Thursday 14 October 2010

HIGH NOON


Following Simon Powers announcement today that he is out to tame " the Wild West of the Internet" we reckon that there could be a bit of a stoush looming.

We have often referred to blogs and citizen journalists on the digital media as the last of the Wild West as you can see here

I suppose that means that Cactus is probably Annie Oakley and we must be May Lillie crack shot and horsewoman.




While Power probably needs to review whats happening - who in tarnation advised him to set about making the bloggers and online community the enemy?

Our favourite uber political geek David Farrar so rightly says the way its been done will probably rub a few people up the wrong way. We agree.

So we hope that we get to have a say sometime during the course of the year. We like the idea of workshops to nut out a few ideas.

But at the end of the day one of the corner stones of the media in any form, is freedom of thought and expression. And that must be the corner stone of any thinking around the digital media - it is still the media and today the lines between digital and print and broadcast are becoming very blurred .

While we think that Whale Oils recent case shows we are not above the law we dont want any changes that impinge on our media freedoms.

Otherwise it will be the Battle of the Little Bighorn Bloggers with Power standing in for Custer.



2 comments:

gravedodger said...

Custers fate is too good for this modern day Arnold.
With the pollies insatiable appetite for the services of any journalist with a modicom of ability in their ever expanding team of media spin doctors and with the commercial sector using more and more of them to make themselves look presentable,any notion of an effective free press is a complete joke.
That has left the MSM increasingly relying on the sanitised "press Release" as a substitute for investigative reporting leaving the blogosphere as the uncontrolled source of information that threatens the pollies goodnews information highway.
Hence the threats to any sort of freedom of expression via the internet from the previous and now this government.
The bastards don't just fear us they know we will destroy them with the truth. Democracy is threatened and I hope the brains of the National Party tell Figjam to go and join the socialists,this is a step too far.
I think I will sharpen my tomahawk for his last stand,muppet.

John Gibson said...

I think the Custer analogy is a million miles from reality. A better analogy would be a B-train and a possum scavenging on the freeway :-)

DPF & Slater want to have their cake and eat it. They want the privilege of being press to attend events but want to be treated like private individuals expressing thoughts when it suits.See Slaters defence argument.