponsible." It's an enforcement of taboos more than it is a dictation of what is "good" to cover, though both phenomena are on full display.

Our managed press is very consistent, which is unsurprising given the central direction. The Orange Man and that nasty troll from Florida are bad, so they are to be given bad coverage. The ruling party and its men are good, so their corruption is not to be discussed. Grooming children in public schools is "just" so its opponents are irresponsible and thus should be smeared as monsters. You can set your watch by it, and it's as the managers want it to be.

There is but one true hole in the press management structure: this place, and those like it. On the internet there are still a handful of non-managed outlets. There is also X, which is now only semi-managed. It is not open and free, but it is less controlled than it was back when it was pre-Musk Twitter. Those holes are the only reason anybody knows anything - the little corners of free press that eke out existence on the margins of the managed press. They are not as powerful as the managed press, but they are nonetheless dangerous. They need to be brought under management.

And the managers are taking aim at what's left. The FCC's plans (plans even its own commissioner thinks are beyond the pale) seek to increase government control of the internet to something approaching "total." Presidential candidate Nikki Haley wants the government to ban "social media" (whatever the hell that is) anonymity, which is the wrong solution to the problem she identified and will have a tremendous chilling effect. Whether the FCC's deliberate destruction or Haley's ill-conceived and poorly considered plans to "help" or the now-traditional methods of deplatforming and ad network exclusion, the last conduits of unmanaged press are being inexorably squeezed closed.

Perhaps the old ways are best. It's still difficult to stop an unregistered mimeograph running in some dissident's basement.

posted by Joe Mannix at 11:00 AM

| Access Comments