According to the Pew survey, one-third of political news consumers believe they don’t get all the news and information desired from mainstream media. The director of the Pew study says, “Blogs are still the realm where very, very active and pretty elite, both technologically oriented people and politically oriented people go.” More women, minorities, seniors and low-income Americans gravitated toward the mainstream media.

Interestingly, the Pew study found that the pro-Kerry and anti-Bush forces in the campaign made wider use of 527s and the Internet than the pro-Bush or anti-Kerry forces. But the liberal outcry at being outperformed has led some, along with some mainstream political and media defenders, to call for more restrictions on blogs. Among their objectives, not openly admitted, is to restrict the messages reaching Americans to those approved by the political parties and the mainstream media.

There is great uproar, mostly on the Internet, against this diminution of free speech and participation in the campaign. What has the mainstream media itself said about possible FEC restrictions on blogs? The New York Times, generally credited with leading mainstream media focus, reported the story with pretty straight quotation of the contending sides, but has not ventured one of its editorial opinions about the challenge to free blogging. The Times continues to advocate more 527 limitations.

Sen. Russ Feingold writes “the FEC should generally exempt independent, unpaid political activity by bloggers.” One can drive a tank through those weak assurances. And they open a slippery slope to further restrictions upon free speech.

Under McCain-Feingold, complaints are brought by the public, to which the accused must respond. The complaints of partisans against potent bloggers, almost all being one or a few individuals, can only burden them to end blogging or to restrain their ability to freely blog. It is difficult, at best, to define and to delineate “paid.” Is it being paid to accept political ads or to also work for the wide range of organizations considered political entities under McCain-Feingold and similar laws? Are the mainstream media’s reporters and commentators to also be so measured, piercing the current media exemption?

Both Lord Acton and George Bernard Shaw hit the nail on the head. Acton opined that power corrupts. Shaw, delighting as always in turning aphorisms on their head, added that “power does not corrupt men; fools, however, if they get into a position of power, corrupt power.” Senators McCain and Feingold, and their law’s supporters in positions of authority, need to be reminded of both the importance of free speech and of Acton and Shaw’s insights.

Commentary:

Why do blogs matter to the political class ? It isn’t the biting sarcasm or irreverence found in the blogosphere. The Nation, National Review, American Spectator, Z Magazine and the avowedly political dead tree journals are often harsher and more wickedly partisan than what most bloggers churn out. Nor is it the lack of reverence for our august representatives. It was the mainstream media who badgered Mike McCurry over whether President Clinton was going to provide photographs of his penis in the Paula Jones case. Nor did bloggers crawl into every garbage can to find scraps of evidence on every skirt Gary Condit might have chased in his heyday. None of those things animate the political class to fear the blogosphere, they have learned to live with the scandal game already.

The blogosphere is frightening to the elite because of its speed, connectivity and erosion of the the power of the official gatekeepers. To paraphrase John Boyd, when an issue catches fire in the blogosphere, it gets inside the decision-cycle of our political class.

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