The Guardian has an interesting article by Iain Duncan Smith. Tip of the hat to PowerLine for the link (and some good commentary of their own). I was struck by this passage:
All this should put the fear of God into the metropolitan elites. For years there have been widening gaps between the governing class and the governed and between the publicly funded broadcasters and the broadcasted to.
Until now voters, viewers and service users have not had easy mechanisms by which to expose officialdom's errors and inefficiencies. But, because of the internet, the masses beyond the metropolitan fringe will soon be on the move. They will expose the lazy journalists who reduce every important public policy issue to how it affects opinion-poll ratings.
I've been an avid blog reader since they first started appearing a couple of years ago; certainly all that reading has had a big influence on me. But only after reading the passage above did I stop to think about how much I depend on blogs for timely political commentary. I've just about given up on magazines and newspapers, Wall Street Journal excepted. I read a lot of books, but they're necessarily not quite so immediate. So Mr. Smith's contention rings completely true with me. It's very interesting for this technologist to ponder what the Internet has wrought in this (seemingly) unlikely sphere...
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