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i think the new aspect of this is the co-operative ventures that are being fashioned between older journalism outlets and newer on the order of res publica (which seems like a traditional reproduction of the old apparatus outside the social hierarchies of the old apparatus, so a way for younger writers to maybe go around them--or at least get access), and, more radically, wikileaks. the position that wikileaks placed ny times/guardian/der speigel in is also quite interesting, in that you get the benefits of fact-checking/vetting from the older mode (which is really important) but staged in a manner that blows apart older forms of editorial control (the decision to suppress information resulting in its disappearance: now there's more transparency)---all this a context (wikileaks) that's outside state controls--so which is not beholden to the political pressures in any given nation-state.
this last part seems particularly important for the united states, which has operated for far too long with very strict political controls on certain types of information--and none at all on others (lindey lohan goes to jail! gasp!).
at the level of principle, then, i'm all for blowing apart the capacity of nation-states to control information in the ways they've come to be able to do since the vietnam period--so all of the neo-con information management games that took shape since thatcher's falklands adventure introduced the notion of a press pool--not to mention the odious populist right propaganda machine that took shape across the clinton period, which presupposes bad information.
btw i'm still working my way through the actual information that's available. there's alot. is anyone else actually reading this stuff?
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a gramophone its corrugated trumpet silver handle
spinning dog. such faithfulness it hear
it make you sick.
-kamau brathwaite
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