Faith Popcorn, eat your heart out!

I think that the best way to get this blog rolling is to grab some stuff I've previously published in various parts of the net and republish them here so the reader can see a foundation of my interests. Where possible, I'll include a link back to the original site.

Faith Popcorn is a futurist, a highly respected prognosticator of trends with a great and memorable name! John Naisbitt also is a futurist and highly respected prognosticator of trends ... but Ms. Popcorn has him beat by a longshot in the moniker department.

[On the otherhand John Naisbitt mentioned "Corporate Voice," my old software company's DOS writing product, in his "Trend Letter" and I'll be forever grateful for that plug.]

I kind of like to think of myself as a trend prognosticator as well, certainly not as accomplished as these two fine folk but certainly not too shabby in my own right IMNSHO. In 1997 I foresaw the development of the internet as the great communications equalizer for the common man or woman. I thought the news groups on the usenet would be the conduit; turns out it's blogs. And I posted those thoughts on the usenet in various news groups. It was a stream of consciousness thing and it surprised me, so much so that it's one of the few times I tossed a copyright notice on a usenet post.

Google Groups hyperlink

From: Publis...@SIXthEstate.com (Mark W. McBride, President/CEO)

Subject: Re: Interviewing Newsgroup Participants

Date: 1997/08/24

Message-ID: <340090aa.5952496@news.atl.bellsouth.net>

X-Deja-AN: 268387420

References: <01bcad7c$d1445e80$041baace@dana>
<19970820191301.paa22975@ladder01.news.aol.com>

Reply-To: Publis...@SIXthEstate.com

Organization: SPCS, Inc./Technology Bridge Publishing

Newsgroups: alt.journalism.freelance

Did you hear the news? On 20 Aug 1997 19:13:15 GMT, our ether buddy lauras...@aol.com (Lauraspin) spaketh thusly:

:)Dear Dana: What is the proper etiquette for interviewing people on news groups?

:)When you are searching for ideas, information and anecdotes, do you let the

:)people know right off the bat that you are a writer seeking information,

:)I really, really think it best that you note right off that you're

:)soliciting comments for an article. If I responded to what I thought was a

:)run-of-the-mill post, and later found that my words were used in an

:)article, I'd be quite concerned.

:)Best,

:)Laura

Why? Anyone who wants to can see any comments you make anyway. And the comments are logged in archives like Deja News. I can look up everything posted by lauras...@aol.com if I wished.

What's news anyway? In a nutshell, it's a Christmas song: Do you see what I see? Do you hear what I hear?

The beginning of this message notes _exactly_ what it is:

"Did you hear the news? On 20 Aug 1997 19:13:15 GMT, our ether buddy lauras...@aol.com (Lauraspin) spaketh thusly:"

And the comments you made and I'm now making are in a _NEWS_ group ...alt.journalism freelance.

Something you write now anyone can read 100 years from now, as with archives of newspapers, magazines and tv. What's the difference? Do you fear oil/soy based inks and newsprint or the network airwaves has more reach than the internet?

If you don't want to see yourself quoted ... in either the mainstream press, in a marketing document, in a White House innuendo file: write nothing, say nothing, take no positions on any subject whatsoever at any time, have no thoughts.

What if the comments are picked up -- not by the media -- but for an innuendo file by Livingstone or Marceca under orders from Slick Willie and the Clintonistas? Would you have a problem not knowing your comments were archived by paranoid federal bureaucrats? Or even a marketing firm?

I would hazard a guess that the traditional (i.e. mainstream, spoonfed, molly-coddled and soul-sold) media would _NOT_ be berating the ngs like alt.conspiracy, etc., (porno-net stories, right-wingnut stories) if the readership of those ngs was not 1000 times that of the New York Times.

The traditional media are pulling the same tricks newspapers pulled on broadcasting when it began getting a serious audience, e.g. "You can't trust the internet. It's full of wingnuts, flakes and wackos. They see black helicopters everywhere. They're unprofessional and uncredentialed. Pierre Salinger is an old fool taken to partaking of too much Vin Francoise for reading the internet. Matt Drudge is unprofessional and corroborates nothing." (Kind of like columns like "Washington Merry Go Round?," and the yellow journalism of Hearst's papers? If all you know is what you read in the newspapers, as near I can tell, no black person ever died or was born in the United States before 1950. The African-American press wasn't distributed or available in my neighborhood ... but the Newhouse papers were and I helped deliver them.)

The AP doesn't take risks anymore ... they're slow as hell at breaking stories of international import. And when they do run them, they CYA something fierce, afraid to alienate Slick Willie. "We're just reporting what _they_ said Mr. Clinton sir, it's not _our_ fault!" CNN is the same way nowadays. They've become their own slouch potatoes. It's the problem with news monopolies.

Newspaper editors and publishers laughed themselves silly when such things as radio and tv were developed. Toys and gizmos they thought. Back then there was towns with 10 plus newspapers. Guess what happened? Who's laughing now. The Detroit News has 200 staffers working the print side and 3-4 operating their website. Will someone please send the editor and publisher of the paper buggy whips?

The 4th and 5th Estate has become too sedate, too spoonfed, too molly-coddled ... by business, by politicians regardless of label. True story: The Chief of Bureau of an AP bureau told me two years ago that the AP's top computer guru felt the Year 2000 computer problem was a non-story and therefore they didn't need to run anything on it. This at the same time the Air Force was holding a worldwide summit of all USAF IS personnel on how to deal with the crisis and the USDA was soliciting bids for correcting the massive problems they are going to experience!! What fools these mortals be ... and we trust them implicitly as gods to report the news and the truth? Their arrogance is only exceeded by an inflated sense of their own self-worth on the planet.

There is a significant need for news risktaking. That gap is being filled by the Usenet newsgroups. News reporting has returned to those who should report it ... the sources. Facts and opinions straight from those who care one way or another to spout off about it. If you bullshit, there is going to be someone to call you on it. Sometimes they will actually call you on it with facts in their hands. Sometimes they'll act like bulls in a china shop and curse you because they have no opinion, creative thoughts, no new questions or even facts.

Is Vince Foster a non-story? Questions remain ... citizens of the U.S. want to know the truth. Was he whacked under orders from Hillary or Slick Willie? Why did he commit suicide if he was innocent? But the traditional spoonfed media hasn't answered them for us. What about the suicide of Adm Jeremy Mike Boorda. That man held every top strategic secret the Navy had and he supposedly shot himself over a ribbon device? Give me a break!!! Barry Seal flew cocaine flights out of Arkansas airfields, and innuendo loving Slick Willie never knew or heard about it? It's become VERY unhealthy to work as a Clintonista. Why?

Any source who has answers or any person who has a different view can give them to millions of Usenet readers ... without filtration, slant, bias or even cover-up by the spoonfed traditional media.

And to me, that's a _good_ thing. The people FINALLY have the power to vent their spleen and ask questions, and not just an assigned and filtered 20 column inches on an op-ed page.

Copyright (C) 1997 Mark W. McBride