Tue, Oct 13 2009

With apologies to Mad Max

I think about this sort of thing whenever we have weather that threatens to bring power outages. When access to the internet is down I tend to go back to pen and paper or books or magazines for resources, work research and even recreation. I might need to come up with a light source at night, but I can still use and enjoy a newspaper or book without benefit of power or data line. It's at these times I'm reminded how Freedom of the Press was created before we relied so heavily on electronic means of sending and receiving information. In the event of some attack or natural disaster, as long as a book or newspaper hasn't been physically destroyed, that book or newspaper can be used again and again. What happens in the event of an attack or natural disaster that takes us "off the grid"? We can keep a generator around for some things, but information would move slowly.

And then there are the political implications of translating Freedom of the Press from print into phone and internet delivery. It's a lot easier for someone to shut down or control online newspapers and cell phone service than it is to shut down or control every mechanical printing press in every corner of the country. I watch the arguments concerning online content and I can't help but wonder if new media, wonderful as it is, could actually put us in danger of eventual lack of freedom of the press in the event of terrorism, anarchy or empirical political interests. People who talk about the danger of losing our printed news talk about the monetary reasons for the possible demise of print media, but I rarely hear anyone talk about the political implications for having most, or all, news come to us through electronic means. In the event of some major interruption, I'd hate to think that news, information and truth could become even more scarce than the gas and fresh water in the Mad Max scenarios of the movies.

posted at: 07:47 | category: /Writing Life | link to this entry