The Importance of New Media

Daniel Greenfield
Sultan Knish
13 May '10

When people ask me how I got into New Media, I tell them it began with the New York Times. The Sunday New York Times. For those of you who have never seen it the Sunday New York Times is a behemoth, a whale. Section after section of newsprint. World, Metro, Fashion, style, architecture, wine, end tables, spring hats and a pullout on Zimbabwe. Reading through the entire Sunday New York Times was a challenge, a way to show your commtiment to old media journalism.

For a lot of New York Jews, the New York Times is the new bible. And on Sunday, you can see why. The Sunday New York Times is bigger than the bible. It's more grandiose than the bible. Because we're the People of the Book and we love words. Sometimes even when they're hatefull words directed at us.

Back when I was reading through the Sunday New York Times, including the section on end tables, I was a consumer of news. Which really meant that I was paying for and buying someone else's point of view. And when I thought those views were wrong. When I knew those views were wrong. When I could prove those views were wrong, what could I do about it?

What can a consumer do about a bad product? He can try to argue with the company that sold it to him. People who don't like the product that the New York Times tries to sell them about Israel or America, about Islamic terrorists and high taxes, can try to write a letter to the editor complaining about the point of view they're buying. And the letter may or may not be printed on page 19, somewhere between spring hats and the end tables, And the Times along with the rest of the same mainstream media will keep on selling the same product.

How do you argue with a megaphone? A megaphone is bigger and louder than you. So I stopped trying to argue with the megaphone. I dropped the New York Times and Dan Rather and News on the Hour, you give us 22 minutes and we'll give you the world, and instead I began to talk to the people who were listening to the megaphone. I began commenting, reporting, analyzing and investigating. And suddenly I had my own megaphone. I stopped being a consumer of news, and I became a producer of news.

I have always been interested in politics and world events, but I came to realize that I had been doing it as a consumer. I had been buying a product that the media corporations were selling me. And even when I disagreed with the product, I still kept buying it. And I suspect there are many people here who are still buying product that they disagree with. And that's what new media is about. It's about refusing to buy the expensive rotten products of mainstream media anymore.

Why is New Media important? It's as simple as the First Ammendment to the Constitution. Freedom of speech and freedom of the press. Freedom of the press only matters when there is an actual free press. If there is no free press, then the Constitution becomes a piece of paper.

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