The Internet is a wondrous free speech-free market Xanadu. It has revolutionized an incalculable number of things. Life is better, stronger, faster - easier.
But like any other tool - a gun, hammer or shovel, for instance - the Internet can be used for things both good…and ill. Which brings us to the legacy media - the Jurassic Press.
Before the Internet and the rest of the new media revolution - the Jurassic Press had a monopoly. A tiny coterie of Leftist outlets - controlled the entire national narrative.
The World Wide Web - shattered the media landscape. With shards for everyone. There were millions of media pieces now available. To anyone from anywhere along the ideological spectrum.
Nothing before the Internet made free speech more horizontal. Never before was the bar of discourse entry so low.
The Jurassic Press, quite obviously, loathe this revolution evolution. They’ve now had two decades to adjust - and they aren't doing it very well.
Their political sameness and bias - always suspected or intuited - was wholly exposed now that people had many additional news options with which to compare and contrast.
But rather than adjust their perspective and its presentation - the Press has become ever more strident and harder Left.
The Press, however, has learned one thing. The Web makes it exponentially easier to try to implement the mass lie.
The Jurassic Press is a tightly knit messaging bubble. One major outlet lies - and all the rest very rapidly fall in line behind. The Web exponentially increases the speed of the lie’s spread. We are hastily awash in their fake news disinformation.
And so it is - when it comes to news about the Internet. The Press loves big government. And they despise the free market Internet - in no small part for what it’s done to them. So for them, flacking for big government Internet policies - that shrink and diminish our Web options - is for them an obvious win-win.
A little governmental background: The offending Internet-overregulation bureaucracy - is the Federal Communications Commission (FCC). The Barack Obama FCC executed a HUGE Internet power grab (Title II reclassification - imposing 1945 landline phone law on to the Web - and Network Neutrality). The Donald Trump Administration - is currently in the process of undoing said ridiculous grab.
The FCC is ostensibly an independent agency. Created that way by Congress - to allegedly remove politics from what is supposed to be an expert, fact-driven decision-making body. (A seriously delusional notion for anything that has anything to do with DC - but that’s how it was drawn up.)
So collusion between the FCC and the White House - is considered to be a titanic no-no. For the Press - this only means its yet another weapon to use against Republicans. Non-existent GOP collusion is created out of whole cloth. Meanwhile, massive Democrat collusion is ignored.
To wit: What the Washington Post has been doing. Their Tech reporter Brian Fung - is an an absurd caricature of all the awful for which the Jurassic Press stands.
Fung ignored glaringly obvious collusion between the Obama White House and the Obama FCC when the later was power grabbing the Web.
President Obama to FCC: Reclassify Broadband Service as Title II to Protect Net Neutrality
That isn't even collusion - it’s a direct order. To which the Obama FCC happily acquiesced. And with which Fung found nothing wrong.
But from the moment Trump took his oath of office - Fung has been on non-stop collusion watch. So meticulous is Fung now, he reports on it - even when there isn’t any.
Repeatedly. Last week, Fung and the Post foisted upon us:
The White House Just Endorsed the FCC’s Effort to Roll Back its Net Neutrality Rules
Wow - that sounds like collusion. Not an outright order - like the Obama White House issued. Not a leading statement - demanding a certain outcome. But definitely a backing of the Trump FCC’s play. And then there’s this:
“The Trump administration has signaled that it stands behind efforts by the Federal Communications Commission and its chairman, Ajit Pai, to roll back the agency's net neutrality regulations for Internet providers.”
That too sounds like collusion.
What none of it sounds like - is anything remotely resembling what the White House actually said. The VERY NEXT paragraph in Fung’s piece - after the one we just cited - was this:
“‘We support the FCC chair's efforts to review and consider rolling back these rules,’ said deputy White House press secretary Sarah Huckabee Sanders, ‘and believe that the best way to get fair rules for everyone is for Congress to take action and create regulatory and economic certainty.’”
I’m sure you got that - even if Fung chose not to do so.
The White House supports the PROCESS - the “efforts to review and consider rolling back the rules.” That’s nowhere near endorsing any sort of OUTCOME.
I’m a Washington Redskins fan. I wholly endorsed the playing of - and the Redskins participating in - Super Bowl XVIII. That doesn’t mean I endorsed the result - which was the Oakland Raiders killing the Redskins 38-9.
You can support the process - without endorsing any sort of outcome. Which is the total extent of what Trump’s spokesman did. Nothing more. No endorsement of any outcome. Certainly no direct order demanding one.
This - for whatever reason - was entirely lost on the Post’s Fung. And as a lead dog in the Jurassic Press sled team - the Post’s lie quickly beget untold numbers of other lies.
White House Endorses FCC Chair Ajit Pai's Quest to Murder Net Neutrality
Trump Endorses FCC's Plan to Roll Back Net Neutrality
The White House Endorses the FCC’s Effort to Roll Back its Net Neutrality Rules
Trump Team Endorses Overturning Obama-Era Net Neutrality Rules
White House Gives Thumbs Up to Overturning Net Neutrality Rules
White House Supports FCC Plan to Dismantle Net Neutrality
Each of those stories - is from a different major media outlet. Each of their stories - begat lots and LOTS of reposts. By outlets of all shapes and sizes.
Round and round the Internet - did the Fung-Post Big Lie go.
Thankfully, we now have lots and LOTS of outlets - to counteract their Big Lie with the truth.
Here’s hoping the Jurassic Press doesn’t get their big government wish - which would do much to limit our options.
