Why We Exist

Sarah Palin dropped in on Friday’s RightOnline 2012 conference in Las Vegas.

God forgive me, Save Jerseyans, but regular readers know that I don’t have much patience for Alaska’s former governor. My impatience does not, however, imply substantive disagreement. Most of my issues with her are matters of presentation. Sometimes she’s spot on; for example, Palin acutely understands what it’s like to suffer the uneven treatment of a biased mainstream media establishment. So at this weekend’s conference, I wasn’t surprised when she delivered a beautifully concise explanation of why the new media came into existence:

httpv://www.youtube.com/watch?v=uBWew9rmbBI

Remember when Hilldawg complained about a “vast right wing conspiracy” dogging her dog of a husband? Quite the opposite! Newsweek repeatedly buried the Lewinsky story until, as Palin correctly recalls, an as-of-yet unknown blogger named Matt Drudge broke the story. And the rest is history!

We try to do our part here in New Jersey, whether it be by fact-checking the media or bringing stories to light (like the ’09 Daggett/NJDSC scandal) that slipped from print (owing to innocent omission or conscious design).

Blogs such as Save Jersey didn’t come into existence as part of a conspiracy; we are a reaction to a media that stopped doing its job!

The text of her comments below the fold…

The new media rose up precisely because the old media failed to tell the truth.  That very first new media breakthrough was about 15 years ago when this lowly little store clerk in a lowly little apartment equipped with his computer and a modem broke one of the biggest stories of the decade.  His name was Matt Drudge and the rest is history.  And in hindsight, we see that the story he broke was more than just a president having an affair.

To me it was much, much more than that.  It was about a major old media publication that had spiked the story eleven times. And they knew all about it.  Eleven times!  Not just once to check their facts.  Not twice just to double-check.  Eleven times they spiked the story.

Why?  Because as charter members of that Democrat Media Complex they were protecting their guy.

So, when a fellow with a modem and a website found out about this, he decided to tell the truth they refused to tell.  And oh how that old media cried foul and they howled.  They denounced Drudge as irresponsible and unprofessional and even dangerous and anti-everything from motherhood to apple pie.  How dare that nobody from nowhere without a degree or a pedigree try to influence the national discourse!

But the real reason they feared him was because he wasn’t beholden to the old media’s machine and the Thought Police.  Unshackled, he was free.

And a few months later, Drudge got to speak at the National Press Club in DC.  He predicted the future in his speech there.  He said, “We have entered an era vibrating with the din of small voices. Every citizen can be a reporter, can take on the powers that be….I envision a future where there’ll be 300 million reporters, where anyone from anywhere can report for any reason. It’s freedom of participation absolutely realized.”

Thus the birth of citizen journalism, and you are the future he predicted!

 

Matt Rooney
About Matt Rooney 8405 Articles
MATT ROONEY is SaveJersey.com's founder and editor-in-chief, a practicing New Jersey attorney, and the host of 'The Matt Rooney Show' on 1210 WPHT every Sunday evening from 7-10PM EST.

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