Well, here is something that got my attention. Howard Dean was in town yesterday with a rally in downtown Seattle. It was attended by 10-15,000 people (Here is a 360 degree quicktime picture.) The Seattle Times placed it in section B - Local News - under the fold, with barely any column inches on the page. In fact, it discusses how he was 45 minutes late rather than what he had to say, or that some Democratic leaders think he is too liberal. (These are the same southern Democrats who believe that only by imitating conservatives can the party win. But if you are a conservative, then why be a Democrat?) The front page, on the other hand, was devoted to a huge picture of some guitar players trying to beat the world record for most people laying Louie, Louie!! This story was so important that they had to continue it inside! Seems to me that the Times has its priorities screwed up. When Bush came to town on a fundraising trip to speak to people who paid $2000, the Times was all over it. Yet more then 10,000 people spending their Sunday waiting to listen to a New England politician can not beat out Louie, Louie. The Times is certainly free to print what it wants but I would think that such a large display, the largest group to hear Dean speak yet, would warrant more attention then what the Times gave it. This strikes me as strange and an interesting editorial decision. I find myself reading the paper less and less to get news. It is more an interesting social experiment to see what the media moguls of the old age find important. Because it is less and less the things that I find important. Which is why I write a blog. The 15,000 people that showed up did not find out about it from the Times. They knew because of the Internet or cell phones or email. Perhaps the Times editorial staff is pissed because of this new wrinkle in social discourse and hopes to ignore it. Bury it and it will go away. If so, it will miss one of the great sea changes in democracy we have seen in the last 100 years and demonstrate that newspapers such as the Seattle Times are dinosaurs that will disappear, like the illuminated texts of European monks. [A Man with a Ph.D. - Richard Gayle's Weblog]
The press will be the big loser as the citizen and the candiddate make a direct connection and as this article suggests, it knows this already
6:56:49 AM 
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